Smyrna times., 1954-12-02
HEAR STORY OF
ATOMIC PLANT.
DUPONT Engineer Tells His
tory of Savannah River
Plant
AT WILMINGTON ROTARY

How the combined eHorlS Oh
big and little business, of labor
and management, were fused to-
gether to harness the energy of
the atom at the Savannah River
atomic energy plant, was told for
the first time by Granville M.
Read who, as chief engineer of
the Dupont Company, has been in
charge of design and construction.
"As a scientific and engineering
achievement, harnessing energy
like that generated in the stars is
without precedent" he said. ut
reflects the complementary re-
sponsibilities of big and small
business in serving our free econ
omy-and the people of our coun-
try. Above all, the history of
Savannah River is convincing
proof that in an expanding world
we need big institutions for the
big tasks" Mr.. Read, whose COM
pany agreed four years ago to
undertake the design, construc-
ton, and operation of the $1.3 bill
lian atomic facility, addressed the
Wilmington Rotary Club last
week. "When our government
mobilizes men and materials for
defense efforts, it turns first to
the big basic industries" he said.
"It uses them as the foundation
on which to build the entire de-
fense structure, for only they
have the capacity in technology,
men, management, and machines
to undertake big and difficult
tasks quickly. Integrated into
this mobilization program are lit
orally thousands of little business
es whose contributions are equal
ly essential"
8,1O0 Companies Participate
He noted that 8,100 other COM
panies participated in the con-
struction and that 5,745 of them
were small firms employing less
than 500 people. Altogether, Du-
Pont placed more than $4,000
purchase orders totaling over
$500, 100000. More than $1,000 of
the orders, totaling about 245,0O,-
900, went to the small companies.
Mr.. Read pointed out that the
project drew top technical and
operating men from all Du Pont
departments and used the services
of all auxiliary departments. With
the assistance of university and
Atomic Energy Commission labor
atories, data and pertinent infor-
baton were screened. The Engin-
eering Department, assigned the
responsibility for design and con-
struction of the project, sub-con-
tracted many phases of the work.
ut took the combined efforts of
big business and little business, of
labor and management, brought
together by fusion in one homog-
eneous team, to accomplish this
vast undertaking which harnesses
the energy of the atom," Mr..
Read declared. eff some myopic
pressure group should succeed in
splitting this industrial atom, we
can look forward to a world of
chaos for thousands of years"
Mr.. Read expressed pride in the
labor record on the project
more than 172 million man-hours
worked, with less than one-half
of one per cent lost as a result of
labor disputes.
1--WE, the contractor, take pride
in this record Of virtually uninter-
rupted construction, and in turn,
give due credit to the members of
the American Federation of Labor
for their outstanding contribu-
tion," ne said. Science, manage
ment, and labor must be united
if industrial progress is to con-
tinue."
The Savannah River project is
convincing demonstration of
what can be accomplished when
science, business, and labor will
ingly join hands at government
request FOR defense of America
and the free world" he said
Teamwork does the trick, but
the combination would be missing
if petty men in high places should
ever succeed in chopping the
American industrial organization
into smaller component parts"
He pointed out that DUPONT did
not seek the Savannah River as
signment. The company built and
operated the Hanford atomic en-
ergy plant during World War III
then left because our business is
peacetime chemicals-n atomic
materials for weapons or power
.ks. ~uS rDn,pon% ooo;r