On behalf of Bechtel Foundation, Frederick A. Tarantino, president and general manager of Bechtel Nevada, presented the check to Troy Wade, NTS Historical Foundation president, and Alan Austin, DRI vice president for finance and administration.
“We are delighted Bechtel can help support this worthwhile educational endeavor,” Tarantino said. “The Nevada Test Site occupies a special place in the consciousness of all Nevadans, and it deserves the recognition the Atomic Testing Museum will afford it.” According to Tarantino, Bechtel Foundation has made some $34,000 in other grants to NTSHF since 2001.
Tarantino said Bechtel Foundation has been responding for 50 years to the needs of communities around the world where Bechtel has offices or major projects. In 2002, the foundation made grants totaling $2.5 million to 260 non-profit organizations in nine countries.
The 8,000-square-foot Atomic Testing Museum will feature exhibits depicting the Cold War role of the Nevada Test Site as well as those that highlight the site’s current missions. Another 2,000 square feet of museum space will be dedicated to traveling exhibits from the Smithsonian Institution, with which the museum is affiliated.
Thanking Bechtel Foundation and accepting the check for the historical foundation, Wade pointed out that Nevadans and others who worked at the test site during the Cold War dedicated their lives to national security at a time when the world’s fate hung in the balance. “It was a crucial juncture in world history, and NTS played an important role—a role embedded in our culture. We owe it to ourselves as a nation to understand and appreciate that role,” Wade said.
About the Frank H. Rogers Science & Technology Building
Named for Frank H. Rogers, a senior administrator in the early days of the test site, the Rogers Science & Technology Building is a new addition to DRI’s campus at 755 E. Flamingo Road that will open to the public for the first time on Oct. 4. On that date, the Atomic Testing Museum will host a discussion of the Cold War by Francis Gary Powers, Jr., son of the famed U2 pilot, and Sergei Khrushchev, son of deposed Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
The Rogers Building is also home to DRI’s Frank H. Rogers Center for Environmental Remediation and Monitoring or CERM, a new interdisciplinary center dedicated to environmental contaminant detection and clean-up. The building also houses the Center for Arid Lands Environmental Management or CALEM, which assists land managers and others with science- and engineering-based desert ecosystem management, sustainable development, stewardship, adaptive management and restoration ecology.
The U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) archaeological collection laboratory and repository —managed by DRI—of some 500,000 artifacts from central and southern Nevada also reside in the building, as does the Nuclear Testing Archives. Formerly known as the Coordination and Information Center or CIC, the Nuclear Testing Archives is managed by Bechtel Nevada. It contains some 380,000 documents and more than one million film badges compiled by NNSA during more than 50 years of nuclear weapons testing. About the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation
The Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation was founded in 1997 to preserve and foster public accessibility to the history associated with the Nevada Test Site and the nation’s nuclear testing program. The foundation promotes and supports cultural, educational and scientific programming to encourage the development and public exchange of views regarding the Nevada Test Site and its impact on the nation.
About Bechtel Nevada
Bechtel Nevada, a consortium of the Bechtel Nevada Corporation, Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies, Inc., and Johnson Controls Nevada, Inc., manages and operates the work at the Nevada Test Site and its complex laboratories, facilities, and infrastructures for the NNSA’s Nevada Site Office. Bechtel Nevada also works on projects for other federal agencies such as the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, NASA, intelligence agencies, and the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy.
About Bechtel
Founded in 1898, Bechtel is one of the world’s premier engineering-construction organizations. It provides technical, management and directly related services to develop, finance, build and operate installations for customers in a wide range of industries. To date, Bechtel has worked on more than 20,000 projects in 140 countries on all seven continents.
About DRI
A nonprofit, statewide division of the University and Community College System of Nevada, DRI pursues a full-time program of basic and applied environmental research on a local, national, and international scale. Nearly 500 full- and part-time scientists, technicians, and support staff conduct some 150 research projects at DRI annually. More than 85 percent of DRI's annual $33 million operating budget consists of research grants and contracts obtained by its scientists. The balance is received from the State of Nevada for administrative costs.