When I was a baby in 1952-3, my parents spent a year in Oak Ridge Tennessee while my father when to Reactor School. Just the thing for an up and coming young engineer, he was sponsored by his employer, Aerojet.
He took classes such as
Reactor Materials
Reactor Engineering
Reactor Technology
Reactor Anaylsis
etc
We found this picture in his papers, he's the young man in the chair. The picture was featured in the publication "The Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology 1955-1956" published in 1954 by Oak Ridge National Laboratory operated for the US Atomic Energy Commission on page 9 with the caption "ORSORT students perform a neutron-scattering experiment in water under direction of instructor". The book was designed to recruit students to the program. Black and white pictures full of lots of white men. He's in his late 20s.
Heaven knows what they were doing, it's all 1950s technical. But I'm sure it was very important...and secret. I have the book, my father's grades, a list of the participants, the picture. I'm supposed to be sending it to a retirees group in Oak Ridge who is gathering historical materials. But somehow, I just can't let it go.
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