b'C H A P T E R 4T H E P A R TY P L A Nma e , easy sense of humor, and thenn rabsence of anything officious about him Hiring On at the NRTSall went a long way to creating a promis-ing start for the AEC in Idaho Falls. Hefelt that IDO employees should become I n 1949 the Navy put its civilian employees on notice that the AEC was comingpart of the fabric of town life, so he set and that they would lose their ordnance jobs. One of them was Al Anselmo. that example and encouraged it inothe s.20 rAround September 1949, the [Ordnance Plant] boss asked if I had a job yet. ILeaders in Idaho Falls, for their part, said, No. He had met a man named A.R. Tuttle, who worked with the AEC.turned from parties to the sobering They are taking over the Site soon and they have problems because they willduties of development. The editor of be shipping things into the Site right away. I volunteered you.the Post-Registerwrote:Tuttle rode with me a few times out to the Site. One time I asked him if heBut once the flush of excitement has would need a traffic manager or warehouse manager. I cant talk to you. Yougiven way to sane analysis it becomes have to have Q clearance, he said, and he handed me some forms. By theitime the job opened, the paperwork was done. I started on October 10, 1949. n c reasingly apparent that the first phaseof the program was by all odds the easi -est. Now that we have the headquart e r s At first we had no badges. Then they issued badges numbered 1 to 99 for theof this mammoth project located here we Idaho Falls employees. Numbers 100 and up were for the Site employees.a re confronted with the greatest civic Mine was 100. p roject that we have undertaken. Tohouse all the people who are bound to After I was hired, I said to Tuttle, I dont have a job title. He told me I hadcome here to live, to see that our school six jobsproperty management, surplus, excessing, warehouse, traffic, andfacilities are quickly expanded, that receiving. He said when I got too busy to do them all, I should let him knowwater and sewer lines are extended into so we could hire people to do them, and to keep the one I wanted. So I keptnew areas, that sidewalks and roads are traffic and receiving and assisted him in hiring the rest.built. The cityand in fact, this entirea reais on the threshold of its gre a t e s t The first time I had to deal with a shipment of radioactive materials, I was21scarednot of the stuff, but of violating the regulations unintentionally. Evenera of development.then, there were lots of regulations. In those days, the AEC sent securityIt was clear that Idaho Falls and the escorts with the truckdrivers. We shipped stuff all over the United Statestoother nearby towns viewed the AEC as Chicago, New York, Oak Ridge, Hanford. the regions next source of growth. Infact, Idaho Falls delivered on its promis- As the years went onespecially during the ten years we shipped Three Milees, building 1,648 new houses between Island debris to IdahoI developed contacts in the governors office of each1949 and 1951. With this beginning, state our shipments went through. I had good rapport with all of them. Wetown leaders hoped that the momentum trained the various state police departments in how to handle an accident ifwould carry farther than previous booms there were any.that had gone bust, and they were eagerto nurture this promising sprout in their Al Anselmomidst. Besides, developing atomicpower for peaceful uses was a worthyadventure for patriotic citizens. 22 3 5'