Nat Stetson was one of the first federal employees to arrive to help start Savannah River Site's first nuclear reactors. He later became manager of the Savannah River Operations Office. His daughter, Carol Barry, now works in human resources at the site. JENNIFER FULLER/STAFF

Family tradition

SRS starter watches daughter continue work

Web posted Friday, November 10, 2000

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By Greg Rickabaugh
South Carolina Bureau

Nat Stetson had just completed eight years' work on the atomic bomb for the top-secret Manhattan Project in Tennessee when he was asked to move to Aiken to work for the Savannah River Operations Office.

The year was 1952, and the chemical engineer from Massachusetts decided to pick up his family and move, helping start the federal nuclear weapons site. He would be one of the earliest federal employees to arrive here.

Mr. Stetson loved the challenge.

``This was plutonium production in a reactor, and it just seemed interesting,'' he recalled in an interview last week. ``It was another start-up, and I like start-ups because you are free to do whatever you want to do to get the ... thing going, and you don't have too many (people) poking in your business.''

Nearly 50 years later, Mr. Stetson looks back with pride on his efforts at Savannah River Site and watches from the sidelines as his youngest daughter, Carol Barry, goes about her own job at the site.

Mr. Stetson, who turns 84 on Nov. 19, is one of the few people still living who worked at the site when it first opened.

He started as head of the technical and production division and civilian reactor division. He ended as manager of the Savannah River Operations Office, where he helped the site win the Atomic Energy Commission's ``Best-Ever Safety Award.''

But when Mr. Stetson first arrived here with his wife and three children in 1952, he met a community still steaming from the upheaval of residents from Ellenton, Dunbarton and Meyers Mill - towns once located on the land now used by SRS. He also found construction workers and other site employees crammed into the area with few places to live.

Retired SRS employees Gilbert McMillan (from left) Mr. Stetson, Bill Morris, Don Webster and Becky Webster worked together in Oak Ridge, Tenn., on the Manhattan Project. FILE/STAFF

It was a community in the making.

``Initially, this was just a little town with not that many people,'' Mr. Stetson said. ``Now, it's a big town. You can't even go down Whiskey Road without probably getting hit with another car. It used to be a dirt road.''

At work, the job of bringing up five nuclear reactors was invigorating.

``It was all exciting, because we had five different reactors and they were all brought on within a year and a half, which was already a miracle,'' he said. ``You couldn't even bring one on in 10 years now, let alone five in a year and a half. Things were different in those days. People worked together, and when you wanted something done, they pitched in and got it done.

``Now it takes somebody in Washington at least 10 years to argue about it before they are ready to go.''

Mr. Stetson brought years of education and experience to his new responsibilities.

After graduating high school in 1935, he attended New Bedford Textile Institute in Massachusetts for three years and earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1940 from North Carolina State University. He attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and, after one year, researched pigmented yarns with the Celanese Corp. in Maryland.

In 1942, he joined Chemical Warfare Service and became involved in plant start-ups in Denver and Huntsville, Ala. Two years later, he was recruited to work for the Corps of Engineer's top-secret Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tenn. His was the first group to separate weapons-grade U-235 to fire the first atomic test in New Mexico and the bomb that fell on Hiroshima, Japan. After World War II, he remained at Oak Ridge as a researcher.

Like Mr. Stetson, many Manhattan alumni remember it as the most exciting time of their lives, but it was also a secretive time.

``You haven't seen secrecy until you saw Oak Ridge,'' he said. ``The entire town was fenced in with barbed wire. My wife had to have a badge to go to Knoxville to go shopping.''

But he did not regret then or now what his labor produced. Exaltation and relief came after the announcement that the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima.

``That was our stuff, and it worked,'' he said.

He brought a similar excitement and work ethic to the Savannah River Office, where he said he was ``strict, but fair'' as a supervisor.

``I wanted everybody to do the job that they were assigned to do and properly,'' he said. ``Oh, we worked. And the ones that didn't work, I told them so, and they either straightened out or they didn't work for me.''

In between his time in Aiken, Mr. Stetson not only fathered a fourth child - Carol Barry - but also worked a four-year stint in Washington as deputy director for the production division in the Atomic Energy Commission. But he returned in 1966 as SRO manager.

Employees knew Mr. Stetson as a friendly guy, according to his daughter, Ms. Barry, who works for Westinghouse as human resources operations area manager for technical support and policy administration.

During her past 13 years at the site, Ms. Barry has run into lots of people who knew her dad.

``I was always very proud because folks really liked my dad,'' she said. ``My dad was really well-liked. He used to walk every day, two to three miles every day. He would eat at his desk and take a walk. And he always spoke to everybody.

``People used to always tell me that. When I would be working here, ... people were like, `Oh, your dad is so nice.'''

Ms. Barry says her dad had a big influence on her life and the decision she made to work at the site. She studied biology and intended to go into genetics, but burned out on that idea quickly.

Like her father, she is a people person.

``I get that a lot from him, and I just got tired of spending so much time in the lab when I was in college that I just sort of got burned out on that. So, I changed my major to psychology, and went on and studied industrial organizational psychology,'' she said.

While Ms. Barry was out making her mark on the world, her father retired in 1984 and her mother died in 1988.

``After my mom passed away, I had to make some decisions. My dad was struggling a little bit here on his own, and I made a decision to apply for work here,'' she said.

Because she had spent a few younger years and college years doing construction and clerical work at the site, she knew the place well.

``I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work out here. I knew about a lot of how the place worked,'' Ms. Barry said.

For Mr. Stetson, his dedication and strong work ethic had not ended, even after retirement.

Mr. Stetson currently serves as vice chairman of the Aiken County Commission for Higher Education. He is active with the University of South Carolina Aiken, where he is on the building and grounds committee and involves himself in the design of most every building.

And at St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church, he is chairman of the design committee.

In 1992, he was awarded the USC Aiken Distinguished Citizen Award for his many contributions to the success of the Aiken campus, and he returned this year to receive an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters.

And as he reflects on his career at Savannah River Site, he has no regrets.

``We were very successful. You can't beat that,'' he said. ``I think we did a good job, and everybody was proud of what they did.

``We brought (the nuclear reactors) on time, and we met every production goal that we had to meet and that was good.''

Reach Greg Rickabaugh at (803) 279-6895.

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