Savannah River Nuclear Solutions took over as the new contractors of Management and Operations at Savannah River Site in 2008.

Former submarine commander Chuck Munns leads SRNS, under the Fluor Daniel umbrella, as CEO.

SRNS received the $800-million-per-year contract that continues through 2012.

Washington Savannah River Co., which managed the site for 18 years, vied to continue its contract, but lost even after an appeal to the Energy Department.

Though Mr. Munns' initial retirement plans included little more than golf and grandchildren, he was approached about joining a team vying to operate SRS. He called a friend to learn more.

"I asked him, 'What is Savannah River?' and he told me it was a place where there are great people doing important work for the country," he said.

That was all he needed to hear.

In the change of leadership, more than 100 members of management lost their jobs at the site, but about 90 percent of the total work force was retained to continue in the site's clean-up mission.

Innovation continued at the Center for Hydrogen Research as the hydrogen truck was unveiled in February. The truck offered some of the innovations researchers have worked on since the 59,000-square-foot facility opened in 2006. Just outside SRS' gates, the facility allows private and government scientists to work side by side.

The facility is an example of the sort of private investment SRS boosters are trying to attract to the federal facility, which has steadily reduced its work force since the Cold War's end.

That mission began at the end of the Cold War. Before the 1990s, Aiken was the hub of production for nuclear bomb fuels.

When the Cold War began in the 1950s, the nation called on Aiken, Barnwell and Allendale counties to provide about 200,000 acres of farmland and forest. Nearly 1,500 families were displaced in the name of freedom and protection from Soviet Communism.

The federal government put more than 38,000 people to work by September 1952, toiling around the clock toward the production of plutonium and uranium needed for hydrogen and atomic bombs.

The first reactor churned out bomb material in 1953 and kept producing it for decades. But the Cold War came to an end in the early 1990s without even one missile carrying SRS material being fired.

In the late 1980s, production by the site's aging reactors slowed and eventually stopped as they were mothballed. The business of bombs at SRS turned to the labor of cleanup during the 1990s, and the work force went from about 25,000 to about 13,000.

Today's SRS advocates say the site must diversify to branch out into new missions.

The lab has a glut of hydrogen experience, which is being used at the Center for Hydrogen Research.

There are hopes that Aiken County could become a hub for hydrogen as the field expands, attracting various manufacturers to capitalize on the growing market.

There also are long-term designs to construct a nuclear reactor at the site, and several universities have expressed interest in training students there.