Fermilab founding director Robert Wilson signs the contract with the architectural and engineering company DUSAF in 1967.
In the early 1970s, many of us were working lots of overtime, about 12-hour days. One time, I’d come to work at 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning, worked until 6 or 7 at night, and had just gotten home when I got a phone call: “We need your help.”
It was about DUSAF, the engineering firm that designed the Main Ring, Linac and other conventional facilities.
The DUSAF organization was moving out of their Hinsdale offices, and the mover they’d hired had gone on strike. I was told that DUSAF had to move out by midnight or pay major penalties from the office building they were renting. I was asked if I could grab a vehicle and go to Hinsdale with anybody I could find to help move their stuff out. Others had already been called.
I had a cousin who was working here at the time. I picked him up, and we went to Fermilab and picked up a step van. When we arrived in Hinsdale, a moving van was already loaded, but nobody was doing anything with it. We went into the building where lots of odds and ends were still in the office building. Many people had come to help. It was a madhouse. Everyone just walked in the building, grabbed whatever they could, brought it out, threw it in a truck and drove it to the laboratory. There wasn’t much packing. Whatever you could get in the truck, we moved. I made one trip. Once we got back to Fermilab, I stayed to help sort and unload throughout the night.
We worked all day that Friday, till 5 p.m. We finally got them moved out.
That was probably the most overtime I’d ever gotten in my life.
George Davidson is the head of transportation services at Fermilab.
Recommended reading
SQMS Center at Fermilab announces Carolyn B. Parker Fellowship for postdocs
- diversity equity and inclusion
- fellowship
- history
- SQMS
- SQMS Center
- Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center
Fermilab’s Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center is announcing a new fellowship opportunity for Black and African American postdoctoral scholars. The Carolyn B. Parker Fellowship honors the legacy of the first African American woman to earn a postgraduate degree in physics.
A brief history of women of Fermilab
No aspect of Fermilab, past or present — the accomplishments of the Tevatron, the popular Arts and Lecture Series, the education efforts, the world-leading neutrino program — would be what it is today without the contributions of women. This International Women’s Day, we honor their contributions.
Twenty-fifth anniversary of the discovery of the top quark at Fermilab
Twenty-five years ago, scientists on the CDF and DZero particle physics experiments at Fermilab announced one of history’s biggest breakthroughs in particle physics: the discovery of the long-sought top quark. The collaborations on the two experiments jointly made the announcement on March 2, 1995, to much fanfare. We take a look back on this day in Fermilab history a quarter-century ago.