D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, left, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday, Nov. 20, 2017, for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge. The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. (Photo courtesy NNSA)
Note: This story was updated at 4:05 p.m.
D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge.
The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Smith is retiring this month. He previously told Oak Ridge Today that he would retire November 22.
Established in November 2015, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park is a unique three-site park that includes Oak Ridge; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II. Among other activities, Oak Ridge built uranium enrichment facilities for the Manhattan Project at Y-12 and the former K-25 site, and the city had the pilot facility for plutonium production at the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was then known as X-10. [Read more…]
