High school juniors with an interest in engineering spent Wednesday with their "hands on" government simulators much like their video games at home.

The students also enjoyed a slide/video presentation and lecture from astronaut Michael Foale during the fourth annual "Adventures in Engineering" program.

Co-sponsored by the Army Space and Missile Defense Association, the National Defense Industrial Association and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the program's purpose is "to plant the seed that there is some very interesting work in engineering and science here in town - opportunities they ought to consider," said Pete Cerny, deputy technical director for ASMDA's ground-based missile defense system.

Planners of the program work with the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce and guidance counselors in all public and private high schools in Madison County (including home-based schools) in selecting participants, Cerny said..

About 90 students and 12 chaperones took part in Wednesday's whirlwind tour of UAH, Army Aviation and Missile Command, Strategic Missile Defense Command, Missile and Space Intelligence Center, Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The program's aim is to help stem the brain drain of students leaving the area or choosing fields other than engineering for their careers.

NASA officials are concerned there won't be enough young talent coming through the ranks to replace retiring scientists and technicians.

Jeff Huntley, a 16-year-old junior at Madison Academy, could some day fill one of those empty spots. He is considering a veterinary and medical engineering career and hopes to attend Auburn University.

"I like the idea of combining (those majors) and using the same things for animals as can help humans," he said.

A post-event survey asked students to name their favorite and least favorite activities of the day.

"Surprisingly, the software engineering directorate seemed to be very interesting (to many students)," Cerny said, adding that using simulators also ranked high on the survey.

"They had some visual activities where they could actually participate," such as "shooting targets" on weapons systems simulators. "They're close to games they play (at home) but these are the real thing," he said.

Students were also inspired by Expedition 8 astronaut Michael Foale, a NASA astrophysicist who has logged the most hours in orbit, having spent 195 days on the International Space Station and more than four months on Russia's space station Mir.

Foale tells of experience

A native of Cambridge, England, Foale charmed his audience with anecdotes about his experiences. As he was boarding a Russian rocket for his last mission toward the ISS, for instance, he was kicked in the rear by a dignitary standing by.

His fellow astronaut, Alexander Kaleri, said, '"Oh, I forgot to tell you, that's a tradition,'" recalled Foale, who said the ignition of the rocket was "extraordinarily soft" compared to the space shuttle's. "All you heard was the buildup of noise, and at some point you left the launch pad," he said.

But the separation of rocket parts involved numerous jolts, floats, kicks and bangs. "Getting to the main engine cutoff is just like a train wreck," he said.

Once in space, he and Kaleri found themselves conducting more experiments than they initially trained for because of the grounding of the shuttle after the explosion of Columbia, Foale said. They also had to do some repairs to the ISS, some of which involved improvising. They had trouble installing a new air conditioner unit because it was one-half centimeter too big, so they sawed it to fit.

Foale showed his audience a slide of him and Kaleri with two empty space suits they had placed at the table for a holiday meal. "We wanted some company," he said.

He compared space travel to mountain climbing. "I saw the space station as the base camp for going to the moon," he said.

He also told his audience about the view of earth from space, the thing he most misses about being in orbit.

"When you look at the earth from space, you're overwhelmed with the beauty."

Foale said some human tragedies, such as earthquakes, are invisible from space. "You try and imagine how those people are suffering, but you can't see a thing," he said.

Other catastrophes are quite visible, such as a black cloud Foale photographed over Iraq, apparently caused by a pipeline explosion. Foale showed his audience a photograph he took of a hurricane in the southern Atlantic ocean, which he later found out was the first such photograph ever taken.

Returning to earth in a capsule with a parachute, not unlike those used by early astronauts, was rough, Foale said, recalling smoke and burning and an extremely hard ride.

"You assume the position, one of great tenseness," he said. When the rockets of the capsule fired, he saw a flash of white light, "And I think, 'Oh, that's my spine.' "

But 10 minutes later he was relaxing in an open hatch, wondering how hard it would be to use his legs after so many months in space.

After returning to earth, "It was just wonderful to smell the atmosphere, drink this tea that they gave me," he said.

Foale said the space program needs to stay "lean and mean" if missions to the moon and Mars are ever to take place.

"I do not believe in luxury in space."

KNOXVILLE. (AP) - John Petersen isn't developing a grand vision as much as a strategy in his first 100 days as president of the University of Tennessee.

Where ill-fated predecessors J. Wade Gilley and John Shumaker offered promises to raise the 210-year-old institution, Petersen is building a plan for excellence in a more workmanlike fashion.

"I am an academician. I am not really a politician," the 56-year-old chemist-turned-administrator said in an interview this week with The Associated Press.

In his first 60 days on the job - he became UT's 23rd president on July 1 - the former University of Connecticut provost packed his calendar with campus visits and meetings with UT constituents and government leaders across the state.

Petersen told everyone his formula for success is finding the best on each of the university's five campuses and making them better - to a point of national prominence.

"I firmly believe the way you build an institution, (particularly) in an economy that has limited dollars, isn't by spreading money out and trying to raise everything gradually," he said.

"You can't ignore things that are important to an institution. There is a certain baseline that you have to do. But you have to pick those things that you really can be good at."

Petersen said he will rely on campus and community leaders to help select areas for promotion, but his criteria is clear. The programs must be established. They must have relevance today and tomorrow. And they must "have an impact on the state in a positive way."

Four years ago, the state made a $26 million commitment to research facilities in the areas of nanoscience, biology and computer sciences in support of UT-Battelle's management of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

That led to Energy Department commitments recently to build the world's fastest nonmilitary supercomputer in Oak Ridge and the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source project nearing completion.

"The toughest thing is picking and choosing the battles you should fight," Petersen said. "It is a little harder for faculty to rationalize why a different area other than theirs is going to be favored or built upon."

"What you have to do is encourage them to (see) -- that if you can take some of those points and really raise the level of the institution, it helps everybody."

Preceded by two presidents who ended short terms in scandal, Petersen said he wasn't judging the past except to say communication needed to be improved within the university and with the public.

"I think if you don't communicate, people will always assume something worse than what is actually going on," he said.

"Which doesn't mean we want to hide things that are wrong. When things come up that are wrong, we will identify them and -- deal with them in a way that we can be proud of."

Asked about Shumaker's legal claim for a $420,000 severance deal rescinded by UT on grounds he altered travel records, Petersen said simply, "It is not my business."

"My job isn't to retrospectively look back at what could or should or didn't get done," he said. "I have pretty much kept myself focused on how we can take a very good university and make it even better.

"The point is we are in a good spot for moving forward. There is a rich history in the university. It has always been a very good institution. And that is what we are going to build on."

In fact, it's "absolutely vital," according to David Irving, who serves as the United Kingdom's representative on the executive committee that manages the Energy Technology Data Exchange.

"Research that stays in the lab is wasted research," Irving said. "The results of research must be used."

A similar sentiment is echoed by Brian Hitson, associate director of Administration and Information Services with the Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information.

"One of the most immediate outcomes of research and development is information," Hitson said. "Sharing that information is really critical to making sure that [research and development] progresses at a rate that pays off for the investment that taxpayers put into it."

The importance of information exchange is the driving force behind ETDE and the International Nuclear Information System.

"Membership is required in INIS and ETDE, but access to ETDEWEB has now been broadened to many developing countries, too," explained Debbie Cutler, international program

manager with OSTI. "ETDEWEB is the Internet version of the database that we use to share the information."

Under the auspices of the International Energy Agency, ETDE disseminates energy research and technology information via its Web database, located at www.etde.org/etdeweb. The International Energy Agency is an intergovernmental body committed to advancing security of energy supply and economic growth through energy policy cooperation.

A database like ETDEWEB serves as a tool that allows researchers to avoid duplicating work, according to Irving. For example, more than 3.4 million bibliographic records and around 111,000 plus full-text documents are available to users.

"The work of others can inspire new lines of investigation," Irving said. "There are many databases of scientific literature, all of which have a role to play."

However, Irving said what makes ETDEWEB unique is its collection of "gray literature," or items like government reports, which do not appear in learned journals.

OSTI has served as the operating agent for ETDE since the database began in 1987. The database started with 11 countries as members and currently has 15, including Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Korea, Norway, Switzerland and the United States.

"Portugal and, as of a couple of weeks ago, Turkey are both strongly interested in membership, so hopefully our numbers will go up again," noted Cutler, who serves as ETDE's operating agent representative through OSTI.

Operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, INIS provides a comprehensive information reference service for literature on the peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology at www.iaea.org/inis/inisdb.htm. The International Atomic Energy Agency acts as the world's center of cooperation in the nuclear field.

Currently, 110 countries and 19 international organizations participate in INIS, which contains more than 2.4 million records - with around 80,000 added annually. The database provides an in-depth source of bibliographic records and abstracts dating back to 1970.

OSTI, which leads DOE's "electronic government" initiatives for disseminating research and development information, played an instrumental role in the creation of INIS. Of course, back when that happened in 1969, "the medium was still paper," noted Cutler.

In late-October, Oak Ridge will be home to the 10th INIS/ETDE Joint Technical Committee meeting and the 18th ETDE Technical Working Group meeting. According to Cutler, the meetings will be held at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, with 13 countries currently scheduled to participate.

NATO governments signed a multimillion-dollar contract here Tuesday that could put a new missile defense system on track to replace the Patriot air defense missile one day.

It is the first major step for Germany, Italy and the United States to field the Medium Extended Air Defense System in the next decade, said Chester Domaracki, the program's acting general manager.

The NATO Medium Extended Air Defense System Management Agency, located in Cummings Research Park, awarded an initial, $54.5 million, six-month contract to MEADS International for the design and development of the MEADS system. MEADS will be used to shoot down enemy aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

The six-month award allows the German government time to evaluate and vote to finance the system, Domaracki said. "We will fully negotiate the contract" during the next six months, he said.

The German government should address concerns with the MEADS program in the months ahead, said Dr. Axel Widera, a German who is executive vice president of MEADS International. "We will move ahead, and we have looked forward to this development" contract for years, he said.

The MEADS system is scheduled to be available by 2012 and will use Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3, missiles for air and missile defense at first. The Patriot missile is managed in Huntsville by the Army, and Boeing Co. produces parts of its advanced seeker here.

A MEADS missile will be designed and used in the system later, Domaracki said.

The multinational program was established in 1996 and is managed by German Luftwaffe Maj. Gen. Thomas Gericke. The Huntsville office employs 52 people but draws on support from the Army Aviation and Missile Command and contractor labs throughout Huntsville, Domaracki said.

"Huntsville brings a history of technical support and innovation to this project. We are bringing together the knowledge and work of all of Huntsville's" engineering capabilities, said Domaracki, who has worked on versions of MEADS since 1990. "The expertise here dates back to the German rocket team and continues on to this day with this project and others."

Widera said the mobility of MEADS will be a key to its efficiency and ability to protect troops on the move. Older air defense systems such as the Patriot take several hours to set up because soldiers must unload and set up many key elements.

"Anybody who has ever had to relocate a Patriot battery is fully aware of the importance of mobility," Widera said. MEADS will be an advanced program "based on 21st-century technology to take on 21st-century threats."

A highlight of the MEADS system will be its mobility - it can be moved on five-ton trucks - and communicate with other NATO weapons systems, said Pietro Rogonese, MEADS International chief engineer.

MEADS will be designed to work with new weapons and possibly with older systems such as Patriot units, Rogonese said. "It can bring other sensors or other shooters into its network," he said.

Work on MEADS has been troubled over the past few years. Recently, higher PAC-3 missile costs threatened the program.

"It hasn't been easy," Domaracki said. "We have overcome a lot of challenges - some political and some financial. The technical challenges seemed to be the easiest part."

It's not as sure as death and taxes, but it's close: Whatever price tag we put on space exploration, it's going to be too low.
That's what history tells us, and that's what makes NASA's $64 billion estimate on returning to the moon improbable.
NASA isn't intentionally trying to mislead anyone. But very expensive stuff happens when you explore space.

The fact that there are varying estimates already popping up from credible sources - like the Congressional Budget Office - that indicate NASA may be off by $32 billion is one warning sign. Another is that most of the money for a moon venture wouldn't be spent until after 2010 is another. Over time, prices increase unpredictably.

On another level, though, the price tag for space exploration isn't the key issue. When President Kennedy said we would be first on the moon, nobody worried over the numbers. The government and, most importantly, the public set the goal and accomplished it. Does anyone remember if we came in under budget?

Now another president, George W. Bush, says it's time to unleash America's technological know-how for further exploration. But note that the popular idea that Bush has buckled America up for a trip to Mars isn't quite what he said.

As noted in "New Moon Rising" by Frank Sietzen Jr. and Keith L. Cowing (Apogee Books), which will be reviewed in Sunday's Times, Bush's message focused on a return to the heavens, not a specific mission, not even about going to Mars at all.

People in Huntsville may have a sharper focus about the need to move forward than elsewhere.

For one thing, we understand the technological bounty that space exploration brings. For another, we feel the importance to the human spirit of reaching as far as our grasp - then farther.

Changing times

But you can't just paste the JFK vision of the early '60s onto the first decade of the 21st century.

We were in a Cold War then. We're in a shooting war now. We have baby boomers about to strain Social Security and more elderly people straining a more extensive health care system. Government money's tight.

And there's the question of whether another trip to the moon is vital or whether further robotic probes can serve technology and scientific advancement as well or better.

Can we find a consensus? If the United States is to spend billions to explore space, we must realize that only a common dream can push us forward. And only incredible commitment will pay for it.

Lockheed facility assists employees with computers
Getting NASA astronauts back to the moon may require taking care of a few balky printers and troublesome computer networks - the information plumbing of the space program.

A space scientist or a rocket engineer isn't always able to speak to a jammed printer or tune into a computer network. When NASA employees have a problem with something like a computer virus or software program, the call is routed to one of 55 people working in Madison at Lockheed Martin's Southeast Enterprise Solution Center - an around-the-clock computer help desk.

The new center was officially opened in a ceremony in Madison on Thursday.

"The vision for this center actually started years ago," said Mitzi Dowdy, center program manager. The help-desk concept came about in May 1999, Dowdy said, "at a time when every NASA center had individual help desks."

To streamline the 10 research center help desks and three offsite location help desks, NASA turned to outside contractors to establish one point where a person could seek help with a computer problem.

The Southeast Enterprise Solution Center became the answer. The contract has been growing steadily over the past five years, Dowdy said.

At first, in 1999, there were about five people answering questions and taking calls, said Dowdy. In May, all NASA center help desks were combined into the Madison facility when a $108 million contract was issued to Lockheed Martin.

Dan Norton, a Lockheed vice president, expects the contract to grow soon. "We want to support new customers" with this center, he said.

Dowdy said the center supported 38,000 users with problems in 2003. That number is expected to grow to 150,000 in the "near future, and we could expand to help 300,000," she said.

The center's employment could also grow to 124 people and move to a new facility to meet NASA's expanded needs, Dowdy said.

Workers at Schafer Corp.'s 75-person Huntsville office are among the first hired by NASA to figure out how to take President Bush's plan to return to the moon and make it work.

On Wednesday, NASA awarded Schafer's Systems Engineering and Integration Division here a potential $6 million "Concept Exploration and Refinement" contract to do some early work on the moon plan. Boeing Co.'s Phantom Works division, which has about 180 employees here, will provide space systems expertise for Schafer, said Monty Vest, a Boeing spokeswoman. Schafer has worked primarily on missile defense projects.

Essentially, Schafer and Boeing workers will use computer models to look for the best ways to get humans back to the moon and how to best design the ship to get to the moon and beyond, said Charles Chitwood, general manager of Schafer's Huntsville operation.

In January, Bush called for "extended human missions to the moon as early as 2015" and for using the moon "as the launching point for missions beyond" by 2020.

Since the power of today's computers dwarf those of the 1960s-era Apollo missions, and micromechanical devices are available today that weren't then, NASA won't be able to just work from its former moon mission blueprints, Chitwood said Thursday.

"We'll be looking at what kinds of technological changes have occurred since Apollo that would allow us to accomplish similar things in different ways," he said.

Schafer and its Boeing support team will be looking at possible designs for the Crew Exploration Vehicle, which NASA hopes to use for moon missions and possibly Mars missions. Schafer's job will be to figure out scenarios that might affect which features the new ship has, such as whether it would need to dock with the International Space Station on its way to the moon, Chitwood said.

The initial stage of the contract is for six months' work for $3 million, with the possibility it could be extended for another six months and another $3 million, he said. The work could lead to future designs for a long-range space vehicle.

The inside of a jet engine is not what you might call a pleasant environment. But it's just the kind of place the fiber optics made by Blacksburg-based Prime Research are comfortable.

Because of that, the company just won a $2 million contract from the Naval Surface Warfare Center to build tiny sensors for the U.S. Navy's gas-turbine engines.

The sensors will help monitor the conditions inside those engines - temperature, pressure and flow of gases - which can not only help make them run more efficiently, but also can detect possible problems before they force a major breakdown.

For Prime Research, it means creating sophisticated sensors, each smaller than the head of a pin, that can be inserted into these engines and provide operators with a detailed view of conditions inside.

Made of glass or sapphire, the components are just about impervious to pressure, temperature, radiation and other factors that would destroy a traditional monitor. They're being used in all sorts of harsh environments - everything from oil wells to airplanes to giant electrical transformers. The kinds of environment, as company president Joe Swider put it, "where you haven't been able to get measurements."

In other words, they're perfect for the inside of a jet engine.

When the Navy put out a solicitation for these kinds of tough sensors, Swider was quick to throw the company's hat into the ring.

A Navy veteran, Swider had served on some gas-turbine powered ships.

"I remembered some of the needs the Navy's gas-turbine fleet had," he said. "While we're doing work with the Air Force and with NASA [I thought], can we help the Navy solve their pain? And they said 'absolutely.'"

So he made his pitch.

"We put our team together, and leveraged all the experience we had developing instrumentation for gas turbines," Swider said. "It was a competitively bid program, and after the evaluation period, we were chosen."

The company's sensors will be used "across the board, on all U.S. Navy ships that use gas turbines," Swider said. In fact, he explained, that's a large portion of the fleet: "All of the destroyers, cruisers and frigates utilize some sort of gas-turbine engines."

Winning the Navy contract will likely open some other doors for the company. "The program is primarily geared toward developing sensors for the existing fleet," Swider said, "however, as our reputation has spread throughout the Navy, we're now being asked to develop sensors for future ships as well." That includes the new DD(X) destroyers and CVN-21 aircraft carriers.

Installing new and better sensors is part of what the Navy calls its Condition Based Maintenance program, which aims to reduce engine downtime by keeping careful track of their condition; small changes in fuel pressure or airflow might be an early signal of a larger problem. "We're working very closely with the Navy, with General Electric and with Rolls Royce," Swider said, referring to the companies that supply the Navy's turbine engines.

The Navy contract is only Prime Research's latest. Last year the company - which has fewer than 50 employees - beat out 33 other companies and won a three-year contract from the Department of Energy to develop sensors for the oil-and-gas industry that will hopefully help make wells more productive. It's also working with a variety of commercial organizations to supply sensors that can be installed in commercial turbines, in power plants and substations, and on aircraft. All that could lead to it doubling the number of employees in the next year, Swider said.

As for the company's most recent contract, "It's a great accomplishment for us," Swider said. "We just focus on getting the job done."

http://www.roanoke.com/business/11056.html

A recent advance at Virginia Tech in fuel cell technology may mean heavy notebook computers and cell phone batteries will soon be things of the past.

R&D Magazine recently selected that development as one of the 100 most technologically significant new products of 2004.

The technology is a new polymer, or high temperature proton exchange membrane, for use in fuel cells that was created by group of researchers led by Tech chemistry professor James McGrath. The new polymer is expected to be cheaper than the currently used commercial product Nafion, which runs at about $500 per square meter. Eventually the new material could sell for as little as $50.

Other benefits of the new material include increased stability in a fuel cell’s oxidative environment, high conductivity and a longer life. Patent rights to the new material have been optioned by Battelle, a global science and technology enterprise.

McGrath said he thinks the recognition from the R&D Magazine will be a very positive thing.

“I think it helps a lot to continue to be able to get grants,” he said. “It shows not only that you’re doing the fundamental things, which is our job in educating students, but also that you’re at least keeping your eye on the ball so that it’s something that someplace down the road may have some practical utility.”

McGrath’s group included former Tech student Michael Hickner and researchers at Los Alamos National Lab and Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as the College of Engineering at Tech.

Joe Merola, chair of the chemistry department, explained the fundamentals of a fuel cell and elaborated on how the new polymer could be an important step forward in the area of fuel cell research.

“The most common of the fuel cells is a hydrogen and oxygen fuel cell because, if we can take hydrogen and oxygen and combine them in the right proportions, it creates water and there is an enormous amount of energy that is released when that happens. Most of the students in our general chemistry classes have probably experienced the exploding hydrogen balloon. If you can control that, then that’s a tremendous amount of energy.”

“(The existing polymers) don’t stand up under some of the severe conditions that you might like to push the fuel cells to,” Merola said. “(McGrath’s) membranes may actually have exactly the properties that we need to make the fuel cells very efficient and to operate in lots of conditions that are called for.”

McGrath agreed that the polymer will help advance fuel cell technology and said he expects fuel cell use to become more common in three general areas: portable electronics, transportation and remote housing or home electricity. He said the first area to convert to fuel cells will probably be the portable electronics area.

“That’s probably the earliest that will come about,” he said. “The fuel cells would replace the batteries because they can last longer and they’re lighter.”

McGrath said he expects the transition in the transportation area to take a little longer.

“There the economic force is a lot bigger,” he said with a laugh. “People have worked so long on the internal combustion engines that they are pretty well refined.”

Merola said the third area, that of home electricity, is another area that fuel cell use could soon become the norm.

“We usually have generators of electricity run by the burning of … fossil fuels,” he said. “It may be that, instead of a propane tank in the back of your yard … you’ll have a fuel cell.”

When Robert "Bud" Cramer Sr. worked with the federal weather service here in the 1940s, it was in a plywood shack at what was then the Huntsville airport.

On Monday, a $30 million, 200,000-square-foot complex of science buildings that includes the local home of the National Weather Service was named for his son - U.S. Rep. Robert "Bud" Cramer Jr., D-Huntsville.

The two buildings are the National Space Science and Technology Center across Sparkman Drive from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The work that goes on there includes improving weather prediction, studying advanced rocket propulsion and understanding the origins of the universe.

At the public dedication ceremony for the Robert "Bud" Cramer Research Hall, Cramer thanked his father, who was in the crowd, and joked that not many people realize that the congressman is a second generation "Bud" Cramer.

"I kid around that I've taken my father's name over totally. In conversation, people get us confused sometimes and think his past is my past," said Cramer, who has represented North Alabama in Washington since 1990.

Cramer and U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, used their positions on the House and Senate Appropriations committees to find the $30 million needed to build the National Space Science and Technology Center.

"Today is Bud's day and it is his honor," Shelby said. "We are not only good friends, but we are fellow appropriators. Through our positions on (the appropriations committees), we know we can make a difference here."

To Rex Geveden, deputy director at Marshall Space Flight Center, it was Cramer's tenacity over a National Weather Center office that made the center possible.

"When people ask me what (Cramer) is like, I tell them he is like a bulldog, because when he gets his teeth into something, he just won't let it go," Geveden said.

The story of the local National Weather Service office is an example of Cramer's bulldog determination, Geveden said.

For years, Cramer fought to keep a National Weather Service office in Huntsville partly because of the danger of tornadoes in North Alabama. Cramer began his bid for the weather office in the early 1990s, about the same time National Weather Service and U.S. Commerce Department officials were cutting back on the number of smaller, local weather stations.

Cramer sought out committee assignments in Washington in part to keep a National Weather Service office here. He was driven by the devastating Nov. 15, 1989, tornado that swept across parts of southeast Huntsville and left 17 people dead and almost 500 homeless.

Cramer said many times the fight for the Weather Service office looked hopeless, but he persevered and finally got approval in 2001 for a new office. In April 2003, the office was opened at the National Space Science and Technology Center.

Because the new weather office is in the same building with numerous NASA and UAH climatologists, Cramer said, "we have the best office for weather prediction and research."

The center is not limited to weather research and prediction, said UAH President Frank Franz, but maximizes Huntsville's research in space science and rocket propulsion by putting researchers under the same roof. Until 2001, a variety of work on rocket propulsion and space science was scattered in labs on the UAH campus and Redstone Arsenal.

When it was conceived in the late 1990s, the National Space Science and Technology Center was a unusual approach to science and research. It combines the resources of NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center and seven Alabama universities.

"And now, more than 300 researchers and scientists can walk in the door and work together," thanks in part to Cramer, said Gerald Smith, executive director of the National Space Science and Technology Center.

The center was opened in March 2001. A research facility was built in 2003 and opened in April.

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. – Personnel at the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) have completed performance and operability testing on the first Engine Alliance (EA) GP7200 engine being developed for the Airbus A380 passenger aircraft.

During a three-month test program at AEDC, the GP7200 engine underwent 83 hours of simulated high altitude testing at various inlet temperature conditions. The tests were conducted in the center’s Aeropropulsion Systems Test Facility C-2 test cell.

The Engine Alliance is a 50-50 joint venture of General Electric Company and Pratt & Whitney.

“The center test personnel have really worked hard in mapping out the process to help the program stay on schedule and reduce cost,” said Robert J. Saia, an Engine Alliance executive vice president, during a visit to AEDC. “I have been very pleased with the strong working relationship between the EA and the folks here at AEDC.

“We’re further gratified that the GP7200 performed as expected while at AEDC, demonstrating anticipated levels of fuel economy and excellent low-pressure compressor stability,” Saia added.

Dave Duesterhaus, the AEDC program manager for the tests, said the program continued to leverage existing agreements with both General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.

“AEDC testing of commercial systems like the GP7200 benefits the center and our commercial and military customers by sharing the costs of operations,” Duesterhaus.

said. “We have really had a great year of commercial engine testing, approaching $20 million in Cell C-2.”

According to Jeff Dodd, test project manager for the program, the goal of this initial GP7200 test was to determine how the engine compressor and fan performed in realistic flight conditions and to assess engine operation limits.

The engine was instrumented with more than 4,200 channels to gather information during the test, as compared to around 2,000 channels on the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engine series. The data will provide information allowing the Engine Alliance to optimize various engine designs.

“The customer wants us to take these engines to their limits,” Dodd said. “It’s better to find those limits in a ground test facility at AEDC than in mid-flight with several hundred passengers aboard.”

The GP7200, built on the technological advancements of the GE90 and the PW4000, is one of eight engines the Engine Alliance plans to use to accumulate more than 20,000 endurance cycles and 7,000 hours of test facility operations before its entry into service.

Achieving that number of cycle and operational hours will exceed standards set by previous engines qualified for Pratt & Whitney Extended Twin-Engine Operations.

The GP7200 has been selected for 67 of the 110 Airbus 380 aircraft orders with engines specified to date.

TULLAHOMA, Tenn. — A machine that once launched dead chickens at windshields of military aircraft is being used by NASA officials in tests for their Space Shuttle Return to Flight program.

Its technical name is the Ballistic Impact Range S-3, but many simply call it: the ''chicken gun.''

''This (testing) is one piece in a big puzzle,'' said Jack Hengel, NASA's solid rocket booster project manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Arnold Engineering, a flight simulation test facility, is helping NASA achieve its goal of having a shuttle liftoff in 2005, Hengel said.

No shuttles have been launched since Columbia's seven-member crew died when the shuttle disintegrated during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. An investigation found that the accident was caused by a piece of foam that fell off the external tank and struck Columbia's left wing.

Hengel said the Return to Flight program tests involve launching brick-shaped projectiles made of the same foam. That's where the chicken gun is used. Hengel said the foam pieces are shot at speeds of up to 1,500 mph through an 86-foot-long barrel toward targets representing various pieces of the shuttle's solid rocket booster.

Lt. Col. Curtis Amble, chief of space and missile systems for Arnold Engineering, said the gun was reconfigured to shoot lighter pieces of foam. He said high-pressure helium gas was used to launch the projectiles.

The tests will determine where the impact of the foam materials damages the solid rocket booster, officials said. ''We then determine whether we could survive that failure,'' Hengel said.

High-speed digital cameras capture the impact of the foam projectiles, Hengel said, which at high speeds are strong enough to break through plywood. He said data from the tests will be used to construct computer models that can simulate various situations.

Testing began in May and is expected to end next month, officials said.

Small and mighty, it's a nano world. Construction of a $65 million nanoscience research facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is halfway to completion, and the excitement is building.

The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences is among five nano research centers being funded by the federal government, and ORNL's will be the first one completed, probably by October 2005. It's supposed to immediately become a place-to-be for material studies on a tiny scale.

"The excitement around nanoscale science and technology is that we believe it is the basis for the next industrial revolution," Jim Roberto, the lab's associate director for physical sciences, said Monday during a visit to the construction site on Chestnut Ridge.

Nanoscience involves work with small clusters of atoms, ranging from about 10 atoms up to hundreds and thousands of atoms, even a few million. These groups of atoms are too small to be studied with the naked eye but they are crucial to material properties such as magnetism and melting temperature.

"We know now that this is the level, this is the scale, on which functionality emerges, on which real properties actually emerge," said Doug Lowndes, scientific director of the new research center.

With this newfound knowledge of materials, scientists around the world are racing to do experiments. The results could have a tremendous impact, scientifically and economically.

The Oak Ridge project will provide highly specialized research labs to study and fabricate materials on a nanoscale. Much of the $65 million price tag is for fancy equipment, which will be installed after the four-story, 80,000-square-foot building is finished in March or April.

"It's really tough to manipulate and make properties measurements on these small materials. We're going to have all sorts of neat instruments," Lowndes said.

Electron microscopes will be armed with "bells and whistles" that let scientists measure the properties of materials at the same time they're studying enhanced images of the structures. Among the exotic tools: a $4.9 million electron beam lithography system and a $1.4 million four-probe scanning tunneling microscope in a scanning electron microscope.

The Oak Ridge project is currently under budget and on schedule for completion next fall.

However, the field of study is so hot that the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences is sponsoring a "Jump Start" program. The agency provided money for researchers to launch experiments at ORNL and other national labs, even before the special nanoscience centers are ready for visitors.

More than 70 research proposals were submitted for the fast-track program in Oak Ridge , and 42 projects were approved.

Lowndes said many of the scientists already have visited ORNL to work on their experiments, including top researchers from around the United States and beyond. A scientist from China 's Nation! al Academy of Sciences in Beijing is due to arrive this week, he said.

A temporary "clean room" has been established at one of ORNL's existing facilities, mimicking the capabilities of a nanofabrication lab that will be the heart of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences.

Linda Horton, the project director, said fabrication of advanced materials on a nanoscale will be an important part of the research agenda. But she said a lot of basic research also would be done here.

"There will be fundamental research looking at how we can control the synthesis of materials at near-atomic scale," Horton said. "It's beyond what we can do with typical melting and evaporation technologies. It's the control that's important, learning how to do that."

The nanoscience center is being built adjacent to the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source, and the two research facilities will complement each other.

"Neutrons are one of the best tools for studying the nanoscale structures and dynamics of materials, so to have that cap ability next to the nanocenter gives us a special advantage in doing this kind of research," Roberto said.

The studies are expected to provide a greater understanding of how materials behave in small clumps and bunches. After that, researchers will try to improve on Mother Nature's handiwork.

"Not only do characteristic properties first emerge on the nanoscale, but you can tweak those properties. You can actually enhance them, if you're able to work on the nanoscale," Lowndes said.

Scientists can change the properties of nanomaterials by chemical means or by attaching other groups of atoms "so that they do special things for us," he said.

Among the promising nanotechnologies are sensors that perform like champs at an invisible level.

Besides Oak Ridge , other nano research centers are being constructed at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois , Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California , as well as another one in New Mexico that is a shared venture of Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs.

The program, called "Operation Bold Tiger," allows local, state and federal agencies to partner with volunteers to detect and prevent possible terrorists threats.

"Operation Bold Tiger" is using redesigned Neighborhood Watch programs and a public awareness campaign through TV public service announcements.

The commercials show people reporting others in their neighborhood to authorities for suspicious acts that may be terrorist related.

"We don't want terrorists, we want terrorists to get out of here," said Maj. Gen. Jerry Humble, director of the Office of Homeland Security in Tennessee.

"That way we can live a good comfortable life where we can earn our wages and have a good economy and a safe state."

The name of the operation came from an Osama bin Laden saying, "Why attack a tiger when there are plenty of lambs around," Humble said at a briefing held at the Tennessee Department of Transportation. "We're turning Tennessee into a tiger."

Different law enforcement agencies conducted heightened security testing at the University of Tennessee's Boomsday football game and the Sharpie 500 NASCAR race in Bristol, Tenn.

The Coast Guard in Knoxville, air patrol units and others collaborated for the exercise using security approaches that Humble said he couldn't discuss.

Plans for more group operations have been made for upcoming events.

New radio equipment is being purchased in attempts to build an intrastate system of communication between the different agencies, Humble said.

Officials said Tennesseans can get involved in Homeland Security in their own areas through the Citizen Corps. This part of the operation has four independent programs: Neighborhood Watch, Volunteer Police Services, Medical Reserve Corps and Community Emergency Response Team.

Some of the programs have existed for several years and are now being revamped, said Leanne Durm, chief of Volunteer Programs and Citizens Outreach Division.

Clarksville already has more than 100 volunteers working with local law enforcement doing various tasks such as mall patrol, crowd control and monitoring handicap parking.

There are even volunteers used specifically to shovel manure for the horse patrol.

Durm said 93 counties in the state have some sort of Citizens Corps program. The Community Emergency Response Team has free training courses offered to citizens throughout the state.

Higher energy prices are cutting deeply into the bottom lines of small- and midsize manufacturers, forcing business leaders to push for a national comprehensive energy bill.

"Production is at record levels but we're barely skimming by," said Fletcher Smoak, chief executive officer of Old Virginia Brick in Salem. He said his natural gas bills doubled this summer.

Smoak recently testified before a U.S. House subcommittee in Washington. He likened the experience to preaching to the choir because the House of Representatives passed an energy bill twice, but the Senate blocked its passage both times.

Natural gas prices have surged after Hurricane Ivan caused greater-than-expected damage to infrastructure and reduced gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Natural Gas Weekly. Price increases since Sept. 15 ranged between 25 cents and 70 cents per dekatherm.

From Tuesday to Wednesday, the price of natural gas jumped 50 cents per dekatherm.

Industry members and observers said natural-gas production in the United States has been unable to meet demand. As a result, environmentalists, industry representatives, academia and consumers, among others, have formed a bipartisan commission to figure out what needs to be done to ward off a crisis.

Ideas range from pushing to open new areas for drilling to importing more liquid natural gas. The National Commission on Energy Policy is expected to release its recommendations in December.

Smoak said he was convinced, but could not prove, that hedge funds and commodity advisers have been manipulating the prices.

He needs 975 dekatherms a day to make bricks at his two plants in Salem. Another 650 dekatherms are needed for his plant in Madison Heights near Lynchburg. From November to March he paid $6.58 a dekatherm, up from $5.22 a dekatherm in 2002.

His summer bills increased more than 100 percent. He paid $6.21 a dekatherm, up from $3.09 a dekatherm in 2002. These prices include the cost of fuel, brokers' fees and transportation.

For the first time in the company's history, Smoak paid more for summer gas at the Henry Hub in Texas than he did for the preceding winter's supply.

Smoak paid nearly $1.5 million for natural gas for calendar year 2004.

"We feel like we're working for the bank and the energy companies," he said.

For every $1 increase in the cost of the gas, the cost of manufacturing goes up $9 per 1,000 bricks.

By year end, the company's profit margins will be about 3 percent of the company's sales, despite record shipments and record production. "We should be at 11 percent of our sales," Smoak said.

He can install a more efficient kiln, which would reduce the cost of gas by about $600,000 a year. But Smoak said he failed to see the benefits of investing $7.5 million for a kiln. He prefers to keep his 185 employees.

He favors more drilling, an investigation into the causes of the latest price spikes, increasing energy alternatives such as landfill natural gas, and a dedicated tax to help producers drill deep wells.

Smoak said he wants to tap into the natural gas from the closed landfill near Explore Park, but transporting the gas would be a problem.

The landfill has 2.4 million tons of waste, which produces about 480 BTUs. That's slightly less than half of the required 950 BTUs needed in order for Roanoke Gas to move the natural gas.

Smoak said he was investigating whether he can strip carbon dioxide from the landfill's waste, which would raise the BTU content. The ultimate risks to Old Virginia Brick would be the quality of the gas and the useful life of the landfill output.

For the next two to four years, Smoak said, increased drilling in new fields and offshore is essential.

Smoak, aware of the environmentalists' fears of drilling in pristine areas such as the Arctic, said people need to remind themselves that their houses stand on what once was pristine land.

"A 6-inch hole in the Arctic is like a postage stamp on a 12-foot by 12-foot rug in your living room," he said.

John Williamson, president of Roanoke Gas, joins Smoak in blaming Congress for stalemating the comprehensive energy bill.

"I don't think we have a shortage of natural gas in North America," he said. "We have a shortage of available natural gas. We're not drilling and developing at the rate we should. We have an access problem for environmental and political reasons."

Demand for natural gas surged during the 1990s when it became the overwhelming choice for new electric generation.

Smoak said electric utilities need to return to using coal and add high-quality scrubbers and pollution control equipment in the next two to three years to give the gas industry a reprieve.

For the long term, Smoak lobbies for building an Alaskan pipeline and for new LNG terminals.

The bipartisan commission, in its discussion paper, said recent discussions have focused on providing federal tax incentives to support the pipeline construction.
http://www.roanoke.com/business/11443.html

Despite a nationwide increase in sulfur dioxide emissions in 2003, overall air pollution continued to decline in the Southeast during 2003, federal regulators said today.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that emissions of six major air pollutants fell during 2003 to their lowest levels in a generation. Over the past two decades, aggregate emissions of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and lead are down 28 percent from 51 million tons in 1985 to 37 million tons in 2003.

"The region’s air is the cleanest ever in three decades," EPA spokesman Carl Terry said.

EPA said sulfur dioxide emissions, which are down 38 percent from 1980, rose 4 percent during 2003 because of the rise in coal-fired and oil-fired power generator usage. Higher natural gas prices encouraged more utilities and industry to burn the sulfur-causing fuels than the cleaner-burning gas last year.

But the Tennessee Valley Authority continued to limit its sulfur dioxide and other emissions, according to environmental director John Shipp.

"The air is getting cleaner in the Southeast and we believe that we are leading that effort at TVA," he said.

TVA has cut its sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions by 75 percent since the peak reached in 1976, and sulfur dioxide emissions should ultimately be cut by at least 90 percent with the addition of more scrubbers on many of TVA’s 11 coal plants, Mr. Shipp said. TVA is in the midst of $5.6 billion, 20-year effort to reduce air pollution from its aging coal plants.

Environmentalists agreed Tuesday that progress is being made, but they still pushed for more efforts to limit toxic chemicals in the air.

"There’s no doubt that we’re seeing improvements in the air and significant reductions are being made in sulfur dioxide and other emissions," said Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "But while we’re making progress, we still don’t have healthy air in many counties in Tennessee. We need to do more, and frankly the Bush administration has only continued the steps begun in the past, not pushed for more progress."

Dr. Smith said EPA should adopt limits on carbon dioxide, which is linked with global warming, and on mercury, which causes a variety health problems for many people.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has talked the talk about helping to clean up the environment. Now TVA Director Bill Baxter says the agency is ready to walk the walk.

The three-member TVA board approved a rate increase last year that will generate $365 million this fiscal year alone toward installing the latest clean air technology at its coal-fired plants over the next 10 years.

"We're so serious about air quality, that we're willing to do that," Baxter said of the environmental investment to members of the Times-News editorial board.

According to TVA, the net result of the rate increase was an average 7.4 percent increase in wholesale residential and non-manufacturing rates, and a 2 percent decrease for large manufacturers. The agreement with power distributors was to use the money from the rate changes for clean air improvements, according to TVA.

Baxter said people who contend you cannot clean up the environment and have a prosperous economy at the same time are just flat wrong.

"They've got some other agenda they are pushing if they are taking that position," Baxter pointed out. "There are some people on one side who say ‘The only way you can clean up the environment is to slow the economy.' The other people say ‘Full speed ahead. All I want is business investment and smokestacks.'

"TVA power generation is up significantly in the last 25 years. With all that additional economic activity, you would think pollution would be up. It's not. It's down. You don't have to sacrifice the environment to grow economically. That's really TVA's big challenge in this area, is to find that balance."

Baxter said the new investment will keep TVA in compliance with federal clean air standards, but the agency knows more improvement will be mandated.

TVA's emissions continue to be a challenge, especially since the federal government said last April that about 475 of the nation's 3,000 counties fail to meet air quality standards, including Sullivan and Hawkins counties in Northeast Tennessee.

"The real problem with air standards, the challenges come in heavily populated urban areas," Baxter said. "You have a combination of emissions, maybe from coal plants like TVA, but also from our beloved automobile and trucks. ... I'm not going to belittle the challenge. We have a challenge and we need to meet it, if for no reason, because our economic prosperity depends on complying with these as well."

The trends regarding the secondary pollutant ozone are positive, Baxter noted.

"The reason is the weather," he explained. "When the air is hot and stagnant, the ozone goes up. When it's cooler and breezy, it goes down. This year, we've had a lot more cooler and breezy than hot and stagnant. This may be the best year on record."

Baxter showed a pie chart indicating that TVA's emissions of the pollutant nitrogen oxide will be more than cut in half by 2007.

"When we finish our improvement program, we will have reduced nitrogen oxide emissions at TVA by 75 percent," said Baxter. "That is huge progress."

TVA also is sensitive to improving air quality in the Great Smoky Mountains, Baxter stressed.

"That is a unique asset - not just an environmental asset but an economic asset to our region," Baxter said of the Smokies. "It would be a unintelligent thing for us to do to fowl the nest where we live, to degrade the very assets that are part of our quality of life as well as our economic prosperity."

To keep up with electricity demand during this environmental upgrade period, TVA will restart its Browns Ferry One Nuclear Plant in Northern Alabama by 2007 and continue to upgrade its existing hydroelectric dams.

"We need more electricity," said Baxter. "We have a wonderful problem in the valley. Our economy is growing 50 percent faster than the national average. That means people are going to need electricity. We also have that challenge of clean air. What's the best way to make that? Nuclear power. Zero emissions. No nitrogen oxide."

Aside from TVA's environmental strategy, Baxter indicated talk of deregulating the power industry in the halls of Congress in Washington continues to be just that - talk.

"Currently TVA has a monopoly in this geographic area - all the distributors buy all their power from us," he explained. "They can't buy from anybody else. There's a regulatory fence around the Tennessee valley. There's talk of taking that fence down so that other distributors, like Johnson City, Rogersville or Morristown could buy from AEP (American Electric Power) or Duke Power. ... That kind of business goes on every day in most other kinds of industries. In wholesale electricity, that's not been the case. I'm a private sector guy. I believe in competition.

"But the wholesale electric business is a natural geographic monopoly because of the huge capital investments that have to be made in generation plants and transmission. The physics of the electricity business are such that you can only push that electricity so far through the wire until it's gone."

Only a handful of municipalities in the Tennessee valley receive electricity from a supplier other than TVA. Kingsport is one of those, and receives its power from AEP.

TVA is the nation's largest public power producer and is completely self-financed. TVA provides power to large industries and 158 power distributors that serve 8.3 million consumers in seven southeastern states. For more information about TVA go to www.tva.gov.

GATLINBURG, Tenn. — After months of planning, two alternative-fueled shuttle buses were added Tuesday to this Great Smoky Mountain tourist town’s transit fleet for a six-month demonstration.

Relatively quiet and pollution free, the hybrid buses run on electricity and propane. They will travel from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Pigeon Forge and around Gatlinburg beginning in October.

The 22-passenger vehicles are funded through a $152,000 grant from the Department of Energy and the National Park Service.

"This is an excellent example of how the park has been able to successfully partner with surrounding gateway communities and other agencies to take a proactive approach in addressing shared air quality and transportation issues," said Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmanson.

Made by EBus Inc. in California, the shuttles are decorated with images of green mountains and native black bears.

"There will be no mistaking these buses," Gatlinburg Mayor Jerry Hays said. "When visitors encounter the bus on the road, they will know that something out of the ordinary is occurring."

With 9 million visitors traveling to the Smokies annually, reducing traffic congestion and vehicle emissions is a top priority for the preserve on the Tennessee-North Carolina border and adjacent communities.

Air quality is the biggest challenge facing the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, according to Superintendent Dale A. Ditmanson.

He shared that assessment Thursday night with residents of Blount County's gateway community to the Park.

He met with about 30 people at Townsend Elementary School at a ``meet and greet'' sponsored by the Townsend City Commission.

Ditmanson said visibility Thursday from Mount LeConte was 155 miles. But that's not the norm, nowadays.

``The last two storms came through really cleaned it out. The last few days have been so clear.''

Usually the pollution limits the visibility severely.

Ditmanson said he does not know the exact percentage, but one-third of the air pollution is thought to be localized from vehicle and area industry, one-third is from all other traffic and the final one-third is from major industrial pollution that comes into the area on the winds from such places as Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta.

Townsend Mayor Kenny Myers told Ditmanson that since the 1960s it seems every superintendent the Park has had has ``been sent here on a mission.''

Some Townsend residents have stated that Ditmanson's mission is to bring mass transit to Cades Cove. Not so, according to the superintendent who took over the Smokies' helm in May.

``I have been given no marching orders. Some things are pretty clear that need to be resolved,'' Ditmanson said.

Cades Cove is a major issue facing the park. He said there are traffic issues and also the question of whether to keep the meadows open.

``Keeping the fields open is going to be done,'' Ditmanson said.

This will require that the mowing be continued.

``We need to keep getting public input and resolve some issues,'' he said. ``The more people that are involved in the process the better off we are.''

Elkmont is another issue. He said some people want the private housing within the Smokies -- turned over to the Park in the early 1990s when the leases were terminated -- to again be inhabited.

Myers told Ditmanson that ``I'm opposed to busing in Cades Cove,'' and asked if widening the Cades Cove Loop Road is ``out of the question.''

Ditmanson said there have been suggestions to add more pullouts so people could move out of the way of traffic.

``People see something (such as bear, deer or scenic vistas) and they stop. If we had pullouts they could get out of the way. I don't see two-laning the road. There are some limits on what to do with traffic. If you make it a big, wide road it won't feel the same. I think people want to keep it a narrow, winding road,'' the superintendent said.

Myers, whose father was a seasonal park ranger in the 1960s and 1970s, said: ``I always felt like the Park Service didn't like to see locals in the park. It used to be the Y (swimming area at the intersection of the River Road and Laurel Creek Road to Cades Cove) had probably 100 parking spaces at one time and now it is more like 20.

``The Park Service wants you to drive through and look at it but not use it,'' Myers said.

Ditmanson, who has been superintendent of the Smokies since May, did not reply to that statement.

When asked what Townsend can to help the National Park, Ditmanson said: ``I don't know that we have a request for Townsend. This community has such a pleasant feel over here. I like the biking trails for the community.''

The employment level at Oak Ridge's nuclear weapons plant should be steady for quite some time, according to one official.
"From now to 2010, there's plenty of work," said Randy Spickard, director of National Security Programs at the Y-12 National Security Complex. "Nobody needs to worry about any layoffs or anything like that."

Beyond 2010, that's where there's going to be some noticeable changes in the type of work and skills mix needed at Y-12, according to Spickard. Even so, he said employment levels should continue to be "reasonably steady," with some employees likely being shifted to different programs or areas of work.

"We've got a big job ahead of us in order to manage that changing skills set," Spickard said.

Not only will there be some changes to Y-12's work, but the plant will continue to take on a new look as part of a modernization and infrastructure reduction program. Already trimmed down, the plant's active footprint will decrease from about 5.3 million square feet this year to 3.1 million square feet in 2013.

To date, Y-12 has demolished or removed 195 structures totaling more than 650,000 square feet. Several new facilities are in various planning or development stages, including a manufacturing facility to recycle and purify non-nuclear materials as well as a storage facility for weapons-useable uranium.

Y-12 produces and refurbishes weapons components, and the facility is also the nation's principal storehouse for highly enriched uranium. The federal plant, which is managed by

BWXT Y-12, is also involved in efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In an effort to enhance security at the plant's facilities, BWXT Y-12 has eliminated the use of 500 keys. In fact, Mike Monnett, Y-12's public affairs manager, said "advanced technologies" have resulted in the number of so-called "security keys" being whittled down to 10, with those expected to disappear soon.

Somewhere between 200 to 250 keys turned up missing from Y-12 last year, and a couple of other Department of Energy-related facilities experienced a similar problem. In May, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham launched a series of initiatives, including the implementation of a keyless security environment, in an effort to boost security.

"We not only fixed the problem, but we took that problem and made sure that it couldn't happen again," Monnett said.

Y-12's employment levels, modernization effort and security changes were all topics of discussion during a large-scale staff Thursday afternoon at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. About 3,000 plant employees attended the meeting, according to Monnett.

On Tuesday, it came tumbling down, at least in part, as contractors began a demolition project at the Y-12 National Security Complex. It is part of the government's plan to modernize Y-12 and prepare for nuclear defense work in the 21st century.

Building 9704-2 was the last survivor among the great H-shaped office structures built here during the World War II Manhattan Project.

For most of its lifetime, the 43,650-square-foot building housed top managers at Y-12, which produced parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. The wood-frame building was vacated earlier this year. Executives took refuge in temporary quarters until a new three-story, U-shaped office complex is constructed just up the hill.

The administration building was an integral part of the warhead plant's industrial landscape and a piece of nuclear history, and some folks will surely miss it.

"There is a sort of sadness," said Ray Smith, who's worked at Y-12 for the past 34 years. "It's in the center of the plant, and people see it every day. It's the largest building we've taken down (during the modernization program).

"The thing that tempers that is conversation about the new building. Everybody is excited about the new office space, and they realize that the old building had served its usefulness."

Building 9704-2 was constructed in 1943-44. During the Manhattan Project, Y-12 was a uranium-enrichment plant. It produced quantities of fissile U-235 for the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima , Japan , helping bring World War II to a close.

The building was not the main administration building during the war years. That role was held by a sister building, 9704-1, but it became Y-12's management base a decade later, as the Cold War became a long-term reality and the Oak Ridge plant started manufacturing bomb parts.

In 1964, the building took on additional significance when the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corp., which later became Union Carbide, consolidated its Oak Ridge management team at Y-12. The government contractor also managed Oak Ridge National Laboratory, K-25 uranium-enrichment plant and another uranium facility at Paducah , Ky.

"That's when the activity at Y-12 was so intense," Smith said.

By moving the management team to Y-12, Union Carbide could put more emphasis on the work there -- going gangbusters in the Cold War environment -- and put the corporate managers closer to the Atomic Energy Commission's office complex in downtown Oak Ridge .

Officials plan to remove bits of history from 9704-2, including brass push-bars from the entrance doors and handrails from the interior stairways, and incorporate them into the new office complex that's planned nearby.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced today that Vanderbilt has joined the laboratory's "core universities." ORNL's core universities - which now number seven - assume a scientific leadership role in working with the laboratory to help shape the research agenda for more than one billion dollars in science and technology programs.

ORNL Director Jeff Wadsworth said Vanderbilt's membership in the core universities honors an invitation made four years ago when UT-Battelle became the laboratory's managing contractor for the Department of Energy. UT-Battelle is a partnership between the University of Tennessee and Battelle, a research and development firm headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

"Vanderbilt is an outstanding addition to our core universities," said ORNL Director Jeff Wadsworth. "The school's superb capabilities, particularly in the area of medical research, are ideally suited to ORNL's emerging programs in genomics and the biosciences."

Vanderbilt joins Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech as part of ORNL's core university arrangement with Oak Ridge Associated Universities. Along with the University of Tennessee, ORNL engages with ORAU and the core universities in a variety of ways. Joint faculty appointments, for example, enable a university faculty member to conduct research at the laboratory for extended amounts of time, with costs shared by the two institutions. The core universities also support the laboratory in the development of major new science initiatives and provide leadership in expanding university interaction with ORNL across the broader academic research community.

Wadsworth said he does not anticipate further additions to the core university group "in the foreseeable future."

Chancellor Gordon Gee said, "We are delighted to be a part of the most exciting and important science initiative in the country, and a significant engine for economic activity in Tennessee. This relationship will add a whole new dimension to our research and teaching activities. Along with the biosciences, Vanderbilt's work in the basic sciences, engineering and technology will benefit immensely."

Vanderbilt has a long record of partnership with ORNL, most notably in the physical sciences. Vanderbilt was the driving force with the University of Tennessee in the establishment in the 1980s of ORNL's Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research. The institute is serving as the model for three additional joint institutes currently being established at the laboratory, which is currently midway though a $1.7 billion construction program that includes a new Center for Computational Sciences, the Spallation Neutron Source, the Center for Nanophase Materials Science, a new facility for advanced microscopy and a new laboratory for ORNL's renowned mutant mouse colony.

ORNL also has a close working relationship with Oak Ridge Associated Universities, a consortium of 91 major research institutions.

The vehicle is being built for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by ATK GASL of Tullahoma, Tenn.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the Senate Appropriations Committee earmarked funding for the ongoing X-43 program in a bill funding NASA and other agencies including the Veterans Administration.

"Support for this project is based on the demonstrated success of Tullahoma’s groundbreaking research on hypersonic flight," Sen. Frist said in a statement.

Sen. Alexander said it is "important that we build upon the success of the X-43A program, continuing critical technologicaltech - tech- nological advancements to meet our national needs."

ATKATK-AT GASLGASLK - K- G A SL is building the test vehicle in Tullahoma while the craft’s engine is manufactured at the company’s New York facility, according to Lowell Keel, the contractor’s program manager.

The 12-foot, unmanned X-43A traveled at speeds of nearly Mach 7, or seven times the speed of sound, last March. The nearly 5,000 mph pace won the craft a place in the Guinness Book of WorldWo Records.rl d Re cords.

Mr. Keel said plans are to push it to Mach 10, or nearly 7,2007,2007, mph,mph2 00 mph soon, soon as researchers work to develop hypersonic airplanes as well as reusable launch vehicles for space travel.

Mr. Keel said NASA has issued a "stop order" on ATK GASL’s contract to develop the X-43C, the next generation of "scramjet" aircraft in NASA’s Hyper-X program. A scramjet is a supersonic combustion ramjet.

"it’s certainly a step in the right direction, and it gives us hope," Mr. Keel said.

He said the X-43C craft would travel at speeds of between Mach 5 to Mach 7 for four to five minutes. The X-43 A’s flight lasts about 11 seconds.

After a recent visit to the graduate school and research center, the commander said he "looks forward to making our partnership with UTSI work better for all concerned."

Dr. David Elrod, general manager of Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA), prime AEDC contractor, joined Stringer in touring the Space Institute.

Dr. John E. Caruthers, UT associate vice president and UTSI's chief operating officer, said, "We were happy to show off some of our research, which we thought had some bearing on AEDC technology needs.

General Stringer immediately picked up on, not only these, but other research for which he saw applications here and elsewhere in the Air Force. There is a lot to follow up on in the wake of his visit."

Three professors made presentations relating to their research projects before the guests toured the research labs.

Dr. Roy Schulz's topic was "Diagnostics Research and Development in Turbine Engine and Industrial Combustor Systems."

Dr. Joseph Majdalani focused on "Perspectives in Propulsion."

Dr. John Steinhoff, assisted by Nicholas Lynn, a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) and Aachen Fellow, gave a presentation on "Physics Based Simulation of Fluid Flow."

At the propulsion lab, Dr. Trevor Moeller discussed UTSI's continuing role as a member of the team led by General Atomics in developing magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators for power generation. The guests were shown the facility where some of the testing will take place.

Later, in the Center for Laser Application, Moeller discussed a new Nuclear Fission Electrical Power and Propulsion initiative and explained the workings of CLA's Pulsed Plasma Accelerator. He said the "advent of nuclear fission electrical power in space will usher in a new era of nuclear electric propulsion systems that will enable scientific and military missions previously unattainable."

In the Fluid Dynamics Lab, James Rossillon, a GRA from Chattanooga, and his professor, Dr. Ahmad Vakili, demonstrated their "Technology Investigation for Reducing Effects of Model and Support System Dynamics on Wind Tunnel Aerodynamic Data." After graduating from Notre Dame High School, Rossillon earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Tennessee Technological University, and is working toward a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. He now resides in Estill Springs.

Dr. Lloyd Davis discussed the pharmaceutical research using single molecule detection that he's conducting in CLA's Femto Lab.

The visitors were given a demonstration of Laser Induced Surface Improvement (LISI) by Fred Schwartz, who discussed numerous applications of the process in automotive and other industries. He noted that the process has been applied to lock mechanisms on trucks, eliminating the need for applying grease, which helps cut down pollution on the highways - a high priority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The committee working to ensure that Redstone Arsenal benefits from the next round of military base closures has a new weapon.

The Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee has launched a Web site, www.tvbrac.org, to show the Huntsville area's attributes to those who will decide next year which bases around the country will be closed, downsized or upsized. The federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission will make recommendations in 2005.

Via a series of links, "Redstone Delivers for the Nation" has information about the dozen or so communities in North Alabama and southern Tennessee that stand to gain from the arsenal's growth. In addition, the site gives such demographic facts as population, income, education levels and cost-of-living expenses.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jim Link, president of Teledyne Brown Engineering and co-chairman of the local BRAC committee, said consultants in Washington, D.C., suggested the committee launch the site.

"One of the greatest handicaps about the Huntsville area is that a lot of people out of Alabama don't know about us," Link said. "A lot of people in Alabama don't know about us."

Members of the BRAC commission, the group that will recommend which bases will lose or gain work, will do much of their research on the Internet, he said. The committee wants those people to have easy access to Huntsville's best numbers.

"We want to control the message."

In years past, BRAC has been a boon for Huntsville. The 1995 round brought more than 1,600 jobs and new work for Redstone.

The new Web site lists numbers city leaders are proud to tout, such as income and education levels higher than the national average, and housing costs lower than the national average.

In addition, the site gives an overview of the different offices and institutions doing work on the arsenal, from NASA to missile defense to the Ordnance Munitions and Electronics School. You can download a 176-page book about the arsenal and a copy of North Alabama's Answer Book, published by The Times. There's also a 14-minute video introduction to Redstone and a four-minute video of a flyover of the arsenal.

A "Headlines" link takes you to national stories mentioning Huntsville, including the city's rankings in Forbes, Expansion Management and Employment Review magazines.

"We look at BRAC as an opportunity to grow, while other (communities) are wringing their hands and sniveling about how devastated they'll be if a base closes," Link said.

"We don't want other communities to catch up with us."

The Web site is produced by the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce. You'll need Windows Media Player or RealPlayer to view the videos, and Power Point to see the slide presentation.

Business leaders and elected officials lobbied Independence Air on Wednesday, hoping to persuade the discount airline to provide service to Roanoke.

Independence, an offshoot from the United subsidiary Atlantic Coast Airlines, dismissed Roanoke in its first cut and started flying in and out of Greensboro, N.C., on Aug. 1, instead.

Earlier efforts among business leaders to woo AirTran Airways, another low-fare carrier, to Roanoke also failed when AirTran opted to service larger cities. AirTran even pulled out of Greensboro on Monday, saying it did not get enough business passengers. The problem, as AirTran explained, is that Greensboro passengers took advantage of the low fares but remained loyal to Delta, AirTran's main rival in that market.

Local officials said Wednesday's meeting did not guarantee that Independence will fly in and out of Roanoke, but said the meeting held lots of promise. Independence, if it decides to come to Roanoke, would fly to Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

Airport officials reiterated an offer to give Independence six months of free landing fees and waive terminal rental fees for three months. The airport commission would also participate in a cooperative advertising program with the airline; the commission would throw in up to $10,000.

The region, made up of 19 cities and counties, also would kick in $1 million of taxpayers' dollars for two years to advertise the new service, using TV, radio and newspapers. The bulk of the money would come from Roanoke and Roanoke County, said Richard Flora, chairman of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.

Flora attended the Wednesday meeting with Jim Wade, president of Advance Auto Parts; Charles Steger, Virginia Tech president; Darlene Burcham, Roanoke city manager; Nelson Harris, Roanoke's mayor; Larry Brown, the city's public information officer; Beth Doughty, president of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce; Jacqueline Shuck, the airport's executive director; and Jay Turner, chairman of the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission.

"We told them we felt like we had governmental support to help them and we believe we can generate ridership for them," Flora said.

Independence won't come this year, Flora said. But the airline could come in the spring. He said airport officials were impressed with the business community's aggressive campaign to get a low-fare carrier.

Getting a discount carrier is crucial to economic development because potential industries look at the cost of flying their employees, Flora added.

Harris said the presentation included such numbers as the 43,000 college students in the region and the 200,000 who visit Roanoke, annually, for conferences and conventions.

One concern that Independence had was what would happen when the existing airlines match Independence fares, which often happens once a low-fare carrier brings its prices to a new market. Harris said the team emphasized the community's willingness to support a low-fare carrier.

Independence asked the team to research what car passengers who drive from Roanoke to Washington, D.C., would be willing to pay for air travel.

The airline's spokesman, Rick DeLisi, did not directly address the discussions with Roanoke leaders, but said Independence talks to many officials from different cities regularly.

The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce has named four vice presidents who were cited for positioning the business group to carry out its economic development strategies.

"These four individuals plan and execute the Chamber’s key functions," said Tom Edd Wilson, the Chamber’s chief executive.

Named to the posts are Pat Bell, vice president for finance and chief of financial operations; Trevor Hamilton, vice president for economic development; Kristi Haulsee, vice president for member services; and J.Ed. Marston, vice president for marketing and communications.

"Each has played a critical role in positioning the Chamber to carry out a comprehensive strategy to increase prosperity in our region," said Mr. Wilson.

Ms. Bell joined the Chamber in 2003 as controller and chief financial officer. She previously had been director of financial administration at UnumProvident Corp. and a senior vice president of Volunteer Behavioral Health.

Mr. Hamilton came to the business group in 2002 after directing countywide economic development groups in North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio. He also served as a business development specialist for the Ohio Department of Development.

He said Chattanooga has a lot happening in terms of economic development and much untapped potential.

"We’ve really come a long way in the last couple of years in putting building blocks together," said Mr. Hamilton, who also is the Chamber’s chief economic development officer.

Ms. Haulsee was picked to direct the Chamber’s member services in the fall of 2002. Before that, she worked at the Kingsport, Tenn., chamber for more than five years.

"I truly believe in what the Chamber does," she said.

Mr. Marston joined the Chamber in 2002 as marketing and communications director. Prior to that, he directed marketing for a national training organization, managed community relations for an Atlanta-based nonprofit and worked as a newspaper reporter.

Mr. Marston said there is an organic change taking place in the business group as Mr. Wilson has assembled a new senior management team.

"Many of us were new at the Chamber, a few of us new to the community. He has created a situation where he had expectations for us. We’ve grown into these expectations," he said.

The Chamber, Hamilton County’s chief economic development group, is trying to help create 20,000 net new jobs over a four-year period. Officials are aiming to recruit 5,000 of those jobs from outside the Chattanooga region.

Chamber officials last week said Hamilton County’s job growth efforts are starting to show positive results with increases in employment and wages.

"We’re pointed in the right direction," said Mr. Wilson.

He said weekly wages in the Chattanooga area rose 4.2 percent last year compared to the national average of 2.7 percent.

Also, metropolitan Chattanooga picked up 2,000 net new jobs in the period, said Mr. Wilson.

Kenneth Cox, ATTI’s technology specialist and research engineer, has been appointed to the position of Director of ATTI. Jim Frierson, ATTI’s Director of Strategic Projects and the Board’s Vice-Chairman, will increase the amount of time he is dedicating to both ATTI and ASET.

Both appointments were approved during a special meeting of the ATTI Board of Directors. Additionally, Mr. Powell’s appointment was approved by the Chairman of the ASET Advisory Board, Dick Ziegler.

Mr. Powell, as Executive Director of ASET, will seek to identify and fund research projects in the transportation sector and to accelerate those projects toward a real-life demonstration. As ASET Executive Director, Mr. Powell will work closely with many of the leading technology organizations throughout the Tennessee Valley, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, Marshall Space Institute, and Virginia Tech.

The concept behind the Alliance for Secure Energy and Transportation grew out of a desire to leverage the Tennessee Valley Corridor’s vast technological resources to increase the development of real-world transportation technologies that reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and emissions associated with traditional fuel sources. The scope of technologies that ASET will seek to identify will include, but is not limited to, fuel sources, fuel distributors, vehicle applications, and transportation infrastructures.

“ASET has an opportunity to advance the technological expertise of the Tennessee Valley to the benefit of our entire nation”, said Congressman Zach Wamp, 3rd District – Tennessee. “Given Mr. Powell’s leadership and history with ATTI, I am confident that we will see ASET achieve its mission quickly and efficiently.”

Under Mr. Powell’s direction, ATTI has managed over $20 million in advanced transportation projects. He has demonstrated electric and hybrid-electric vehicles in over 100 cities throughout the United States and Canada. He has served as advanced transportation technology consultant to many countries throughout the world, including Iceland and China.

Recently, Mr. Powell returned from the People’s Republic of China where he participated in transportation planning related activities for the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. Invited by the Beijing Olympic Committee, he reviewed his activities during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was the Transportation Director. For 33 days, Mr. Powell supervised the largest electric vehicle system in history, which transported more than 2.1 million athletes, officials, volunteers and staff, and operated over 300,000 miles in the Olympic Village during the Games

Mr. Cox will assist Mr. Powell in fulfilling many of the duties currently performed by Mr. Powell as Executive Director of ATTI. In addition, Mr. Cox will continue to conduct research focused on emerging technologies in the electric, hybrid-electric and alternative fuel industry. Mr. Cox has over 10 years of experience in battery and electrical drive systems, covering a wide range of applications, including the offshore and gas industry, deep water salvage and recovery operations, and the electric and hybrid-electric industry.

“In making these two appointments, I believe we have made the best decision for the future of both ATTI and ASET” commented Steve Leach.


ABOUT THE ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE (ATTI)
A private, nonprofit organization, ATTI (formerly Electric Transit Vehicle Institute) promotes the advancement of electric, hybrid-electric and other clean transportation technologies that encourage a healthy environment and energy independence. The Institute helps educate the public about alternative fuels, assists transit systems to implement clean fleets, and coordinates clean vehicle demonstrations throughout North America. The Institute works closely with various cities in developing clean-fuel transit projects, including Louisville, Knoxville, Indianapolis, Miami Beach, and Tempe. ATTI also supports organizations such as East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition in educating the public about clean fuel technology.

ABOUT THE ALLIANCE FOR SECURE ENERGY AND TRANSPORTATION (ASET)
The Alliance for Secure Energy and Transportation (ASET) is a not-for-profit organization that identifies and promotes the development of and demand for clean transportation energy and energy independence through: funding research and development; demonstration of prototype transportation projects; and, initiatives that can be taken to the commercial marketplace.

ASET and ATTI share a common goal of reducing America’s dependency on foreign oil and reducing fuel emissions.

NASHVILLE — A new model that divides Tennessee into 10 economic zones shows that Southeast Tennessee trails state and national averages in economic indicators such as wages, educational attainment and job growth.

State officials unveiled the model at the 51st annual Governor’s Conference on Economic and Community Development, held Tuesday through today in Nashville.

Officials said they want to de-emphasize the traditional perspective of Tennessee with its three Grand Divisions and instead focus on the 10 economic regions.

"I don’t think this means we need 10 stars on the state flag, but it does show that so many of our opportunities don’t lie within counties or cities but within regional boundaries," Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber said.

Most of the 10 so-called Economic Growth Strategy Regions in the model surround the state’s larger cities: Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville and the Tri-Cities area of Kingsport, Bristol and Johnson City. Hamilton County is in the center of Region 6, which encompasses 11 Southeast Tennessee counties.

A report shows that Region 6 is the fourth-most populous of the 10 regions with 615,127 people. Its population growth of 14.6 percent between 1990 and 2003, however, has not kept pace with the statewide average growth of 20 percent for the same period. Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey, who was attending the conference in Nashville on Wednesday, said he believes the county is moving in the right direction.

"Some of the things we are doing are the things people here are touting as the things that ought to be done," Mr. Ramsey said. "Having the sites and infrastructure and a trainable work force, I’ve spent a lot of time on that. All of that works together, and that is what I’m hearing here."

But the report placed educational attainment in Region 6 and the state lower than the national averages.

About 76 percent of Tennesseans and 74 percent of Region 6 residents have high school diplomas, compared to the national average of 80 percent. About 17.7 percent of Region 6 residents have bachelor’s degrees, compared to a statewide average of 19.6 percent and a national average of 24.4 percent.

University of Tennessee economist Bill Fox, who created the model, said Tennessee’s relatively low educational achievement could have a dire effect on job growth. He said the state should emphasize the need for two-year college degrees in technical areas as a minimum requirement for educational attainment.

"The notion that you only need a high school diploma to get good jobs, that era is over," he said.

Dr. Fox said a more detailed analysis of educational attainment shows that in some areas of the state as much as 25 percent of the population hasn’t been schooled beyond the 9th grade. "That is really scary," he said. Lower education levels go hand-in-hand with lower wages, Dr. Fox said. Region 6 residents had per-capita income of $25,649 in 2001, compared with a statewide average of $26,808 and a national average of $30,257, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by the state study.

It also may have a negative impact on job growth. Between 1990 and 2003, employment in Region 6 grew by 10.1 percent, compared with the state average of 14.9 percent and the national average of 17.2 percent for the same period, the state study shows.

Mr. Kisber said the state’s major cities are the economic catalyst for much of the 10 regions’ growth.

"We have urban centers that provide a vast range of services from health care to education to retail services and entertainment," he said. "The services the consumer wants and needs, coupled with the access to ease of transportation, become predominant influences over what generates the regional boundaries."

Dr. Fox said it is "very important" that economic development strategies be structured and recognized for the unique characteristics of each part of the state.

"It’s not that 10 (regions) is important," he said. "It’s that we create economic regions where there is a synergy of economic growth."

Mr. Kisber said the 10-region model also could help communities in a particular region develop more efficient methods of providing services.

"Where communities recognize that and start working on a regional approach, they are going to be beneficiaries of not just the efficiencies but the leadership that comes with that," he said.

"Mechatronics" sounds like something your child might covet for Christmas. But this emerging employment cluster actually could play a role in the region's economic future.

Meanwhile, when compared with national averages, rally-around-the-flag sectors such as computer and information technology are sucking wind in the region now branded as NewVA. Most technology-oriented businesses that are emerging "tend to be concentrating in Blacksburg."

The region's banking sector has grown faster than the national average, but much of its related employment is in "back office" customer-service jobs vulnerable to outsourcing and off-shoring.

And the health care industry - the region's much ballyhooed sector and employer of about 11 percent of its work force - "is about as large as one might expect to find" in a region this size.

Points that beg a few questions.

What's "mechatronics?" What's NewVA? Is a "cluster" a treat you regret buying at a roadside candy factory in South Carolina or is it something else? And, finally, what's the source of these conclusions and why should anyone care?

Beginning with the last question first, the Fifth Planning District Regional Alliance released results last week of an "industry cluster analysis" conducted to identify which groupings of companies are most important to the region's future. The alliance hopes the analysis will help guide economic development groups, government officials and other policymakers as they wrestle with a regional economy in transition from a railroad and manufacturing hub.

And the region analyzed was NewVA - a "brand" coined earlier this year to raise the profile and boost a sense of regional identity for the part of Virginia that includes the Roanoke and New River valleys, the Alleghany Highlands and Franklin County.
The study cost about $35,000, with the bulk of that paid by the Fifth Planning District Regional Alliance. The cluster analysis was prepared by the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness and the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission.
As for clusters, according to Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, they "are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers and associated institutions in a particular field that are present in a nation or region."

Think Silicon Valley. Think Hollywood. One recent example of interconnected companies in the region is the relationship between NewVA newcomers Integrity Windows and Doors and a major supplier, Cardinal Glass.

Universities and work-force training centers play important roles in most successful clusters, providing access to ideas, spinoff companies that emerge from university research and savvy employees.

The analysis of regional clusters relied on jobs data from the Virginia Employment Commission, Standard Industrial Classification codes, input from a panel of clusters experts, software-guided economic modeling and interviews with NewVA businesspeople.
Clusters were deemed important to the region according to the number of people they employ, their relative concentration in the regional economy, and their wages. Researchers calculated a "location quotient" that compares the proportion of regional employment in a cluster with a similar measure of the national economy's employment in that cluster. High location quotients can suggest a competitive advantage.

"Ideally, you'd like to target the companies in clusters that have high location quotients and are growing," said Victor Iannello, president of Synchrony, vice president of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership and chairman of the Fifth Planning District Regional Alliance.

The study identified eight basic or emerging industry groups important to the region's economic base.

Which brings us back to mechatronics - which is one of the eight.

First coined in the late 1960s by a Japanese engineer, the term refers to a branch of engineering whose focus is combined mechanical, electrical and software systems. Mechatronics can play a key role in applications that range from planetary rovers to autofocus cameras to triggers for air bags.

Iannello said regional companies that might fall in the mechatronics classification are GE Energy and Synchrony in the Roanoke Valley and Kollmorgen Corp. in the New River Valley.

According to the clusters analysis, although mechatronics employs only 2,777 of the region's work force of some 228,000 people, "it is so highly concentrated that it has the potential to become a major economic driver in the years to come." The study found mechatronics also seems to be coalescing in the Blacksburg metropolitan statistical area, noting, "No doubt this industry group is drawn to the resources of Virginia Tech's engineering research and teaching."

An opto-electronics cluster also got regional high marks for good wages and decent growth. Cluster members would include, among others, ITT Night Vision, Optical Cable Corp., the Spectacle Lens Group and Luna Innovations.

The remaining five "basic or emerging" industry groups identified were: motor vehicle related manufacturing; research, development and technical design; hospitals, labs and specialized medical services; pharmaceuticals; securities and insurance; and primary metals.

Other findings:
The higher education cluster suffered because of cutbacks in state spending.

Growth in health care and business services has been strong, but that growth tends to reflect national trends rather than a regional competitive advantage.

Many rural clusters are manufacturing related and face challenges from technological change and globalization.
The region's information technology and computer technology sectors continue to struggle to create a critical mass of firms and market presence.

The Roanoke Higher Education Center is an important resource for work-force development.
Gaps in local air service and high fares were identified as impediments to growth.

Manufacturing in this country needs a revolution and the revolution must rise from the shop floor.

"Open-book" management guru and manufacturing entrepreneur Jack Stack talked about this need for revolution Wednesday during separate on-site visits with employees of GE Energy and Graham-White Manufacturing in Salem. He advocated educating each and every worker about basic concepts of business finance, about engaging them in business decisions, about seeking their advice and rewarding them financially.

American manufacturers reeling from the effects of foreign competition can't count on government to bail them out with subsidies or tariffs, he said. Instead, they must court and embrace innovation, diversify, find ways to sell expertise as well as manufactured goods and identify "out-sourcing" opportunities with original equipment manufacturers.

Employees can be key sources of innovative ideas and any financial rewards they share ultimately benefit their families, their schools and communities, he said.

"I really believe that if you're going to change the world, the revolution is going to happen on the shop floor," Stack said.
Later, he refined those remarks, saying he'd excise the word "shop" because it's too limiting. The employee-empowerment revolution can begin also from the floor up for retailers such as Target or Sears, he said, and for businesses of all kinds.
"It's got to start with us," he said.

Stack, 55, is chief executive officer of SRC Holdings Corp. In 1983, he and other supervisors and managers purchased the factory where they worked in Springfield, Mo., and conquered debt and risk to become a steadily profitable, multimillion-dollar enterprise. Along the way, Stack learned how important it is for employees to share a sense of ownership and know details about their employer's financial profile.

Before Stack and colleagues bought the Springfield plant from a financially struggling International Harvester, he'd been unable as plant manager to answer fundamental but profound questions from the 350 workers he supervised who were worried about job security.

"The saddest thing was that I could never answer the questions they asked, like 'Should I get married?' or 'Should I buy a house?' or 'Should I start a family?'"

Stack said he learned for the first time about key financial measures while writing more than 50 business plans trying to secure financing to buy the Springfield plant from International Harvester.

"Every time I tried to borrow money I learned that there's a whole report card out there they'd never shown me. [International Harvester] never gave me the specifications to build a company," he said.

"I promised myself and God that if I ever got this company I would teach [employees] everything I learned doing these 54 business plans," he said.

"As I began to teach them, they began to teach me."

In Japan, Stack said, a common slogan among business executives was "who knows a job better than the person doing the job." And a person doing a job is more likely to share his or her knowledge and ideas when they have both a financial and emotional stake in the company they work for, he said.

On Wednesday, Stack told a small crowd at GE Energy how a conversation with a shop floor janitor at Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. helped the company develop a strategy and new business to adjust to predictable dips in the demand for diesel engines. He said feedback from a woman in charge of a specific part in the remanufacturing process helped him see the potential to spin off a separate business.

During Stack's talk at GE he used self-deprecating humor to downplay his own contributions to the success of Springfield Remanufacturing and, later, SRC Holdings Corp. When Springfield Remanufacturing was a debt-saddled startup, he said, workers were hungry for leadership.

"They would have followed anybody. They would have followed Dilbert to the altar," he said.

Stack came to Roanoke to share his ideas about leadership. He was invited by the New Century Technology Council and its Forum for Advanced Manufacturing, or FAME, and by the Management Institute at Roanoke College. Sponsors included GE, Graham-White, Metalsa and Optical Cable Corp. and Stack visited each before a speech Wednesday night at Roanoke College.

So, who manages SRC Holdings Corp. when Stack travels, consults and speaks? He just recently returned from Europe.
"I have really good people. People with a lot of passion, a lot of ownership. And CEOs can be a big impediment."
Stack said he supports the regional work of FAME and similar efforts elsewhere to rally manufacturing without "waiting for government to fix things."

He said many American manufacturers can survive globalization if they are flexible, diversified, responsive to customers, focused on quality and sensitive to pricing. He told Jim Frantz, president of Graham-White Manufacturing, that he admired the company's efforts to diversify its product line and customer base.

But during a presidential campaign where candidates posture about helping domestic manufacturing, employers and employees need to recognize, he said, that "it's going to be a tough haul" - with American manufacturers facing significant labor and overhead costs that don't burden manufacturers in developing countries.

"We need to be much more flexible than we've ever been."

The new $55 million Roanoke-New River Valley Investment offers a promising economic development tool for the Blue Ridge Region to the region and it does so with no government involvement. Carilion Health System and the private Virginia Tech Foundation have promised $5 million each to the fund and fund manager Third Security of Radford has pitched in $2 million.

Another $43 million comes from unidentified members of of the Valleys Investment Consortium. Among the members of the consortium are Canaan Partners of Connecticut; CMS Companies of Philadelphia; Greer Capital Advisors of Alabama; Harbert Venture Partners of Richmond; and Winston Partners Group of McLean.

Says Carilion President and CEO Ed Murphy, "Both Carilion and the Virginia Tech Foundation invest in private equity funds that provide returns for our long-term needs, but do nothing to stimulate economic development in the region. By creating a fund that will invest in companies operating in our region, we will stimulate additional economic activity and job creation."

Murphy emphasizes that the investment funds being used here by Carilion have nothing to do with the health care system's operating funds. They are funds "that we are transferring in order to stimulate growth in this region."

Murphy also emphasizes that the fund is not "a be-all, end all. But we will have a readily-available fund that is part of the [economic development] mix."

Indeed. The money will be used for both Blue Ridge-based startups and to help entice national companies that see possibilities in this region.

R.J. Kirk of Third Securities stresses that his company helped build a $200 million business in rural Bland County "with no readily available source of venture capital,"and that "prospects for entrepreneurs in the region should be significantly enhanced . our job is to help entrepreneurs make money." Kirk's company has 60 employees and manages $800 million, little of it in the Blue Ridge Region, he says. "We have portfolios from the Netherlands to the Silicon Valley," and "this fund represents an investment opportunity for us" closer to home.

Gov. Mark Warner, himself an investment capitalist in real life, says the consortium will "put its money where its mouth is" using "a model that, when successful you will see implemented nationally. This is critical to the long-term future of the New River Valley and the Roanoke Valley . [In a few years] we will look back on this as one of those watershed events" that helped develop the region's economy."

In other developments:

* Volvo Trucks North America plans to recall 300 workers, adding a second shift at its Dublin plant, in order to increase production from 73 to 112 VN trucks a day. It will maintain levels of six vocational heavy duty trucks a day and 36 Mack trucks a day. The call-back should begin in late March or early April, officials say.

Volvo, which will have 2,500 workers with the callback, recalled 400 employees a year ago, doubling production on Mack and Volvo products.

* RBX Corporation and its subsidiary RBX Industries has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Western District in Roanoke. The company has announced closing plants in Bedford, Arkansas and Georgia and hopes to save operations in Buchanan and in North Carolina and Illinois.

The company manufactures closed cell rubber and plastic foam materials used in industrial and consumer applications.

Come November, if U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, is elected to another two-year term in the U.S. House (and it looks as though he will be), it will lay the groundwork for a total of 16 years in Congress. And in recent years, the community has begun to recognize Cramer's contributions to the city and the 5th Congressional District as a whole.

The latest honor came this week when a $30-million, 200,000-square-foot complex in Research Park - the National Space Science and Technology Center - was named Robert "Bud" Cramer Research Hall.

The name reflects more than Cramer's role in helping the facility become a reality. It reflects, too, his tireless efforts in the 1990s to keep both the National Weather Service office here and to ensure that a modern Nexrad radar was placed in Madison County.

Cramer's advocacy stopped the weather service from closing the local office and from relying on a radar installation south and west of Birmingham to warn this community of dangerous weather. The weather office will stay - and in the complex named for its most vocal champion.

There's more, of course. Cramer long lobbied for the National Children's Advocacy Center to be located here, and it is. And that, too, now bears his name, as does a city park being planned next to it.

And all of these only touch the surface of Cramer's constant attention to the important defense and aerospace work that goes on at Redstone Arsenal, Marshall Space Flight Center and in the community as a whole.

Cramer has worked for his city, but he has not neglected the needs of specific individuals when they have asked for his assistance. Officially a Democrat, Cramer has consistently voted both his convictions and the interests of his district.

At some point, Bud Cramer will no longer be our congressman. But his legacy will have more than one tangible reminder in his hometown.

Gov. Bob Riley joined Toyota executives and community leaders Friday in Montgomery to announce a $250 million expansion that will add 300 jobs at the plant. The expansion, which will supply V-8 engines for Toyota plants in Indiana and San Antonio, marks the Huntsville facility's second in a little more than a year.

Toyota decided to build in Huntsville just three and a half years ago.

When both expansions are fully operational in 2006, Huntsville's Toyota plant will employ 800 workers and churn out 400,000 V-8 and V-6 engines a year. Initial employment was 350. The first expansion adding the V-6 line called for 150 additional workers.
"Toyota is proud to be building the heart of the Tundra right here in Alabama, and the additional engine capacity announced today will be built to the same dedication to quality as our current V-8 and the upcoming V-6," said Haruaki Hoshino, president of the Huntsville Toyota plant. Hoshino said the company's total investment in Huntsville will be nearly $500 million.

Riley said the back-to-back expansions, coupled with the growing presence of other automotive manufacturers and suppliers in Alabama, underscores the caliber of the state's work force and the confidence company executives have in Alabama.
"Alabama truly is on the right track," he said in a news conference at the state Capitol.

Mayor Loretta Spencer, area congressional leaders, local chamber officials, Madison County Commission Chairman Mike Gillespie, state Rep. Laura Hall of Huntsville and others joined Riley for Friday's announcement.

Spencer said Huntsville's investment in the North Huntsville Industrial Park paid off when Toyota committed in February 2001 to be its first tenant.

"Who came along but the greatest?" she said.

Since May 2003, Toyota has been supplying V-8 engines for the Tundra full-size pickup produced in Indiana. The expansion announced Friday will help supply Tundras and Sequoia sport utility vehicles produced in Indiana and Tundras that will be produced at a Toyota plant under construction in San Antonio. The V-6 engines should roll off Huntsville assembly lines next August. The latest expansion should turn out additional engines in 2006.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, applauded Toyota's expansion decision and praised Huntsville for being a "bright spot" in Alabama. "You've lifted our boat a lot of times," he told Huntsville leaders. Sessions said the deal proves there are benefits to globalization.

"It's a good day for all of us," said U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville.

Brian Hilson, president and chief executive officer of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, said the economic impact of the Toyota announcement is "substantial." The extra property tax revenue for Huntsville schools alone - as a direct result of this latest investment from Toyota, beginning with the first year of operation - is an estimated $855,000 a year, he said. The Toyota plant overall will provide an estimated $1.7 million a year in taxes for city schools.

With the plant's multiplier effect, the 300 new jobs should create an additional 192 jobs in the county, with 75 percent of those in Huntsville, Hilson said.

"It's great for our community to grow and grow in the right way," he said. "These are great jobs."

Construction of the expansion should begin early next year, said Dennis Cuneo, senior vice president of Toyota of North America.

State officials also praised Toyota for its generosity in helping hurricane victims. The automaker recently gave $1.5 million to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief efforts.

First launched in 1995 by U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, the summits have garnered a great deal of participation from businesses, researchers and others located in the Tennessee Valley Corridor, which runs from North Alabama through East Tennessee into Southwest Virginia.

For additional information on the Tennessee Valley Corridor 2004 Summit, go to www.tennvalleycorridor.org
The non-profit regional technology and economic development organization that bears the same name as the corridor recently named six new multi-regional board members to help lead the nationally honored entity. According to a news release, the new members are as follows:

* Ewell Balltrip - executive director of the National Institute of Hometown Security in Somerset, Ky.;
* Dale Ditmanson - superintendent for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park;
* Paul Montgomery - director of communications and public affairs for Eastman Chemical Co. in Kingsport;
* John O'Neil - former administrator at Virginia Tech and now part of the National Security Directorate at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. O'Neil was appointed by Congressman Rick Boucher to represent Virginia's 9th Congressional District;
* Tom Rogers, president and chief executive officer of Oak Ridge-based Technology 2020;
* Fred Tompkins, interim vice president for research, at the University of Tennessee and president of UT's Research Foundation;
* Dave Whitfield, director of the SimCenter at UT Chattanooga.

The board of directors is comprised of key community, business, education and government leaders from Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky and Virginia.
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The leaders of some of the most promising growth companies in the region began pitching their business plans to venture capitalists Thursday, trying to sign up investors during the Tennessee Valley Venture Forum in Chattanooga.

One of the presenters Thursday was eager for more than just signatures from investors, however. Chattanooga-based Signix is looking to capture more than 60 million signatures over the next couple of years.

Signix, a subsidiary of the money management firm of ProNVest, allows people to "sign" documents on a computer or via the telephone from anywhere in the world. The company uses a 57-step authentication process to verify in less than 60 seconds the identity of an individual facing any keyboard, and it stores the signature in its secured computer files.

Bill Hiller, a former managing partner for Pilot Partners LLC who recently joined Signix as chief financial officer, predicts the company will grow dramatically with additional funding. In its presentation to prospective investors, Signix projects it will grow from about 10 customers and 350,000 electronic signatures this year to more than 400 customers and 60 million signatures by 2006. With such growth, Signix could become a $150 milliona-year company within two years.

"With more than 25 billion documents requiring a signature each year, electronic signature technology is clearly a multibillion-dollar market," Mr. Hiller said. "The portion most relevant to Signix, those transactions requiring a secure digital signature from an authenticated individual online or via a call center, represents a significant portion of this total."

Signix is currently in the midst of a 60-day test by major financial companies involved in the National Association of Variable Annuities, which includes such cooperate giants as Merrill Lynch, Nationwide Insurance and American Express. Signix was selected by NAVA for one of its lab simulations to evaluate the best approach to obtaining and hosting electronic signatures.

Signix President Pem Guerry said the NAVA test will help establish the credibility of the company’s core technology, expose the company to major customers and link Signix with other technology partners.

"The potential is huge for us," he said. "Signix has the unique ability to allow individuals to immediately close business either online, over the phone or face-to-face, eliminating that dangerous gap between the time you have your customers emotional commitment to purchase but you don’t have his contractual commitment."

Signix is looking for $3 million of equity investment from investors at this week’s Venture Forum. The Chattanooga firm is among 13 presenters at the conference at the Chattanooga Convention Center.

A record 28 venture capital and other investment firms are at the forum, which is organized by Tech 2020 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and sponsored, in part, by Chattanooga’s Enterprise Center.

Mayor Bob Corker, who helped bring the Tennessee Venture Forum to Chattanooga last year for the first time, said such programs demonstrate the changing business culture in Chattanooga.

"This city is on fire, and this type of forum reflects the growing interest among entrepreneurs and investors in coming here to do business," he said.

Mr. Corker said the city is considering ways it may use Signix technology to allow remote signatures of city documents.

"Nothing is signed yet, but we are very, very impressed with this technology," he said.

Fifteen companies gathered last week in Chattanooga for the Tennessee Valley Venture Forum. Among them was Protein Discovery, formerly known as Qgenics.
The Knoxville-based biotech company is in the midst of raising a $6 million-$10 million round of capital for its next stage of development. The company is working on a device to aid in drug discovery and diagnosis of disease.
But taking his company's technology to the next level isn't just about the money, said Chuck Witkowski, president and CEO of Protein Discovery.

As the company has pitched its deal to investors across the country, it has faced questions about its East Tennessee location from those most likely to invest in the firm.

Two issues have surfaced in recent weeks, Witkowski said. One is the lack of an available local talent pool - the scientists and researchers needed to bring the technology to prototype and marketable product stage.

Witkowski said local recruitment options include Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University, a fairly limited pool. Recruiting someone from the outside is time consuming, he said, taking months compared to weeks if the company were located in a more tech-concentrated environment such as the Research Triangle in North Carolina or Silicon Valley in California.

The other issue, he said, is a dearth of office space outfitted for a biotech firm's needs. That includes specialized power and plumbing systems and a fume hood for capturing and ventilating space where workers do their chemistry-driven work and research.

In places such as Silicon Valley, "there are dozens of these types of properties for lease that are already outfitted," Witkowski said. Here, it's slim pickings.

As for investors, "They want to put their money in the development of our technology, not to build buildings," he said.
Witkowski said he's approached the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership and spoken with state officials about getting some help in this regard, and "everyone we've spoken to has been really helpful." But money isn't growing on trees in cash-strapped Tennessee.

In Florida, Maryland and California, Witkowski said, "they have millions of dollars for every company in incentives and R&D funding, etcetera, so when you're competing with those companies (for venture capital) they clearly have a leg up."

Still, he's not planning a move yet. Being the only company in his market has its plusses, he said, because few other companies are competing for talent - making a recruit more likely to stay once Protein Discovery lands him - and because the company attracts more limelight than it would in a tech Mecca, where it would just be one more of a thousand wanna-be start-ups.

"It looks like we'll be able to solve (our problems) here," he said. "We've had great support from the community. You'd have to pay me a lot more to move me out there."

That's why more than 200 top leaders and investors gathered at the Chattanooga Convention Center Thursday and Friday to hear 13 emerging technology-based companies present their business plans at the 8th Annual Tennessee Valley Venture Forum.

"The slate of presenting companies this year was truly exceptional," said Tom Rogers, executive director of the host organization, Tech 2020, and the leader of the Tennessee Valley Corridor's entrepreneurial and venture capital initiative. "They all had strong, clear business plans, and I think we will see future success for a lot of these companies."

Many of the presenting companies from this year's event, as well as companies from the region's past forums, are marketing technologies that were discovered or refined at the region's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

Alex Fischer, director of technology transfer and commercialization for ORNL, spoke to that topic at a special luncheon Thursday for presenters, sponsors and venture investors.

"The Oak Ridge National Lab belongs to all of us," said Fischer. "The lab is not only helping start-up companies refine their technologies -- we are helping venture fund managers better understand new science and technology trends and opportunities. So far by using this method, ORNL has been able to help create 42 new companies within our region since April 2000."

This year's Venture Forum enjoyed record attendance by interested investors mining the Tennessee Valley Corridor for new business success stories.

"We had 28 investors at the forum this year; that's more than we have ever seen in the past," said Rogers. "I really think that speaks to the growing success of this event."

To aid presenting companies, a special Venture Capital panel convened Friday morning and featured: Don Mundie with Delta Capital Management; Chris Kyriopoulos with Clayton Associates, LLC; Dewey Hammond with Decomismo Corporate Finance; Ray Moncrief with Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. and Jim Millar with Battelle Ventures. The five VC leader's offered attendees and presenters an outline of the investment process and what companies can do to better position themselves to obtain venture funding.

Prize Corp. from Chattanooga; Protein Discovery Inc. from Knoxville; Signix Inc. from Chattanooga; and FFD Inc. from Knoxville; were among the Tennessee Valley Corridor businesses who presented at this year's forum.

Past Venture Forum presenters were also on hand to offer updates on their success. SmartFurniture.com, a company that presented their business plan at the 2003 Forum, recently announced they have received the funding needed to move their company to the next level. The Chattanooga-based company allows customers to design their own custom furniture online, and then builds and delivers that furniture to them at mass market prices. This is just one example of the kinds of innovative, tech-based business models emerging from the Tennessee Valley Corridor.

For more information about the Tennessee Valley Venture Forum, visit www.tvvf.biz. For more information about tapping into the Tennessee Valley Corridor's world-class research and development assets and the low-cost advantages of doing business in the region, visit www.tennvalleycorridor.org