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IN MEMORIAM: NUNZIO J. PALLADINO, 1916-1999
Fellow RADSAFER's ...
The following e-mail was distributed this
morning from NRC to State Liaison
Officers. I thought many of you might be
interested.
Jim Hardeman, Manager
Environmental Radiation Program
Environmental Protection Division
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
4244 International Parkway, Suite 114
Atlanta, GA 30354
(404) 362-2675 fax: (404) 362-2653
Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us
====================
Date: December 15, 1999
To: All NRC Employees
SUBJECT: IN MEMORIAM: NUNZIO J.
PALLADINO, 1916-1999
On Sunday evening, December 12, 1999,
former Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Chairman
Nunzio J. Palladino passed away at the
age of 83 after a long struggle with
Parkinson's disease.
At the time of his death, Dr. Palladino was
being treated at Centre Community
Hospital in State
College, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Palladino had a long and distinguished
career in public service, in academia, and
in the
nuclear industry. Born on November 10,
1916, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he
earned his
Bachelor and Masters degrees in
Mechanical Engineering at Lehigh
University in 1938 and
1939. Subsequently, he performed
graduate work at the University of
Tennessee and the
University of Pittsburgh. From 1939 to
1959, he worked for the Westinghouse
Electric
Corporation. During this period, he served
four years as an engineer on loan to the
Oak Ridge
and Argonne National Laboratories and
led the Westinghouse team that designed
the reactor
cores for the submarine Nautilus and the
first full-scale nuclear electric generating
plant at
Shippingport, Pennsylvania. In July 1959,
he came to The Pennsylvania State
University at the
request of the then Dean of the College of
Engineering, who wanted him to start a
nuclear
engineering department at Penn State. Dr.
Palladino served as Professor of Nuclear
Engineering
and was appointed Dean of the College of
Engineering in 1966. At about the same
time, Dr.
Palladino was selected by the Atomic
Energy Commission as a member of its
Advisory
Committee on Reactor Safeguards. He
served as a Committee member from
1964 to 1974, and
as ACRS Chairman in 1967. Dr. Palladino
was also active in the public service in his
home
state, serving on the Governor's Energy
Council and the Science Advisory
Committee, the
Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on
Atomic Energy Development and
Radiation Control, and
as member of the Governor's
Commission on Three Mile Island. He also
participated on a
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Special
Task Force on the TMI cleanup. In July
1981,
President Reagan named him the NRC
Chairman, a position he held from
1981-1986.
With Dr. Palladino's passing, the NRC has
lost one of its most distinguished elder
statesmen, and
the Nation has lost one of its true nuclear
pioneers. To those who knew him
personally, the loss
is far greater. By all accounts and in spite
of his many accomplishments, Dr.
Palladino remained
a warm, soft-spoken man who exhibited
the unusual combination of great learning,
common
sense, and respect for those with whom
he worked. At the NRC's 25th Anniversary
observance
next month, one place of honor will now be
vacant, and the agency as a whole will
miss his
counsel and wisdom long after the
celebration has faded in memory.
/s/
Richard A. Meserve
Chairman
!
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!
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