June 2002

Mrs. Dorothy Grier of La Jolla, California donated $500,000 to the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation in the name of her late husband, Herbert E. Grier. Grier, a 1934 MIT graduate, co-founded EG&G Inc. in 1947 with Harold E. Edgerton and Kenneth J. Germeshausen.

Grier came to Las Vegas in 1953 to direct a group of EG&G scientists assigned by the Atomic Energy Commission to support its nuclear test operation at the Nevada Test Site. The company designed, built and operated the equipment that armed, timed, fired, photographed and acquired performance data on almost every nuclear test blast in the Pacific and Nevada.

In 1989, Herbert Grier was awarded the National Medal of Science by President George Bush.