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FSU GRAD DISMANTLES SOVIET NUCLEAR WEAPONS
By Bayard Stern
Managing editor, Florida State Times
Steve Zolock enjoyed taking Russian language classes at Florida State - and now he is fluent by virtue of practice and necessity.
Zolock had to speak Russian in his U.S. Air Force career monitoring Soviet missile production. Today, Zolock, 54, still speaks Russian while helping to dismantle nuclear weapons, scrapping bombers and submarines, as well as launching satellites and recycling spent nuclear fuel.
Zolock, now a civilian, works for a firm that offers support services to the U.S. government and private companies operating in the former Soviet Union.
His year is divided among Kazakhstan, Belarus and Washington, D.C. Zolock gained experience with nuclear weapons and Russia while he was in the Air Force.
"I spent three years in and out of the Ural mountains next to a Russian ICBM factory that produced SS-25 ballistic missiles," he said. "I was in special operations for a long time. My final mission was in the treaty verification business. I was in the on-site inspection agency under the Department of Defense. Their responsibilities are to monitor the international treaties with the former Soviet Union."
The on-site inspection mission had two major parts: the monitoring and the inspection.
"I was involved in the monitoring side," Zolock said. "Basically as they (Russians) produced nuclear weapons, we would inspect those weapons to make sure that they were not banned by the treaty.
"For example, an SS-25 missile would come out of the plant on a rail car. It would then go into a huge warehouse area where we would look at it and also X-ray the second stage of the missile with a large X-ray machine. Our job was to make sure it was, or more accurately was not, something that was proscribed by the treaty.
"Under the treaty there were 30 Americans allowed in this location in the Urals. And reciprocally 30 Russians allowed at our site in Magna, Utah, where we produced missiles... The inspection side takes an aggressive approach to treaty enforcement.
"Within 24 hours notice, we would launch a seven-to-10-man team into a strategic weapons location and inspect it to make sure the treaty was being honored."
Born and raised in Pensacola, Zolock was an Asian-studies major at Florida State. He graduated in 1967.
"All my Russian language preparation began at FSU," Zolock said. "Dr. Elizabeth Pribic was my Russian instructor. I have fond memories of FSU."
After he graduated, Zolock took to the skies, following in the footsteps of his father, who was an Air Force officer.
"I went into the Air Force as a pilot," he said. "I spent a career in the Air Force in aviation and special operations. I flew 170 combat missions in Vietnam. And I flew C141 (cargo aircraft) and C-5s or the Galaxy, which at the time was the largest aircraft in the world... In '93 I retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel."
Just as Zolock's career was changing, so was Russia, and so was its military landscape. But Zolock and the former Soviet Union would continue to be involved with each other.
"I went to work for a company called Technology Management Company (TMC)," Zolock said. "Our headquarters is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and our operations office is here in Washington, D.C.
"We have offices registered in all four of what are called 'nuclear republics,' Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan. I'm the country manager for Belarus and Kazakhstan and all of central Asia. We have about 230 foreign employees on our staff over there and 11 Americans over here."
Technology Management Company's first client was the Chernobyl nuclear complex, where the catastrophic meltdown had occurred.
"They wanted help with safety analysis at the Chernobyl complex," Zolock said. "So from a small $30,000 contract from Ukraine, the company grew from there."
TMC usually works with the U.S. government in these countries, where Zolock supplies support and logistical services such as payroll, hiring nationals and translators.
"I like my job - it's about the best job I ever had," Zolock said. "In Kazakhstan I manage contracts we have with the U.S. Government in that country...We just signed a contract with a company called NAC out of Atlanta. They are responsible for probably 90 percent of all the spent nuclear fuel in the United States. They have a contract with the Department of Energy to move spent fuel from a nuclear plant in Kazakhstan to another (more secure) location.
"We provide drivers, interpreters, hotel reservations. We purchase equipment for them, and we act as payroll support to the local national hires over there. We're hiring four interpreters to work around the clock at this nuclear plant starting in October. We'll hire them, get them set up, make sure they're paid in accordance with national laws, provide tax advice and anything else that's needed. These are all things that companies don't want to worry about."
"There's a U.S. program called the Freedom Support Act," Zolock said. "It appropriates around $400 million a year to support these contracts. The vast majority of our funds come out of that. Their overall job is to build down the nuclear forces of the former Soviet Union and to boost the safety of their nuclear power plants and weapons storage. I think that's been very successful. We've destroyed almost all of their missile silos that were used for missiles that were eliminated by the treaty. We've destroyed thousands of nuclear missiles under that treaty over the last four or five years."
Zolock's company also helps to advance technology.
"We have other kinds of contracts," he said. "... We support some transportation projects around Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is part of Central Asia and is trying to free itself from Russian domination.
"There's a big project called the Silk Road. It's literally an east-west transportation route of rail and highways, which is being planned from China all the way to eastern Europe. In fact it will cover a lot of the same paths that Marco Polo traversed. It's quite a huge undertaking and we're on the very early edge of supporting that."
Zolock, busy as he is, is still involved with Florida State.
"I'm treasurer of the local Seminole Club of greater Washington, D.C., and a lifetime member of the Alumni Association," Zolock said. "I also have season football tickets and want to make it to the Florida game. "