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Physics Grad is critical player in nuclear safety

C. Paul Robinson

By Sibley Fleming

C. Paul Robinson, a nuclear physicist and a graduate of Florida State, has devoted his life to the premise that technology can prevent war. 

At 60, Robinson leads an important U.S. company: Sandia National Laboratories. 

Sandia is an engineering and science laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.

Sandia focuses on the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons, limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the security and reliability of U.S. infrastructure and new threats to national security.

A high-profile example of Sandia's responsibilities is the coding system that assures that only the President can authorize a nuclear attack. 

"It's the most stressing part of my job and everybody else's here," Robin-son said.

Robinson got his Ph.D. in physics (specialty in nuclear physics) from FSU in 1967.

He says his FSU education prepared him for Sandia, and he gives credit to Bob Davis, his major professor, then leader of the Nuclear Research Center at FSU. 

Davis "found a way to engage his graduate students, and particularly me," Robinson said. "He called on me to help lead the research group, and I've been doing it the rest of my life."

Robinson was recruited by Los Alamos National Laboratory. There he became the chief test director and an intimate of extreme stress. 

There were "nuclear reactors about the size of your desk that we would heat up to white-hot temperatures that would glow like a light bulb," Robinson recalls. They could be cooled only with liquid hydrogen.

"Live through that-which I did-and nothing startles you."   

At the end of his tenure at Los Alamos, Robinson was in charge of nuclear weapons and national security programs. 

"It was a dream come true for a young nuclear physicist," he said. 

But he left Los Alamos for New York to work for Ebasco Electric Bond and Share Company, where he learned to work on international contracts.

In 1987, Robinson became ambassador to the U.S./USSR Nuclear Testing Talks.

In that job, he wrote two treaties that were adopted by the United States and the organization of former Soviet republics.

Then he went to Sandia.

"I've got the best job in the world," he said. "I'm working on problems that are not only important; they're crucial."

Besides being sure that only the President can plunge us into nuclear war, Sandia is protecting us against bio-terror.

One new Sandia technology, called "Lab on a Chip," detects the presence of biological or chemical agents.
The device will be affordable for hospitals, police and others in the first line of defense.

Sandia is also developing technologies to detect weapons development around the world and working with the former Soviet states to manage nuclear material safely.

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Copyright ©2002 Florida State Times