Advanced Technology Center in Butte renamed for Sen. Mike Mansfield

Mansfield remembered for his work on job development

It has been said often that the late Sen. Mike Mansfield of Butte was a visionary for the state of Montana.

By Gerard O’Brien of The Montana Standard

His vision is now being carried forward at the site of the Advanced Technology Center in Butte’s industrial park. The center was named for Mansfield
Thursday morning by a host of digni taries — including Montana’s congressional delegation — and about 300 onlookers. A new sign sporting the
name will hang in the front of the building.

Mansfield obtained $5 mil lion in federal funding in 1974 which, in turn, created the now-named Mike Mansfield Advanced Technology Center. It
was at a time when Montana Tech (formerly the School of Mines and Mansfield’s alma mater) was about to be shut down by the state Board of
Regents.

According to Mansfield’s close friend, Stan Kimmit, when the news reached Mansfield’s office, the Senate majority leader had one char
acteristically brief question. “ Well, what can we do about it?”
With that, Mansfield shep herded legislation that creat ed the magnetohydrodynam ics research facility (MHD). The funding, in turn, helped save
Tech, because Tech became the engineering cen ter for research on the project.

As the years went on, the emphasis on the MHD project shifted to a broader range of environmental concerns and a host of research opportuni ties.
Today, MSE has a prover bial finger in just about every pie of opportunity that will benefit Butte and the state. It has projects in the works ranging
from cleaning up nuclear waste to hypersonic wind tunnels. It employs more than 200 engineers, sci entists, technicians and crafts people with an
annual payroll of $11.3 million. The average salary is $51,500.

“ This is truly a red letter day for Butte and the state of Montana,” said Don Peoples, president of MSE. “ We’re focusing on the future and looking
for opportunities wherever they will fit.”
Peoples noted that the cen ter is at the heart of a pro posed statewide aerospace authority board that hopes to bring more aerospace research to the
state. And, the center is building a “ Mariah II” hypersonic wind tunnel for use by NASA and the defense department.

“ This will be a unique world facility,” said Tom Best, of the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center of Tennessee. “ The wind
tunnel can replicate speeds from Mach 8 to Mach 15. It is a seven-year, $50 million research project with ties to other facilities across the country.”
Construction is slat ed to be under way this spring, Best said.

“ Butte will be the center of the universe for this technol ogy,” Peoples told the crowd. “ Our fundamental goal is to grow internally and create jobs
for Montana.”
Vince Tonc, president of MSE Technology Applications, also announced a new partnership with EDS Information Services, a national firm started
by Ross Perot that now employs 140,000.

“ This will create new information technology busi ness opportunities in Montana,” Tonc said. “ We plan to partner with the University of Montana
on this in the future.”

Pat O’Connor of Butte is one of the EDS directors out of its Bozeman office. While there will be a Butte office, the number of employees and payroll
have yet to be decid ed, O’Connor said.
Tonc also ticked off a host of other MSE projects that will come to fruition in the next three to five years.

“ Our vision is that within the next three to five years we will establish an engineer ing service that is the largest and best of its class in the Northern
Rocky Mountains,” Tonc said. “ We will also be the largest `stand alone’ provider of remediation technology services. And, we will continue to
increase our role as a provider of nuclear waste treatment technologies, especially in Asia.”

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