Thanks for your good work.
I once got to tour the plant that made the special electronics package for every U.S. nuclear submarine built, through the Ohio class. Very interesting.
On a side note, the manufacturing inside the building was far superior to the building itself. The building was put up in 1954. The exterior walls were tilt-up concrete slabs.
By the mid ‘80’s, the walls had begun tilting outwards. The building engineers stopped that by tying the slabs together with steel cables, and ratcheting in enough tension to bring the walls back to vertical. Of course, the obvious happened. The slabs began to tilt inwards. The engineers then anchored the walls to the ground outside with huge chains to stop the inwards tilt.
That must have worked, because the building survived the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 without damage.
The whole thing is moot, now. The company sold the building and 50 acres to a housing developer for many millions. The developer promptly built million dollar houses.
A portion of that building remains, though. The basement was built as a bomb shelter. 1954 and all, you know. The demolition crew could not demolish the basement walls by conventional means, and would have had to use explosives. This was in the middle of a residential area, and an elementary school was just across the street. I don’t think so.
They ended up by moving the plat around, to accommodate the walls remaining just under the surface.