Oly Olson
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
PO Box 999
Richland, WA 99352
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Biography
Mr. Omer Olson (Oly) is a Computer Aided Designer (CAD) with over 30 years of experience working for DOE contractors and privately owned engineering companies. Starting with Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) in 1977 as a board drafter, he was tasked with working on drawings for the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) reactor, using his machine design college training. In 1980, Oly was employed as a designer by a subcontractor to create isometric pipe spool drawings taken from data off A&E orthographic plant drawings. These were for process piping systems in the Turbine Generator building at the Washington Public Power Supply System Plant Number 1. Rehired back at WHC in 1982 as a designer following a massive WPPSS layoff, he was placed in the newly established Computer Aided Design (CAD) Group to learn to create CAD drawings on work stations, through on-the-job training and classroom instruction. Working at Hanford for thirteen more years, Oly earned experiences in the following disciplines; machine design, plant design layout, architectural and structural, mechanical, civil mapping, rebar and concrete layout, some piping/instrumentation and electrical drafting. In 1995, a Congressional federal funding cut caused a site wide layoff at ICF Kaiser Hanford, his employer. He then worked six years for off-site companies until Bechtel National (BN) hired him in 2001 as a Designer III. Oly was assigned to work on the Pretreatment Building design for the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) vitrification project. In 2004, laid off from BN, he found temporary jobs to tide him over until 2006.
One of his most interesting jobs, entailed work in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina hit the South in 2005. On January, 2006, Oly worked as a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Project Officer assisting Biloxi, MS Non-Profit Organizations to get funding for their hurricane wind/flood surge damage to structures and personal property.
PNNL hired Oly as a technician in May, 2007 assigning him to the Radiation Portal Monitor Project (RPMP). Using latest AutoCAD engineering computer software, the drafting group works on Custom Border Patrol (CBP) sites along the North and South borders. Base maps and site drawings of airports, seaports, ferry crossings, and border site portals depict where radiation detection monitors, camera scanning equipment, and other peripheral instrumentation is required by the CBP, funded by Homeland Security.
This summer Oly was given the opportunity to work with PNNL’s Facility drafting group to display on drawings, what 331-G building equipment will be moved to the Physical Sciences Facility (PSF) 3440 building and “racetrack”. Guide lines and standards differ from the RPMP drawing procedures, giving him a head start in acquiring knowledge of how drawings are expected to look with projects under DOE funding.
Oly enjoys working on machine or mechanical drafting tasks needed by RPMP design leads or engineers from other organizations and groups. It is his major interest and primary discipline for which he took two years of classes.
Education and Credentials
- Associates of Arts degree from Spokane Community College in 1970 for Industrial Drafting
- Associates of Arts degree from Spokane Falls Community College in 1972 for Liberal Arts