EG&G, formally known as Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc., was a

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

national

defense contractor A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military or intelligence department of a government. Products typically include military or civilian aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and ...

and provider of management and technical services. The company was involved in contracting services to the United States government during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and conducted weapons

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

during the

Cold war era The Cold War was a period of global geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissol ...

(from 1948 and onward). It had close involvement with some of the government's most sensitive technologies.

History

Early history

In 1931,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) professor

Harold Edgerton Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990), also known as Papa Flash, was an American scientist and researcher, a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is largely credited with ...

, a pioneer of

high-speed photography High-speed photography is the science of taking pictures of very fast phenomena. In 1948, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) defined high-speed photography as any set of photographs captured by a camera capable of 69 ...

, partnered with his graduate student Kenneth Germeshausen to found a small technical consulting firm. The two were joined by fellow MIT graduate student

Herbert E. Grier Herbert Earl Grier (July 3, 1911 — March 17, 1999) was an American electrical engineer. While starting his engineering career with MIT during the 1930s to 1940s, Grier co-invented a miniature stroboscope and handheld flash with Harold Edgerto ...

in 1934. Bernard "Barney" O'Keefe became the fourth member of their fledgling technology group. The group's high-speed photography was used to image implosion tests during the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

. The same skills in precisely timed high-power electrical pulses also formed a key enabling technology for nuclear weapon triggers. After the war, the group continued their association with the burgeoning military nuclear effort and formally incorporated Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc. in 1947.

1950s and 1960s

During the 1950s and 1960s, EG&G was involved in

nuclear tests Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...

as a major contractor for the

Atomic Energy Commission Many countries have or have had an Atomic Energy Commission. These include: * National Atomic Energy Commission, Argentina (1950–present) * Australian Atomic Energy Commission (1952–1987) * Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (1973–present) * ...

. EG&G made extensive use of the

Nevada Test Site The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...

(NTS) for weapons development and high-technology military testing at

Nellis AFB Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloq.) is a United States Air Force installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exercises such as Green Flag-West flown in " Military ...

. EG&G has shared operations responsibility for the NTS with Livermore Labs, Raytheon Services Nevada, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering (REECO) and others. Subsequently, EG&G expanded its range of services, providing facilities management, technical services, security, and pilot training for the U.S. military and other government departments. EG&G builds a variety of sensing, detection and imaging products including

night vision equipment A night-vision device (NVD), also known as a night optical/observation device (NOD) or night-vision goggle (NVG), is an optoelectronic device that allows visualization of images in low levels of light, improving the user's night vision. The ...

, sensors for detection of nuclear material and chemical and biological weapons agents, and a variety of acoustic sensors. The company also supplies microwave and electronic components to the government, security systems, and systems for electronic warfare and mine countermeasures.

1970s and 1980s

During the 1970s and 1980s, the company, then led by O'Keefe, diversified by acquisition into the fields of paper making, instrumentation for scientific, marine, environmental and geophysical users, automotive testing, fans and blowers, frequency control devices and other components including

BBD BBD may stand for: Finance *Banco Bradesco, by NYSE ticker symbol *Bombardier Inc., by Toronto Stock Exchange symbol * Barbadian dollar, by ISO 4217 code Music *Bell Biv DeVoe, an R&B group ** ''BBD'' (album), 2001 **" B.B.D. (I Thought It Was ...

and

CCD CCD may refer to: Science and technology * Charge-coupled device, an electronic light sensor used in various devices including digital cameras * .ccd, the filename extension for CloneCD's CD image file * Carbonate compensation depth, a property ...

technology via their

Reticon The Reticon Corporation was incorporated in January 1971 in Sunnyvale CA. It is one of several semiconductor companies formed in the '60s and '70s by former employees of Fairchild Semiconductor. Intel, another one of these companies, was an early ...

division. In the late 1980s and early 1990s most of these divisions were sold, and on 28 May 1999, the non-government side of EG&G Inc.; formerly ; purchased the Analytical Instruments Division of

PerkinElmer PerkinElmer, Inc., previously styled Perkin-Elmer, is an American global corporation that was founded in 1937 and originally focused on precision optics. Over the years it went into and out of several different businesses via acquisitions and di ...

for million (equivalent to $million in ), also assuming the PerkinElmer name (). At the time EG&G was based in

Wellesley, Massachusetts Wellesley () is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census. Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of M ...

, and made products for diverse industries including automotive, medical, aerospace and photography. At least in 1988, there was either a subsidiary or internal department of EG&G dubbed EG & G Biomolecular that produced the Acugen 402 DNA sequencer, the first (and perhaps only) commercially available automated DNA sequencer that used slab gel electrophoresis and radioactive

Sanger sequencing Sanger sequencing is a method of DNA sequencing that involves electrophoresis and is based on the random incorporation of chain-terminating dideoxynucleotides by DNA polymerase during in vitro DNA replication. After first being developed by Fred ...

1999–present

From 1999 until 2001, EG&G was wholly owned by

The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group Inc. is an American multinational company with operations in private equity, alternative asset management and financial services. As of 2023, the company had $426 billion of assets under management. Carlyle specializes in ...

. In August 2002, the defense-and-services sector of the company was acquired by defense technical-services giant

URS Corporation URS Corporation (formerly United Research Services) was an engineering, design, and construction firm and a U.S. federal government contractor. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, URS was a full-service, global organization with office ...

. URS' EG&G division is headquartered in

Gaithersburg, Maryland Gaithersburg ( ) is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. At the time of the 2020 United States census, Gaithersburg had a population of 69,657, making it the third-largest incorporated city and the ninth-most populous communit ...

, and employs over 11,000 people. During its heyday in the 1980s, EG&G had about 35,000 employees. In December 2009, URS announced its decision to discontinue the use of "EG&G" as a division name. The headquarters issued a press release stating that by January 1, 2010 it would discontinue using secondary corporate brands, including the EG&G name and logo. In the same press release, URS stated that it would also retire two other acquired brands, Washington Group and Lear Siegler. URS Chief Executive Officer Martin Koffel explained the change in an e-mail transmitted to employees: "In today's marketplace, it is essential we present a consistent, unified brand to our customers and achieve the competitive advantages enjoyed by our peers in the industry. ... This change will allow us to present a single brand that is easily understood by our clients". Koffel indicated that the move to a single corporate brand would affect neither the internal organization nor the existing reporting structure. However, EG&G Division would become URS Federal Services. In 2014, URS was acquired by

AECOM AECOM (, ; formerly AECOM Technology Corporation; stylised A''Ξ''COM) is an American multinational infrastructure consulting firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The company's official name from 1990–2015 was AECOM Technology Corporation, ...

. In January 2020, AECOM sold its Management Services division, which provides services and support to governmental clients, to the private equity firm

American Securities American Securities LLC is an American private equity firm based in New York with an office in Shanghai that invests in market-leading North American companies with annual revenues generally ranging from $200 million to $2 billion and/or $50 mill ...

and

Lindsay Goldberg Lindsay Goldberg (LGLLC) is an American private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies in such sectors as consumer products, commodity-based manufacturing, energy services, business ser ...

for billion (equivalent to $billion in ); the new firm was named

Amentum An ''amentum'' (Greek: ''αγκύλη'', ankyle,) was a leather strap attached to a javelin used in ancient Greek athletics, hunting, and warfare, which helped to increase the range and the stability of the javelin in flight. Stability in flight ...

Janet Airlines

EG&G's "Special Projects" division was the notable operator of the Janet Terminal at

McCarran International Airport Harry Reid International Airport , formerly known as McCarran International Airport, is the primary international airport serving the Las Vegas Valley, a metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located south of downtown Las Vega ...

ow Harry Reid

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

, a service used to transport employees to remote government locations in Nevada and California. EG&G also had a joint venture with Raytheon Technical Services, creating JT3 LLC in 2000, which operates the Joint Range Technical Services contract.

Lear Siegler Services, Inc.

EG&G Technical Services, Inc. and

Lear Siegler Lear Siegler Incorporated (LSI) is a diverse American corporation established in 1962. Its products range from car seats and brakes to weapons control systems for military fighter planes. The company's more than $2 billion-a-year annual sales come ...

Services, Inc. consolidated, becoming one of the nation's leading U.S. federal government contractors providing operations and maintenance, systems engineering and technical assistance, and program management, primarily to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. The companies are separate legal entities, but share a common management. In December 2009, URS announced its decision to discontinue the Lear Siegler name for this division.

EG&G's clients

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, north-northwest of Las Vegas. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force B ...

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

Defense Logistics Agency The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is a combat support agency in the United States Department of Defense, United States Department of Defense (DoD). The agency is staffed by more than 26,000 civilian and military personnel throughout the world. ...

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

Department of Energy A ministry of energy or department of energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-rela ...

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

* Department of Transportation * Department of the Treasury *

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...

* U.S. Coast Guard * U.S. Space Command