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It now has been 50 years since a particular one of our pioneers started his journey through the field of industrial hygiene. Like Odysseus, he experienced changing fortunes; he suffered setbacks and frustrations in the maze of federal bureaucracy; and he enjoyed successes and recognition for his outstanding achievements. This pioneer was Duncan Asa Holaday.
Duncan was born and reared in Oregon. He attended Oregon State College and graduated in 1930 with a degree in chemical engineering. He worked for a brief period in a paper mill, then returned to Oregon State to study biochemistry under Dr. Roger Williams, who later was recognized as one of the nation's most noteworthy biochemists.
In 1935, after receiving his master's degree in biochemistry, Duncan took a temporary job with the Department of Agriculture's Entomology and Plant Quarantine activity in Massachusetts. He soon moved to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), first in Washington, D.C., then in San Francisco. In 1943 Duncan was awarded a commission in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). He and his young wife, Polly, relocated from his FDA post in San Francisco to Washington, D.C. Duncan was assigned by PHS to its industrial hygiene program. Thus, he entered our field.
OPERATION CROSSROADS AND AN INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH PHYSICS
Duncan's industrial hygiene career began during World War II while PHS's Division of Industrial Hygiene was providing services in government-owned and contractor-operated munitions plants. Industrial hygienists involved in this program included Lewis and Lester Cralley, Bernie Tebbins, George Clayton, and William E. McCormick, people who would later become noteworthy in the field. Duncan was teamed in the arsenal surveys with Bernie Tebbins.
A crucial step in Duncan's career came in 1946, when he participated in the health physics activities of "Operation Crossroads," the first atomic bomb tests in the Pacific. He and other candidates were given a six-week course and, as Duncan later said "immediately became radiation experts." By 1948 the Division of Industrial Hygiene was being drawn into air pollution and radiological health activities almost by default; no other PHS element had technically qualified personnel. Duncan was recognized as the division's health physics expert.
Henry Doyle, then stationed in Denver and soon to set up and become director of the Division of Industrial Hygiene's...