When Charles Breneman finally saw the high-tech equipment and white tiled floors of MSU’s Cyclotron, he was impressed.
His son had worked at the facility as a summer job while attending MSU years ago, but he’d never seen the particle accelerator before.
“It is a fascinating thing,” the Haslett school board member said.
“There are so many opportunities and you don’t have to have a Ph.D. to work here.”
Breneman was one of several area community leaders invited by state Sen. Dianne Byrum, D-Onondaga, and state Rep. Gretchen Whitmer to tour the facility Friday.
The two democrats used the tour to help boost interest in bringing the Rare Isotope Accelerator, a more advanced accelerator, to campus.
While attending MSU, Whitmer said she took facilities like the Cyclotron for granted and didn’t realize the type of work being done.
“RIA has such phenomenal consequences for the region,” the East Lansing democrat said. “It will have a big impact on the commerce of the state.”
But it isn’t just democrats lobbying for the new accelerator.
In his 2002-03 budget, Gov. John Engler pledged to offer $2 million to bring the facility to MSU, which he said will help the Mid-Michigan economy.
A $900 million U.S. Department of Energy Project, scientists consider it to be the next step in nuclear physics research. MSU is competing with the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago for the project.
MSU’s nuclear physics program was recognized by U.S. News & World Report as second only to the program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Brad Sherrill, associate director for MSU’s facility, said the tour taught about what the Cyclotron does.
“We’d like to get the word out of the opportunities RIA will give MSU, local communities and the whole state,” he said.
The Rare Isotope Accelerator has received bipartisan support from state lawmakers.
MSU President M. Peter McPherson and other university officials appeared before the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee at Oakland University to discuss the future of scientific research at MSU last month.
Larry Steckelberg, a spokesman for Byrum, was awestruck by the work and research that the facility does, he said.
“If we are going to be a technical leader than we have to invest,” Steckelberg said.
“To start putting RIA here would make it world class for a lifetime. You really don’t create cutting edge science for free.”
