Some say 1992 was the year of the woman. But Marge Nordman DeGooyer will tell you it was 1945.

That was the year chemists and chemical engineers desperately needed help in Hanford's analytical labs as they raced to refine plutonium for the first atomic bombs.

"Because of the war there was a shortage of men for hire," DeGooyer said. So as in many other industries, women stepped in to help.

The Oklahoma native arrived in Eastern Washington in 1945 expecting to be a secretary. Instead she launched into a 42-year career analyzing radioactive materials.

On her first day at work, Hanford officials asked DeGooyer if she would rather cook or sew.

It was an odd question for a woman who had driven taxis in South Dakota and piloted airplanes before following her parents to work at Hanford.

"I said I didn't especially like doing either one, but I chose cooking," DeGooyer said.

Her answer landed her in a chemical laboratory analyzing "the product." She didn't know until five months later that "the product" was plutonium.

"I didn't know what it was, but I suspected it was radioactive," she recalled.

DeGooyer, then 20, had earned high grades in math in high school but couldn't afford to accept a college scholarship.

"In my day, you either taught school or were a secretary," DeGooyer said. "Until I worked in this lab I didn't realize what you could do. It really opened up a whole new world for me."

Hanford lab officials promised she would get a far better education in the labs than in any college. And they were right.

In the years that followed, her insatiable interest in lab work earned her the nickname "Madame Curie" - after the Polish chemist and physicist, Marie Curie, who with her husband, Pierre, discovered the radioactive element radium.

"I didn't know it would be so exciting. I liked solving the problems," DeGooyer said. "It's hard for people to understand how important it was. But you can't do anything without this analysis first.

"And I couldn't believe I got to learn all that and get paid, too," she said.

When DeGooyer started, the analysts had no protective goggles or gloves. However, workers' blood and thyroid were tested regularly. They also carried items designed to detect any radiation exposure.

"I was much more fearful of Germans bombing us than of what I was working with," she said, recalling the numerous air raid drills.

And while the safety lessons were never needed for an actual raid, the procedures helped DeGooyer and others safely evacuate Z Plant when a release of radioactivity occurred in the building in April 1962.

Despite the important work by women in Hanford's labs, social barriers remained.

Even though women worked in a laboratory setting and changed daily into coveralls and safety shoes, they were discouraged from wearing slacks to work.

DeGooyer recalled one embarrassing moment when she was hurrying to change into her street clothes and stuffed her girdle and nylons into her lunch pail.

Security officers chose that day to spot-check lunch pails as workers were leaving.

"I died a thousand deaths until it was my turn," she said.

Then, the guard pushed her unopened lunch pail by without a peek.

DeGooyer quit the lab in September 1948 after she married a plant operator and wanted to start a family.

She returned in May 1953. "I was now among the mothers who wanted to work at this interesting, good-paying job, but feeling guilty about leaving their families in someone else's care," she said.

But her love of the work drove her back to Hanford. She returned to find many technical changes and an increased rate of plutonium production sparked by the Cold War.

By then, young men had returned from war and were being hired for the labs, so the experienced women technicians trained them in working with radioactive materials.

DeGooyer helped set up and run two mass spectrometry instruments for even closer analyses of the isotopic content of radioactive elements, such as plutonium, uranium and strontium.

And she took college classes to improve her knowledge of chemistry and statistics.

In 1972, she was recruited away from Hanford by a private firm, Jersey Nuclear - the forerunner of Advanced Nuclear Fuels, Exxon Nuclear and Siemens Power Corp.

"It was a big decision leaving my group at Hanford," she said. "But it was a new challenge."

The firm wanted DeGooyer to help set up and operate its sophisticated $100,000 isotopic mass spectrometer in Richland. The same instruments now cost $700,000.

And her work shifted from analyzing materials for weapons to analyzing nuclear materials for producing energy.

After suffering some heart troubles, DeGooyer retired from Advanced Nuclear Fuels in 1989, but returned in 1990 and 1991 as a consultant.

"I would hope everyone could end their career being as satisfied as I was with what I accomplished," DeGooyer said.

"I was lucky. I was at the right place at the right time. But also, I took advantage of it."