Today women account for 45 percent of Hanford's work force and they are employed in every field.

Fifteen percent of the management team are women, as are 25 percent of Hanford's professionals, said Hanford historian Michele Gerber.

During the Cold War, women remained in mostly clerical positions at the nuclear site.

But by the 1970s, more professional women were being hired.

The Society of Women Engineers was able to form a local chapter in 1976 after 10 women engineers - the minimum required to charter a chapter - were working at Hanford.

About the same time, women became nuclear process operators and reactor operators, Gerber said.

Leona Robinson was the first woman transportation and railways manager at Hanford, where she worked for 46 years.

Penni Purdy was the first woman nuclear process operator and just the fourth women hired at B Reactor.

And Nancy Forsman was hired in 1975 as the first woman reactor operator.

In the early 1980s, Frannell MacRoberts became the first woman metal handler of uranium fuel rods.

Kathy Irish with J.A. Jones Construction Co. was the first woman construction supervisor on site. She helped build the Fuels and Materials Examination Facility.