Lloyd Robert Zumwalt was born on 1914 September 4. A native of Richmond, California, he received a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. He was called up by the United States Army Reserves in 1942, and soon began working for the Manhattan Project, the United States Army Corps of Engineers program to develop the nation's first atomic bomb. During his three years with the program Zumwalt was involved in the production of enriched uranium, first at Berkeley, then beginning in 1943 at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
After World War II, Zumwalt was involved in the project analyzing atmospheric radioactivity that enabled the United States to detect the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb in 1949. He worked during the 1960s for the General Atomic Division of General Dynamics Corporation (later Gulf General Atomic, then General Atomics) in San Diego, California. In 1967 Zumwalt accepted a position as a full professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University. An advocate of nuclear power, he retired as professor emeritus in 1980. Zumwalt died on 1998 August 27.
From the guide to the Lloyd Robert Zumwalt Papers, 1960-1978, (Special Collections Research Center)
