Page 74 - A Life - my Live - my path

My career - the IRE

IRE was an offshoot of CEN, which was set up in 1952. The
first people hired at the IRE all came from CEN, where some
2,500 people worked, including around 700 French
speakers. The first stone was laid in Fleurus in 1971. The first
buildings were erected in 1973 and the move to Mol took
place in 1974. So the IRE was growing fast. When I started
working there, six buildings had been built. When I left 13
years later, eighteen were operational. I was the 118th
person hired. After 13 years, 450 people were working there.

6.1 Department of industrial applications
I did my work placement in Research & Development in the
'Industrial Applications' department. The head of the
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department had assigned me a project for which I was
always under the impression that he had preconceived
results in mind. A few weeks later, however, I presented him
with results that were ten times better than his expectations.
Surprised by the good work I had done, he offered to take
me on as soon as the course was over, on 1 September 1975.
I had to explain to him that in September I had to finish my
final thesis in nuclear physics, and we agreed on the date of

1 October 1975 to start work as a young engineer.
I also explained the situation to my nuclear physics
professor, who told me that the most important thing was to
get a job, but that I had make sure the spectrograph worked.
He seconded one of his assistants to help me build the
wooden table, the transparent vacuum chamber as well as

65 Jacques DEPOITIER
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