RAND Ushers in New Era

By Jorge Casuso

August 19 -- After 15 years of planning and negotiations capped by fears that it would leave the City it has called home for nearly 60 years, RAND kicked off construction of its new headquarters with a groundbreaking ceremony Monday afternoon.

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Attended by civic leaders and RAND and City officials, the ceremony was more a show of unity than an actual groundbreaking, since the three bulldozers and two cranes perched atop a large mound of earth already had excavated the ground.

But for many, the sight of the shovel reshuffling the soil was a reaffirmation that in two years the internationally renown think tank will have a new 308,856-square-foot elliptical glass and concrete headquarters across from the Civic Auditorium in the new Civic Center planned by the City.

"I know some people who thought we'd never get to this day," said James A Thomson, RAND's president and chief executive officer. "Unfortunately, I'm one of those people."

Standing at the podium in front of the construction headquarters festooned with American flags, Mayor Michael Feinstein touted the building's "magic" and its "environmental sustainability" and said he was grateful that RAND would remain a part of the Santa Monica community.

"They worked with us," Feinstein said. "That they wanted to be part of the community is a real credit."

Feinstein quoted Joy Fulmer, a frequent speaker at City Council meetings, who once questioned RAND's need for such a large building "because it's for people to think."

But the need to create a place where thinking is encouraged was what drove the building's unique design. Inside the elliptical structure, continuous hallways are meant to minimize the hierarchy established by corner offices and maximize the chances of RAND employees bumping into each other, striking up conversations and generating new ideas.

"This was a fairly unique design," Thomson said. "We didn't want to design it by committee, but we wanted to get input from staff. It's really the home for researchers who have to carry out their job."

Once the new headquarters are completed, the current RAND buildings -- where researchers helped guide the satellite development system, built one of the first computers and developed email -- will be demolished.

For RAND alumni Milt Weiner, more than soil was dredged up at the groundbreaking ceremonies. There were also plenty of memories of a similar ceremony more than half a century ago.

Weiner was there in 1950 when a RAND meteorologist's prediction for RAND's first president, Frank Collbohm, that the sun would shine came dramatically true after a morning of rain.

And on Tuesday, Weiner watched as the sun once again poked through the afternoon clouds and recalled the last time RAND broke ground.

"Collbohm called the RAND meteorologist and he said, 'It's going to be clear,'" said Weiner, a founder and president emeritus of RAND's alumni association. "Half an hour before the groundbreaking occurred, the rain stopped. Collbohm apocryphally said, 'From now on, if I want a weather prediction, you're the man.'"

Collbohm's son Bob, who was five when he attended the first groundbreaking, also was on hand.

"I kind of remember," Collbohm said. "Things that they said today brought back things."

While Monday's ceremony brought back memories, it also ushered in the final phase of a process that began in the late 1980s when RAND put forth a plan to redevelop its 15 acres of prime real estate with a new headquarters, housing and retail shops.

Ultimately, the think tank sold 11.3 acres to the City two years ago for $53 million when it was unable to find a developer for the project. The City will turn the land into park space and affordable housing.

"This is a milestone in RAND's history, and we hope it's an important event for Santa Monica as well," RAND's Executive Vice President Michael Rich said after the ceremony. "We've been a part of this community for more than fifty years, and we hope to be a member for many years to come."