President John F. Kennedy is seen here during a December 1962 visit inspecting the VELA satellite package designed at Sandia for detecting atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Twelve VELA satellites performed such duty for the US from 1963 to 1984.

Sandia's precursor, Z Division, was created in 1945 as the ordnance design, testing, and assembly arm of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Division soon moved to Sandia Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico to be near an airfield and work closely with the military.

In 1948, Z Division was renamed Sandia Laboratory and became a separate branch of Los Alamos. Both labs were born out of America's World War II atomic bomb development effort – the Manhattan Project.

Harry Truman's letter
In 1949, President Harry Truman wrote a letter to AT&T; President Leroy Wilson, offering the company "an opportunity to render an exceptional service in the national interest" by managing Sandia. AT&T; accepted, and managed the labs for nearly 44 years.

Sandia today
In 1956, Sandia opened new facilities in Livermore, California to support the nuclear weapons work of the new Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Sandia became a national laboratory in 1979. In 1993, the Department of Energy awarded the Sandia management contract to Lockheed Martin.

Today, Sandia has two primary facilities: a large laboratory and headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico (about 7,000 employees) and a smaller laboratory in Livermore, California (about 1,000 employees). Sandia is a government-owned/contractor-operated (GOCO) facility.