LANL tech spinoff buys new HQ

The former Open Hands building in south Santa Fe will become Pajarito Scientific Corp.’s new headquarters. Photo Credit – Journal File

SANTA FE — A Santa Fe company that began under a Los Alamos National Laboratory technology spinoff program and won an international reputation has purchased the former Open Hands building in south Santa Fe for its corporate headquarters.

The company, Pajarito Scientific Corp., designs, manufactures and installs complex radioactive materials detectors and has offices worldwide. Currently, its corporate headquarters are in leased space on Camino Entrada.

The Open Hands building, which formerly housed a longtime adult day-care center, is twice as large and “very nice,” Pajarito’s Chief Operating Officer Kendell Hanson said.

The company expects to move into the building on Rodeo Park East in September, after minor renovations. “We’re going to be very happy there,” Hanson said.

In April, Open Hands closed its doors after 35 years as a stalwart among Santa Fe social services organizations. At the time, the nonprofit’s board president Alden Oyer said Open Hands was struggling with substantial debt, and basically could no longer keep afloat.

In a bid to resolve its financial woes, the nonprofit had first put the building on the market, for $2.7 million, in 2009. The listing was later withdrawn, but the building went back on the market in 2011.

Hanson would not disclose what Pajarito paid for the building except to say that it was “less than the asking price.”

Oyer wouldn’t give the price either, but said it was more than enough to clear up all of Open Hands’ debts. He said the surplus will be distributed to other nonprofit organizations.

The sale and debt payoffs will allow for the Open Hands corporation to be dissolved, Oyer said.

“At least several other nonprofits will benefit from our building sale,” he said.

Since it was founded in the mid-1980s, Pajarito has become a world leader in the field of instrumentation that detects and characterizes radioactive material, according to its website. It has supplied instruments to the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as to companies — and countries — worldwide.

Hanson said about 25 people work at the company’s Santa Fe headquarters, most of them engineers or physicists. The company designs complex instruments ranging from about refrigerator-size to monsters that fill an 18-wheeler, according to Hanson. The machines not only detect radioactive materials but are able to identify the kind of material involved and how much of it there is, using technology originally developed at LANL.