They welcome you to ITER
15 Oct 2012
Posing in the daring architecture of the Visitors Building, from left to right: Sophie Jodar, Samantha Reynaud, Delphine Rusquart, Sophie Tourniaire, Delphine Huart and Laurence Palanque.
Every day, some 80 to 100 visitors are welcomed at the ITER Headquarters. Some might say that the formalities for being granted access to the ITER site are heavy and complex but they are necessary as the ITER site is both the "territory" of an international organization and a nuclear installation.
The logistics that go with issuing the temporary access badges are now centralized in the Access Control building—one of the three edifices, along with the Headquarters building proper and the Medical building, that form the ITER Headquarters compound.
Procedures for granting access to visitors is one of the responsibilities of the Security Coordination Section (SCS) who relies on a team of six hostesses placed under the authority of Australian-born "Greeter Manager" Samantha Reynaud.
"We now have two distinct services, performed by two different teams," explains SCS Section Leader Christophe Ramu. "Until now, the issuing of passes and the subsequent control of their possession was done by the guards. While guards will continue to make sure that everyone wishing to enter the ITER site has been issued with the proper badge, we now have a dedicated team to process the applications."