Events Overview

History of Black Mesa

The Early Years

Founded in 1952 by the University of Virginia, United States Department of Energy, Lockheed Martin, and several members of the International Science Council, the Black Mesa Corproation was to be a government supervised, private research foundation. Originally based in Virginia, Black Mesa's first was laboritory titled "Black Mesa One" served to be a testing ground for a variety of atomic power solutions.

In 1955, Black Mesa came under the administration of a young genius named Wallace Breen, who had been appointed by the leadership commitee which managed the company affairs since it's founding. Immediately upon his appointment, the Black Mesa Leadership Commitee was dismantled and reformed in to a more cohesive board of directors, rather than being a loose group of investors, scientists, and departmental representatives. This decision to leave the investors and other prominent figures ouf of the leadership process created significant controversy, especially among the chief scientists who fealt as if they were cheated out of a fair and democratic administration. The establishment of the Black Mesa Board of Directors did not quell concerns of fair leadership among the company in the way that Breen had intended it to.

Archived Excerpt of a Letter From a Young Administrator Breen to an Unnamed Member of the Black Mesa Board of Directors.

"I hope that your wife and your kids are doing well. I have to thank you for having me and my Fiance over for dinner on Monday, I hope you got a good impression of her (as abrasive as she may seem.) I'd like to offer you an extension to what I talked about during that dinner, and that is that I don't believe we will see much cooperation from the Science Team, now that we've consolidated our leadership. My secretary says that she has been hearing murmurings of a potential "off the books" meeting with the investors. That can't be allowed to happen, so, I've had a few ideas on how we will fix this problem. I'd prefer to discuss them in person, do write back when you can..."

When November of 1955 hit, the Black Mesa Board of Directors, under the direction of Breen, chose to completely cut out the investors from Lockheed Martin. The loss of millions in investment funds turned out to be disasterous for Black Mesa, and pushed Administrator Breen to the brink of resignation. Strikers gathered outside of Black Mesa One for several days, with some beginning to defect to rival companies such as Aperture Science. Unexpectedly, the Department of Energy which had previously vowed to allow Black Mesa to have free leadership and be allowed to make decisions for the company as they saw fit, now actively intervened in the emerging crisis. Having sensed blood in the water if Black Mesa were to continue to operate on the East Coast, the Department of Energy went to the Virginia courts and formally ordered that Black Mesa, as a company, move to the West Coast.

The Modern Era

In 1962, Black Mesa had fully gone under the process of moving to the West Coast. This couldn't have been done without the assistance of several new investors, most importantly being the Department of Defense, University of California and New Mexico, and Boeing. The desicion to accept investment funds from authorities less poised toward scientific progress for the greater good, continued to create controversy and discontent among the science team. Unlike the events on the East Coast, the discontent scientists would form a prominent clique among Black Mesa's Board of Directors. Furthermore, Black Mesa West would be established out of an old vehicle manufacturing plant in the Port of San Francisco.

Black Mesa's public statements and activities would remain quiet for several years as the discontent and conflict which exemplified the corporation's yearly years had subsided. A variety of incredibly early projects were being developed at this time, one notable project being the refining of a classified theory, which would define Black Mesa for years to come. In 1978, as the Home Computer became mainstream and the Cold War was still ongoing, the Department of Defense approached Administrator Breen with "an offer he could not possibly say no to." The exact details of this offer remain classifie,d but it is thought that the Department of Defense came to Breen with hundreds of millions to fund his company, provided they focus on several, new, defense related programs.

Black Mesa's offical expansion was announced in 1982, with the opening of three new locations: Black Mesa East, Black Mesa South, and Black Mesa North. Many in the public sphere were shocked by this announcement, as Black Mesa's radio silence in the media convinced many that Black Mesa's days were numbered, this was further from the truth. After the announcement of these new facilities, an unprecedented boom in employment of thousands of young scientists and engineers shot the Black Mesa corporation even further in to public relevence.

The year now is 1995, and the Black Mesa Corporation is the largest it has ever been. Having braved the rocky launch of the corporation in the '50s, it has been said that the future lies solely in the hands of the new, young innovators.