Sept. 25, 2001
P.O. Box 1663
Q: One of the security bulletins we received in the wake of the terrorist attacks says "Make sure when you provide outside organizations with your unclassified mailing address that you use the standard P. O. Box 1663 along with your mail stop."
For years I have seen conflicting information on the use of
"P. O. Box 1663." Is it really necessary? Isn't zip
code 87545 already unique to the Laboratory? What does using "P.
O. Box 1663" do that 87545 doesn't?
A: Per
Materials Management (BUS-4), Laboratory Mail Services: The official
mailing addresses are located at http://bus.lanl.gov/bus4/mail.htm
online. As you will note when you look at this Web site, they
do include P. O. Box 1663. This post office box was set up in
the early years of the Laboratory. The use of zip code 87545 was
instituted years later. To some degree it is kept for historical
purposes. Although it is true that the zip code 87545 is unique
to the Laboratory, and if someone were to mail something to the
Laboratory using this zip with no P. O. Box, it would be delivered
to the Laboratory, BUS-4 would prefer that everyone include the
P. O. Box 1663 as it is part of the official address, and the
Laboratory does pay for it's use.
--Marcene A. Roybal, S-2