Various organizations of atomic energy scientists and engineers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the primary research and production facilities of the Manhattan Project, consolidated in June 1946 to form the Association of Oak Ridge Engineers and Scientists (AORES). These organizations included the Oak Ridge Engineers and Scientists (ORES), formerly the Atomic Engineers of Oak Ridge (AEOR) and the Atomic Production Scientists of Oak Ridge (APSOR) and the Association of Oak Ridge Scientists (AORS), formerly the Association of Oak Ridge Scientists at Clinton Laboratories (AORSCL). These groups were concerned with international control and regulation of atomic energy, dissemination of information to the public and were greatly influential in getting the McMahon Bill passed, which became the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 and established the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

Elwin H. Covey was Secretary of the Information and Records Committee of the AORSCL, as well as a member of the organization's Subcommittee on Compilation of Lists and Indexes. He held the position of the Chairman of the Membership Committee of the AORS before the group's amalgamation.