His headquarters are in Pasadena in an odd kind of bunker.

A few weeks ago, Lewis Orrell, a retired metallurgist, went looking for a part-time job in technical writing.

“I went to a senior part-time employment thing at the Congregational Church,” said the 73-year-old Orrell.

His plans didn’t work out exactly as he wanted. There were no jobs for metallurgists or technical writers. But he found a booth operated by the U.S. Census Bureau. He filled out a form.

“Much to my surprise, a little over three weeks ago, they called,” he said.

“You still interested?” they asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Come in and take a little test,” they said. He did.

“Then you wait. I think it was two weeks. There was a call from the Pasadena office.”

Almost immediately, he was commissioned into a small army that’s being mustered from scratch in a matter of weeks.

His headquarters are in Pasadena in an odd kind of bunker.

They are in a recently vacated office in a high-tech industrial park. Two large rooms are empty except for a few widely spaced cardboard desks. Receptionists and executives get the same brown, imitation wood-grain cardboard fold-up desks. A stack of them rise to the ceiling along one wall, waiting for the mobilization as the day of the census, April 1, draws near.

There are large maps on several walls. The most impressive displays, in large scale, every street in Glendale and much of the San Gabriel Valley. It is pieced together from small, computer-drawn sheets of a few blocks each.

When the time comes, census enumerators will have those smaller pieces folded into their pouches as they go door-to-door to question those who did not fill out their questionnaires.

But, the immediate task is recruiting. Orrell was in one of the earliest groups. He took the basic test, then was selected to administer it to succeeding waves of recruits.

He drives his own car. His office is a cardboard box. His orders come day by day.

Every day, he drives somewhere to meet groups of one to two dozen applicants. He guides them through the filling out of several federal forms, then issues the Census Bureau test.

Last Thursday, his first assignment was at the California Employment Development Department office on South Central Avenue. The EDD is helping to recruit census workers and has loaned a few rows of desks for the testing.

Nine candidates took the afternoon test. Almost all appeared to be in their teens and 20s. They worked in deep concentration.

Orrell called out a 15-minute warning, then a five. Then he collected the tests and placed them into his cardboard box.

Some of the applicants shook his hand and thanked him as they left.

As soon as the last was gone, he scooted out the door, already late for his 3 p.m. appointment at the Armenian Relief Society on West Glenoaks Boulevard.

Glendale’s Armenian community poses a problem for the census count. Thousands of new Armenian immigrants speak no English and, because of their experience in other countries, are considered prone to be suspicious of questions from government.

The Armenian Relief Society is trying to recruit bilingual Armenians to be enumerators, the foot soldiers of the census army who will walk door-to-door to visit those who fail to return the questionnaire.

On Thursday, the first group of recruits assembled at the center to be tested.

Orrell arrived about 3:30 p.m. and faced a crisis. Ten people were to take the test in an office with four desks. He shook his head, judging the space too small.

After much discussion in Armenian, a staff member named Parik Nazarian got permission for the group to move to a large conference table in the main office. Unfortunately, the room needed to be cleared by 4:30 p.m.

Every seat at the long, wooden table was taken. This time, the applicants included several professional-looking young staff members of the relief society as well as several recent Soviet immigrants and a 30ish woman with a toddler.

Orrell tried to calm any jitters.

“What we have to do is fill out some forms and we have to take a test,” he said. “Let me say right now, don’t worry about the test. It’s not a pass or fail. Nobody goes to the head of the class. Nobody gets a gold star. It’s just to see where you will work the best.”

The group finished the test just in time to vacate the conference room.

Orrell placed their applications in his box and was done for the day.

It’ll be like that for a few more weeks. Then, when the recruiting is done, Orrell thinks he may stay on as an enumerator, if he’s asked.

“You live from day to day,” he said.

Who knows, there might even be the possibility of sticking around. He said he’s heard through scuttlebutt that some people have been employed as long as two years. In Orrell’s view, that’s a long time.

“When you have three days’ seniority on the guy next to you and you look over here and here’s a guy who has two years’ seniority, that looks like pretty big stuff.”