From Anonymous:

Recent posts and comments relating to Secretary Bodman's visit last Friday have given rise to a spate of pessimism. Some of the posts and comments might have been submitted by LANL management sympathizers, but more likely the oft-cited "Pete slapping Pete's back" incident, the "Pete slapping LANL staff around (get over it)" incident, and the rather pathetic showing LANL staff made when it came to the question and answer session are the cause for the new pessimism. I'm pessimistic myself: I have very little faith that an organization which would allow a screw-up of the magnitude that Nanos represents even has the ability to make things right, much less the desire. Given that, I'm still not willing to give up. At the very least, we should continue to try to get Nanos removed before he does even more damage. I like the letter that was in a comment to the post which gave Bodman's email address:

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Thank you for taking the time to visit LANL last Friday. You might be interested to know that you left a positive impression with the audience, perhaps even giving cause for some small rays of hope that our problems may soon start to be behind us. I do wish to say, however, that during the questions session there seemed to be a white elephant in the room that everyone (myself included) was afraid to talk about. That white elephant was this: most of us at LANL (Director Nanos and members of the SET apparently excluded) feel that it has been amply shown that the shutdown of last July was not justified. We feel that an accounting for that completely unnecessary and damaging act is required. We would like to take Senator Domenici's advice to "just get over it", but that will not be possible until Director Nanos is removed. Finally, to turn this into the question that nobody could apparently bring themselves to ask last Friday: why as that not been done yet? Why is Director Nanos still in charge of Los Alamos National Laboratory? He has lost our trust; he has lost our respect. By his continued presence he will lose us even more of our one precious resource, the talented people who used to take pride in working at Los Alamos. We have already seen far too many of our valued colleagues leave LANL because of Director Nanos.

If, in your considered judgment you decide that it is not possible to remove Director Nanos, could you please have the courtesy to tell us that, and to tell us the reason?

Regards,

I think that if enough LANL staff voice this request to the new secretary, we might be able to salvage a bit of good.

From Anonymous:

Some have noted that Senator Domenici and Secretary Bodman did not say anything directly in support of Director Nanos last Friday. However, there was body language that might not have been apparent to those watching on Labnet. The Senator found two occasions to pat Nanos on the back (literally), the last very conspicuously after leaving and returning to the stage, possibly just for this purpose so it could not be missed by anyone in the audience. Then there was his “get over this stuff” statement at the end, just in case anyone misinterpreted his more subtle communications. As a long time supporter and admirer of Senator Domenici, this was extremely disappointing. Since I believe Domenici is above crass political payoffs, I conclude that he really doesn’t fathom the seriousness and significance of the situation at LANL.

It is simply not possible to “get on with [things]” in the present environment. The time for a simple apology from Nanos is long past, and it would make no difference anyway. The basic fact is that, in addition to his irrational temper and disregard for the truth, Nanos is simply incompetent to direct a national laboratory and is driving LANL into mediocrity, from which it may never recover. He has purposefully manufactured crises to divert attention from his failures, and will do anything and crush anyone to ensure his own survival. The way he condescendingly intercepted Mary Hockaday’s question, before it could solicit a response unfavorable to himself, was disgraceful.

Unfortunately, the notion at DOE and Congress persists that it is just a few discontents that feel this way. It is my belief that the vast majority, maybe up to 90% of LANL technical staff including most managers, believe that Nanos is an unmitigated disaster, but are afraid to speak up publicly. We need to find a way to allow everyone to petition for change without personal risk. Whether this is cowardly or not is irrelevant; it is a basic fact of the fear and loathing environment. Can any of you more imaginative bloggers think of a way to accomplish this? The time is short, if it is not already too late.

From Anonymous:

Some have noted that Senator Domenici and Secretary Bodman did not say anything directly in support of Director Nanos last Friday. However, there was body language that might not have been apparent to those watching on Labnet. The Senator found two occasions to pat Nanos on the back (literally), the last very conspicuously after leaving and returning to the stage, possibly just for this purpose so it could not be missed by anyone in the audience. Then there was his “get over this stuff” statement at the end, just in case anyone misinterpreted his more subtle communications. As a long time supporter and admirer of Senator Domenici, this was extremely disappointing. Since I believe Domenici is above crass political payoffs, I conclude that he really doesn’t fathom the seriousness and significance of the situation at LANL.

It is simply not possible to “get on with [things]” in the present environment. The time for a simple apology from Nanos is long past, and it would make no difference anyway. The basic fact is that, in addition to his irrational temper and disregard for the truth, Nanos is simply incompetent to direct a national laboratory and is driving LANL into mediocrity, from which it may never recover. He has purposefully manufactured crises to divert attention from his failures, and will do anything and crush anyone to ensure his own survival. The way he condescendingly intercepted Mary Hockaday’s question, before it could solicit a response unfavorable to himself, was disgraceful.

Unfortunately, the notion at DOE and Congress persists that it is just a few discontents that feel this way. It is my belief that the vast majority, maybe up to 90% of LANL technical staff including most managers, believe that Nanos is an unmitigated disaster, but are afraid to speak up publicly. We need to find a way to allow everyone to petition for change without personal risk. Whether this is cowardly or not is irrelevant; it is a basic fact of the fear and loathing environment. Can any of you more imaginative bloggers think of a way to accomplish this? The time is short, if it is not already too late.

From Anonymous:

Secretary Bodman's email address is

The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov

(capitalization optional).

Those of you who feel, as I do, that the questions put to him during last Friday's meeting represented a poor showing by LANL staff might wish to try to make up for that by sending him your own, well-thought-out questions.

From Anonymous:

Here is a fascinating post from the "Online Public Relations" Blog.

There are some interesting comments on this blog site regarding the
Los Alamos PR Disaster:


http://online-pr.blogspot.com/2005/02/bad-bad-bad.html


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bad Bad Bad - Feb 14, 2005

There is a horrific story that everyone should read whose client or company
has government business. It is here.

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/scnce/story.xhtml?story_title=U-S--Admits--Missing--Los-Alamos-Disks-Never-Existed&story_id=30166&category=scnce

The government now admits that two missing computer disks at the Los Alamos
research laboratories, run by the University of California, never existed.
Yup, that's right. The witch hunt and $5.8 million fine levied against the
University for poor security management was for items that were never
created.

University of California's reputation was dragged through the mud, and it
nearly lost control of the labs. Actually, it did lose control of the
labs but the government pays so little to manage them that the new
manager backed out.

So, how does the government say, "I'm sorry" to an organization whose
reputation it wrecked. It sends a threatening letter and fails to lift
the fine.

We have worked with other government contractors who have been hauled
before the government for lapses they didn't commit. The same pattern
happens repeatedly. Bureaucrats rarely say they are sorry, and they
rarely admit they have harmed anyone. They find flimsy excuses to
support their positions even when excuses have nothing to do with the
original charge.

The sanctimoniousness of government bureaucrats is disheartening. These
people believe they are doing the people's business. Hence, anything
they do and say must be right.

Be warned. If you work with the government, watch your flanks. Keep
public affairs specialists at agencies and on the Hill. That is the only
way to survive government witch hunts. Even then, it is difficult.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hate to tell this PR guy, but we DO have PR people at LANL and they
are part of our public perception disaster. The whole lot of them,
including 'Baghdad Bob' Fallin should be fired immediately, as their
PR efforts seem to be directed at defending Pete, rather than the
reputation of LANL as a whole.

From Anonymous:

"No one is as necessary as they think"

How glib. How wrong. It is this kind of thinking on the part of the bean-counters that has put us in this situation. The Lab is full of people with one-of-a-kind knowledge and skills. We already had a problem, because we have a large number of people who have critical knowledge and skills and these people are at or approaching retirement age. The uncertainty surrounding the recompetition is turning a manageable problem into a national security gamble. It has taken a problem with a five year lead time and shrunk it down to less than one year.

If you do not think that individuals are important, then you do not know the amazing people that we have here. Sure, they can go work somewhere else, but here they can make a positive difference to the entire world. This place isn't just about big or small science -- it's a nuclear weapons lab. Small and efficient? That should not be the most important consideration here. It's a nuclear weapons lab! Los Alamos is about a lot more than just churning out academic papers for our buddies to read. My God, I sure hope nobody starts using their garage-lab or their personal computer at home to try to do the kinds of things we do at work!

Also remember that many of the people here are part of dual-scientist households. And many of our children go on to pursue careers in science. At a time when too many American children are opting out of careers in science, the children of Los Alamos are truly a bright hope for the future. Each of us has invested our lives and our careers to help keep this country safe, both now and in the future.

As has been pointed out many times, for all of the investigations and allegations, not much real abuse or fraud has been found. Certainly less than one might expect for such a large diverse organization. I think this is because we all know exactly how important our work is. And how critical and irreplaceable our co-workers are to fulfilling our mission. That's right, we have a sense of mission. We are honorable people trying to help our country and our fellow citizens. It is very sad that the country, our President, the NNSA, the DOE, and the current Laboratory management have forgotten or simply don't care anymore. But none of those people or organizations represents the heart and soul of the Lab. The Lab stands for (used to stand for?) peace through security, good science, and always doing the right thing, even when nobody's looking. We don't take off our security clearances when we get home. We can't download the secret stuff out of our brains when we go home. Our pension may look good, if the stress doesn't kill us before we retire, but our other benefits are not stellar. So this is not really a "fat cat wants it all" situation, whatever certain bitter retirees may say.

The post about critical mass is correct. If the Lab loses too much of its capability, it will be shutdown. There is no reason to do non-weapons, non-homeland-security research in this isolated place. Well, maybe physical isolation is good for counter bio-terrorism stuff. I don't think the facilities and upkeep for that will be small and cheap either. We are a nuclear weapons lab; we are the best at what we do and what we do is very very important. The current management and the people in Washington are playing politics and they are gambling with our national security. If they didn't appreciate that before, then they should appreciate it now. And they should fix it now, before it's too late.

If we should swallow our hurt feelings and put the past year behind us, well, okay -- let them go first. Tell Nanos to apologize and then get him out of here. He is salt in the wound. Forget about recompeting the contract. What's at stake here is more than the embarassment and hurt feelings. Remember the IRS's new computer system? The FBI's new computer system (come on, that was just last week!)? Compac's promises for the Q machine? The list goes on and on. Consequences are what count. The potential consequences here are disastrous. I'll remind you again -- we are not bean-counters (present management excepted), this is a nuclear weapons lab.

"Put down the gun and back away slowly with your hands in the air. Don't make any sudden moves."

Well that won't happen; the wheels of government grind on without the possibility of admitting mistake, especially if there's an easier way out. Especially if the real consequences will be felt by the next generation. As lowly TSMs, we're not allowed to have feelings or egos. But their egoes and their games are more important to them than the continued security of our country.

From Anonymous:

That was a really telling meeting.

Nanos was deferential and diplomatic in the extreme, but then of course his big bosses were there, and he wasn't about to be anything but in front of them.

Bodman was unstandably nebulous for a guy three-weeks on the job, but he was very deft at not praising Nanos, nor running him down. I think he has potential, but the DOE and NNSA bureacracy was there before him, and will be there after him, and they know it.

I don't think Domenici said a single thing about Nanos at all. Of course, Domenici has lost face now having bashed the Lab early during CREM-III without facts to support it. Pete can't get out of being responsible for how he looks now without looking bad (or, well, worse, than his rant made him look at the end of the talk).

Brooks, as has been noted, said absolutely nothing at all. This, the NNSA Administrator, in charge of the agency created to 'better' operate the NW complex than DOE. Talk about an abject failure. But he didn't say a single word in support of Nanos. Hmmm.

Overall, the supporting words for Nanos were gratefully absent from the panel. That tells me they know at least a bit what we know and they're starting to back away from him ever so gently. I hope.

Finally, what was with the INCREDIBLY LAME questions, overall, people asked?

The damage and being done to the Laboratory is extensive, long-lasting, and grave. No one I can recall presented that issue to the assembled chiefs at all, and yet it seems to be the bottom-line of all the issues at hand.

Domenici obviously doesn't have a clue. Whether or not anyone INTENDS to hurt the Laboratory or not, IT HAS AND IS BEING DONE ANYWAY.

There's no way I can see him running for re-election, and even now I have to wonder how much Senatoring he's doing himself, and how much his staff is really our 'man behind the curtain.'

From Anonymous:

For the guy with question about all the bad stories on Los Alamos..

OK, lets talk about stories of government screw-ups and significant threats
to US security over the last decade, shall we?

1. Aldrich Ames (1994) - He works as a Soviet double agent inside the highest
levels of CIA Headquarters at an office that involves US agent operations
in Moscow. The info he gives to the Soviets results in the death of
many of our Soviet agents. He has drinking and financial problems, but
the CIA fails to notice them, and he operates as a Soviet double agent
for many years. What has happened at LANL in the last decade that
compares to this compromise of US security?


2. Robert Hanssen (2000) - He works in the FBI's Counter-Intelligence (aka,
"spy-catcher") branch, with constant data-base access to all ongoing
cases in which we are monitoring foreign spies. While in this high
level position as a traitor, according to CNN, he compromises:

- The National Measurement and Signature Intelligence Program

- The FBI Double Agent Program

- US studies on recruitment operations of the KGB against the CIA

- US studies on the KGB's effort to gather information on US
nuclear programs

- FBI counterintelligence techniques, sources, methods and operations

Federal prosecutors discover that Hanssen made $1.4 million from
his espionage. What, pray tell, has happened at LANL during the
last decade that compares to this fiasco?


These are the two biggest national security screw-ups of the last decade,
but one can also point to...

3. The FBI dropping the ball on the 911 hints. Field offices call in
to FBI HQ saying "we've got some strange people out here who
are taking flying lessons, but have no interest in landing the
planes". FBI HQ ignores them. 911 takes place.

And, of course, once 911 happens, we must strike back, so this gives
us two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), and huge spending increases that
may bankrupt the US treasury. One cannot blame the FBI for 911, but
they certainly missed some important clues. What has happened during
the last decade at LANL that compares to this type of failure?


And then there are other stories, such as:

.....................................................................
4. Missing: A Laptop of DEA Informants - MSNBC June 7, 2004

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5092991/site/newsweek

DEA loses a laptop with information on all their US drug informants.
What evil drug lord wouldn't love to get ahold of this thing?

.......................................................................
5. Purchase card bust - Federal Computer Week - Aug 30, 2004

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0830/intercepts-08-30-04.asp

A guy in DOD uses a purchase card to commit $11 million in fraud,
including sending $500,000 to family members. This makes the LANL
purchase card case and the Bussolini case seem like small potatoes.

.......................................................................
6. Marine Charged Breast-Lift to US - ABC News - Aug 14

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90286&page=1

DOD/Marine uses purchase card to pay for her breast-lift.

.......................................................................
7. Lost Laptops Compromise Secrets - GovExec.com - Oct 1, 2001

http://www.govexec.com/features/1001/1001managetech2.htm

FBI is missing 184 of its laptops.

......................................................................
8. CentCom Laptops Missing From HQ - Tampa Tribune - Aug 7, 2002

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/729174/posts

Two laptops with tactical battle plans go missing from Gen. Franks
war planning HQ right before the war.

.......................................................................
9. Grassley Shines Light On Credit Card Abuse at Department of Defense

http://grassley.senate.gov/releases/2002/p02r7-17b.htm

At least 200 Army personnel used their government charge cards
to obtain hundreds of dollars in cash at strip clubs. They use
the money for "lap dances".

........................................................................

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

What do you think? Perhaps we should shut down the FBI/CIA/DOD/DEA?
They have endangered our security and engaged in illegal activities,
have they not?

Bad things happen in government agencies. It's not just LANL. Unfortunately,
LANL management and the DOE do a terrible job of defending us. These
other agencies do a much better job at defense.

Yeah, you can pull up lots of articles that might make a person
believe that Los Alamos is some sort of basket case. But, in the
bigger context of things, far worse things have happened at other
places in the US government. Do some more research -- these stories
about screw-ups at other agencies are easy for anyone to find.
Don't be selective in your reading.

From Anonymous:

So Domenici said, according to the Journal North: "I am trying to tell you that we have got to get over this stuff and get
on with the new contract," he said. "Nobody intends to hurt any of you, and,
for God's sake, you know we don't intend to hurt what you're doing."

Honestly, honorable Senator, regardless of anybody's intent, we have already been hurt, our mission has been hurt, our laboratory has been hurt, and our country has been hurt by the retirements that have already taken place, by the abysmal and unneeded shutdown, by the black hole into which our once good morale has disappeared. We will be hurt further as the retirements continue due in part to the apparently inevitable loss of UCRP regardless of who becomes our contractor.

Honestly, honorable Senator, you yourself have hurt us when you called for the contract to be competed, apparently assenting to the characterization of our Laboratory as a "den of thieves" or a "fetid swamp"; you yourself hurt us when you supported the shutdown, apparently assenting to the characterization of our Laboratory as a collection of arrogant cowboys and buttheads.

Who believes you now, honorable Senator, when you say that nobody intends to hurt us?

From Anonymous:

You know, if the people who run the LANL Public Affairs office had had half an ounce of sense, the day after they discovered this blog they should have had their own blog up. Uncensored, anonymous posting allowed. If they had done that, the whole (or primary) motivation behind creating this blog would have been defeated.

On the other hand, it _is_ possible to instrument a web page so that it logs each and every ip address that visits it, and given the lack of trust most of us have for the Public Affairs office (Hi, Baghdad Bob! Hi Comical Ali!), and for LANL management in general, maybe it would not have worked for them after all.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

More Lab Security Gaps Found; LANL Audit Cites Weaknesses in Handling Exiting Workers

By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer

An audit released Friday criticized Los Alamos National Laboratory for its handling of workers and scientists leaving the employment of the weapons lab.
The report, issued by the Department of Energy's Office of the Inspector General, "found no assurance that, prior to departure, LANL terminating employees turned in security badges," completed security out-processing or had their clearances and access authorizations to classified materials terminated in a timely manner.
For example, the audit notes that, of 96 employees with security clearances leaving LANL over a two-year period, 44 had not turned in their badges at the time of the audit review, 61 had not completed security out-processing paper work and 21 retained their clearances from 11 to 567 days after their departure.
LANL spokesman James Rickman contested the tone of the audit, arguing that the laboratory discovered the failings on its own in 2003 and had already implemented corrections before the audit was started.
"In fact, the laboratory already was developing new out-processing procedures at the time of the IG investigation, and these new procedures were implemented in September 2004 and have had a 99 percent success rate so far," he said.
He said the rate is expected to reach 100 percent when paperwork and reviews are included from previous quarters.
"It is important to point out that the IG investigators and laboratory inventories did not find a single instance in which property or classified material at Los Alamos was handled inappropriately as a result of out-processing weaknesses," Rickman said.
He said LANL was diligent and conscientious in its efforts to fix weaknesses lab officials had uncovered themselves prior to the audit.

Copyright 2005 Albuquerque Journal

From Anonymous:

So far this blog has demonstrated a remarkable self-regulating behavior. If somebody posts something stupid, or just way out in left field, a bunch of contributers jump on it by way of correction, and all without flames.

Admirable (in the good sense of the word, not the Nano-sense).

From Anonymous:

Regarding the revelation that was dropped on us during the Bodeman meeting that Nanos is conducting (or having conducted for him, it wasn't clear) a lesson's-learned/cost analysis of the shutdown, what do you want to bet that the reviewers conveniently "forget" to factor in the lost business from all those work for others sponsors who have vamoosed? Prior to the shutdown, WFO comprised nearly 25% of our $2.2 billion budget. Want to take bets on what it is now? What it will be in FY05, FY06, FY07?

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

After watching Nanos, Bodman, Domenici, and Brooks on Friday, it is clear that Mr. Nanos has the full confidence and support of his customers, NNSA and DOE. I was very disappointed in the questions asked from the floor and a bit embarrassed by the total lack of strategic thinking on the part of LANL staff.

SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN
Report: UC overpaid to run labs


Diana Heil | The New Mexican
February 26, 2005


By the end of September, the federal government will have paid $30 million more than necessary over five years for the University of California to operate three national laboratories, according to a recent audit report from the Department of Energy's inspector general.

"These funds could have been used to expand the scientific programs of the laboratories or to address other pressing ... needs," the report states.

Recouping the money might not be easy.

For one thing, the federal government signed a contract that allowed UC to get reimbursed for academic-related expenses, such as student recruitment, faculty home loans and university capital projects. "Reimbursement of such expenses is prohibited under federal cost principles," according to the audit.

If the contract had been written to exclude such items, DOE could have saved about $8 million over the five-year contract period, according to the audit. But as it was written, UC is getting more than its fair share of federal reimbursements for office expenses, the audit said.

The University of California operates Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley laboratories. The Office of the Vice President for Laboratory Management receives federal money to oversee the management contracts.

Calculation errors -- which went unnoticed by the Energy Department's financial analyst -- will cost the government another $21 million in unnecessary expenses, according to the audit.

The government also reimbursed UC for $880,000 worth of unallowable expenses, such as student recruitment.

The Inspector General wants the Energy Department to seek to recover some of the money. The Energy Department's contracting officers are reviewing questioned costs and will determine what amount, if any, UC must repay.

"We're examining the report and all the options available to us," Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, said. "We have people trying to determine what the situation is."

UC isn't expecting a big bill, however. Ron Nelson, who heads contract administration for UC, said the university will return a few thousand dollars. Its own review showed the university had charged some office expenses to the wrong accounts, he said.

In other cases, the university's routine accounting practices caused some confusion, and the university will modify its accounting methods, he said.

Nelson noted some lab-related activities do take place on campuses. Teasing out who benefited from the university's facilities, equipment and programs can be difficult, he said. These are central expenses the institution is absorbing.

Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, a citizens group, said the Energy Department has been a poor steward of taxpayer money. "Two ex-lab employees have just been sentenced to prison for stealing $300,000 from taxpayers. Now a preliminary audit by the DOE Inspector General has determined UC has been paid $30 million in unallowable costs, making the felons' illegal gains look like chump change," Nuclear Watch of New Mexico director Jay Coghlan said.

He hopes the Energy Department will take swift action to determine what the university must pay back.

"Further," Coghlan said, "any confirmed fiscal irregularities should strongly and negatively impact UC's chances for future management of LANL. There's already been too much funny money up on the Hill."

In the report, auditors reviewed a total of five contracts -- two of which UC does not manage -- and found the Energy Department agreed to provide fees, payments or reimbursements for office expenses that were not adequately documented, not properly calculated or simply not allowed.
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Comments

By Khalil Spencer (Submitted: 02/26/2005 7:05 am )

Were these academic expenses lab-related? One would expect a national lab to have academically related expenses, right? Without more information, I'm not convinced that this isn't just another "spend a dollar to collect a dime" audit, and I've seen that before.

"These funds could have been used to expand the scientific programs of the laboratories or to address other pressing ... needs," or more likely, hiring more auditors.


By Don Nickell (Submitted: 02/26/2005 6:36 am )

If this wasn’t so ludicrous it would be funny, the scenario that a TV show could use. It seems to be a “tail wagging the dog” situation, guess which is the “dog”. My bitch about losing medical insurance just because I moved from NM to ID is minuscule by comparison!

Albuquerque Journal
Saturday, February 26, 2005

LANL Worries Aired; DOE Chief Vows Fair Treatment

By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer

  LOS ALAMOS— In his first visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory, U.S.
Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman reaffirmed his commitment to
protecting lab worker benefits through the pending competition to run the
nuclear weapons facility.
  "The people here are going to be treated fairly," he said. "We are very
much aware... of the concerns of the employees here, the rightful concerns."
  Bodman, who visited LANL on Friday and Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuquerque on Thursday, spoke to Los Alamos employees with U.S. Sen. Pete
Domenici, R-N.M., during an all-hands meeting and answered their questions.
  Bodman replaced Spencer Abraham as energy secretary on Jan. 31,
following Abraham's resignation in December.
  Following the meeting, Bodman told reporters that he came to Los Alamos
"in awe of the history of the place" and is now in awe of all that is done
there. He said he is committed to advancing the laboratory's core scientific
mission, which he said he "views as a sacred trust."
  During a question-and-answer period, one 30-year LANL veteran told
Bodman that many of his colleagues in their 50s and 60s are planning to
leave LANL "at the peak of their careers."
  "It is going to hurt us as a country, as a laboratory, and it all has to
do with bad management," he said.
  LANL director Pete Nanos has been the target of some employee and
scientist criticism for the way he addressed concerns last summer over
safety and security failures by shutting the laboratory down for months at a
high cost to taxpayers.
  Reviews of the total shutdown cost are ongoing, and Domenici said
employees and the public will get a full accounting of what happened and
why.
  "This has to end up with lessons learned," Domenici said. "It wasn't a
trivial matter or a series of trivial situations."
  Asked if Bodman had confidence in Nanos' leadership, Bodman said he only
just met Nanos but was impressed by his earnestness, commitment and
willingness to criticize himself.
  At the close of the all-hands meeting, Domenici told LANL workers that
it is time for them to move beyond feelings of discontent.
  "I am trying to tell you that we have got to get over this stuff and get
on with the new contract," he said. "Nobody intends to hurt any of you, and,
for God's sake, you know we don't intend to hurt what you're doing."
  Domenici praised President Bush's selection of Bodman as the new energy
secretary. Bodman served as deputy secretary of the treasury beginning in
2003 and deputy secretary of commerce from 2001 to 2003.
  Domenici said Bodman, an engineer who once taught at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, is the most experienced energy secretary since he's
been in Congress and will make LANL and America's future brighter.
  Bodman told reporters that it is natural for there to be some unease
during a contract competition for the largest nuclear weapons research
laboratory, "but that everything is going to be fine, I am convinced of
that."

Recently issued by the NNSA Source Evaluation Board

With regard to the preparation of a Request for

Proposals to operate the Los Alamos National Laboratory

The four white papers prepared by the NNSA Source Evaluation Board contain many improvements over the original draft and the board is to be commended for them. However, there are a number of items that would benefit by modification.

Employee retention: The original draft contained a provision which required the successor contractor to hire all the staff, except the senior management. In the white paper on “Major Issues,” this assurance of reasonable job security evaporates. Under issue #8, the proposed change says “… DOE expects the Contractor to subsequently exercise appropriate managerial judgment regarding employee retention …” This provision provides a strong incentive for the staff to seek stable employment elsewhere!

A Big Pot of Money for the New Contractor: If you think for half a minute, you will realize that if the University of California does not retain the operating contract, almost all the current Laboratory employees will be terminated from University employment, at the very second that UC contract expires. This means that, unless special action is taken, (e.g., retirement) all the vested employees will immediately become inactive members of the University of California Retirement Plan. It can then be argued that the UCRP has a contractual obligation to those former UC employees and therefore there is no money to be transferred to any successor contractor. In these circumstances the scheme to induce industrial companies to bid by giving them a big pot of money to manage (play with?) will fail. If you read the current contract you will find that the University only agreed to consider the desirability of transferring funds to a successor contractor, and not to actually do it.

I presume that the reason that the SEB is planning not to offer guaranteed rehiring to employees who “freeze” their accounts with UCRP, is to coerce the employees to join the new contractor’s plan, thereby increasing the Big Pot of Money. If they do so, according to the SEB response to question 2 in the white paper on “Pension Benefits for Current and Retired LANL Employees”: “with respect to employees who transfer from UCRP to the LANL site specific plan the successor contractor shall consider any changes to UCRP as it administers the site specific plan.” This statement is rather unclear, but it

would seem to permit a considerable reduction in the pension benefits, particularly if the successor contractor badly manages the funds. One can not help but notice, considering the verbiage in the white paper on “Contractor Compensation,” that a decrease in benefits would not only enhance the Contractor profits, but would also save money for the DOE. This is not a way to bolster the national defense on the backs of skilled employees.

I recommend that the whole idea of funds transfer be scrapped. All employees would then retain the UCRP benefits that they have earned, and start with the successor contractor’s plan. The remaining issues to be resolved have to do with vesting. Of course, if the University of California retains the contract, these issues may become moot.

It is really bad business not to have the compensation and benefits package part of the proposal for evaluation; to expect to have it provided after the successor contractor is selected is like buying a “pig in a poke.” What if the Contracting Officer finds that the aforementioned package is not “substantially equivalent.” What then?

What happens to new employees?: According to the language of the SEB response to question 2 in the Benefits White Paper, “The plan shall include a timeline as to when the Contractor can bring the benefits to within 5% of the comparator group without impacting the substantially equivalent defined benefits for employees who transferred from the predecessor contractor.” As the current benefits are claimed to be over twice those of the comparator group, then, if they are not changed (as mentioned previously), it would seem that the benefits for new hires would have to be very small. This feature would impact negatively on the hiring of high quality young people.

Please try to keep in mind that the mission is first and foremost the national defense. The duty is to assure that the Los Alamos National Laboratory is able to carry out the high calling of the defense of the nation. To do this work we need to have excellent people who could easily have a good and very rewarding job elsewhere. As you may know, a great deal of trust has been lost over the last couple of years. If the SEB can write into the RFP in clear, unambiguous and uncontradicted language the establishment of a good working environment and a sensible compensation and benefits package, then maybe the thousands of senior people who are currently preparing to retire might be retained and excellent young people could be attracted before the knowledge and experience accumulated over decades vanishes from the Laboratory.

I am pleased to acknowledge that some of these ideas were contributed by colleagues.

George A. Baker, Jr.

From Anonymous:

Dear Senator Domenici:

I attended the meeting today at LANL where Energy Secretary Bodeman was introduced. He seems like a nice person. I agree with your closing comments at the end of the meeting where you told the audience that "we should get over it", referring to the events of the past 8 months. I could not agree more. The first step in the process of "getting over it" is to remove Director Nanos from his position of Director of LANL. Do that, and we will, as you say, get over it and start looking to the future.

Regards,

A LANL Staff Member

From Anonymous:

The LANL rumor mill says the following is cancelled for the summer of 2005. 
Why?  Because no one at LANL wants the responsibility for students under the
current regime.  Last summer during the shutdown working with the students
was a big problem.  Part of the problem this year is the development
of guidelines for students that require the mentor always to be with the
student.  Another part of the problem is that students do dumb things, like
bringing cell phones into prohibited buildings.  This is now a security
violation.  Since there is no slack in the way LANL staff are treated when
someone makes a mistake, everyone fears making a mistake.

June 6 - August 12, 2005
Welcome to the Home Page of the Los Alamos Summer School in Physics

Applications are now being accepted for LASS 2005. Please use the electronic
application link below.

The Los Alamos Summer School in Physics is a joint venture between Los Alamos
National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of New Mexico (UNM). The program
runs for 10 weeks in the summer and features a combination of classes in many
areas of Physics as well as individual research projects with staff members at
LANL and faculty at UNM. Supercomputing applications in physics are emphasized
throughout the program.

In addition to housing and a stipend to cover expenses, students will receive
graduate or undergraduate credit from UNM for the Summer School.

Please use the following address for non-electronic correspondence:
   Los Alamos Summer School
   c/o University of New Mexico Department of Physics and Astronomy
   800 Yale Boulevard NE
   Albuquerque, NM  87131-1156
   Phone: (505) 277-2616

Doug,
Please post this as anonymous.  I'm interested to read comments
concerning this memo....
__________

From/MS:  Richard A. Marquez, A108
Phone/Fax:  7-1973 / 7-5624
Symbol:  ADA-05-021
Date:  February 24, 2005


Subject:  Institutional Information Technology Strategy Project

I am pleased to announce that the Laboratory is moving forward
with the Institutional Information Technology (IT) Strategy
Project. As you recall, several initiatives in 2004, including the
review of General & Administrative budgets and efforts to reduce
the cost of doing business, identified the need to develop an
Institutional IT Strategy. The Executive Board reaffirmed this
need at the December strategic planning retreat, and identified
the Institutional IT strategy as one of the Laboratory's FY05
Corporate Performance Objectives. The project goal is to develop
and implement a business-driven institutional IT strategic plan
that positions IT as a strategic asset and defines the framework
for effective management of IT. This strategic plan will provide
an important context for Laboratory decisions regarding IT
investments, IT governance and organizational structure.

Project Philosophy
A fundamental philosophy behind the IT Strategy Project is that
the Laboratory's mission, goals and objectives must drive IT. This
IT-to-business alignment is paramount in viewing IT as a strategic
asset that must be managed, much like other tangible assets such
as facilities or the workforce. In support of this asset
management philosophy, the project will reinforce that knowledge
and information are enterprise assets and must be readily
available to stakeholders. Other objectives of the project include
the need to reduce the complexity of the Laboratory's IT portfolio
through reduction of the number of operating systems,
applications, etc.; and the need for optimization of acquisition
and use of IT resources through purchasing standards, acquisition
planning, efficient allocation of resources, etc. The IT Strategy
Project will address these issues and concerns in the coming
months.

Team Participation
The IT Strategy Project team is comprised of representatives from
the technical and business sides of the institution. Chief
Information Officer (acting) Charlotte Lindsey and Camilo Perez of
the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) division are leading the
project, and Principal Deputy Associate Director for
Administration Carolyn Zerkle is project champion. The team
appreciates the importance of ensuring that the Laboratory's
corporate IT Strategy incorporates and addresses the diverse needs
of the institution. Therefore, the project includes a number of
avenues for gathering and implementing the input and support of
key stakeholders.

In the coming months, managers and other personnel will be asked
by the IT Strategy Project team to participate in reviews, focus
groups, virtual forums and a variety of other mechanisms to
provide input into planning and execution of the institutional IT
strategy. I urge managers to participate and to encourage members
of their staff to participate as well. In this way, we will help
ensure that the Laboratory's IT strategy is representative of the
needs of the institution and is driven by the Laboratory's
mission, goals and objectives.

Timeline
The project timeline is ambitious. Assessment of the Laboratory's
current IT environment already has begun with the assistance of
Gartner, Inc. and Decision Applications (D) division. In the
coming weeks, the team will develop a process for organizational
assessments of IT resources, at which time managers, or their
designees, will have opportunities to participate in the project.
The Laboratory plans to begin implementing a corporate IT strategy
this summer.

Quick Wins
The team also is developing a set of "Quick Wins" institutional
IT improvements that can be accomplished in the next six months.
The quick wins include:

-  development of an IT cost tracking system,
-  implementation of a desktop computing purchasing and
lifecycle management system, and
-  implementation of a tracking system for software licenses
and license purchasing.

Communication
To keep the institution updated on the status of this project, the
IT Strategy Project team has developed a website located at
http://int.lanl.gov/cio/itstrategy/index.shtml that includes
frequently asked questions about the project and other resources,
including a planned moderated discussion forum. Those with
questions about the project can contact Project Leader Camilo
Perez at 5-8704 or submit questions and comments to
itsp-faq@lanl.gov online.

Feds aiming to break up lab pensions U.S. officials say UC's pension plan is too much for the competition By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

The gold-plated University of California pension plan that kept the nation's two nuclear-explosives labs full of scientists after the Cold War is headed for a breakup. Federal officials are proposing a separate pension plan for Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of the competition for its management contract, and they plan the same for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The two weapons design labs are run by the university and account for a fifth of the University of California Retirement Plan, one of the nation's largest and healthiest public plans. It has $41.3 billion in assets — about a third as much as its cousin, the California Public Employees Retirement System — but 18 percent more than it needs to pay all benefit claims. The university and its employees haven't had to make contributions to the plan for almost 15 years, and it pays rich benefits. If new pension plans werecreated for two weapons labs, federal officials propose that retirement benefits for all current and former employees would remain the same. So why break up a healthy plan that employees consider perhaps the best perk of working for the university? In short, the plan is too good, and potential challengers to the university's operating contract at Los Alamos say it makes the competition lopsided. "A number of firms have identified this as a barrier to competition," said Tyler Przybylek, acting chief operating officer for the National Nuclear Security Administration and chairman of a panel running the Los Alamos competition. "If you allow UC to keep the UCRP and everyone else has to create a separate pension plan, that seems to be an advantage to the incumbent." The government also wants more say in the pension plans for the weapons labs, such as being notified of contributions and changes in benefits. In the past, university officials decided unilaterally on the level of contributions and got full reimbursement from the NNSA's parent organization, the U.S. Department of Energy. "We think there's a discussion role when you're using taxpayer money as opposed to simply being notified what the bill is," Przybylek said. Under a proposal last Friday, the university would have to break out the assets for a separate Los Alamos pension plan to be managed by whoever ends up as operating contractor for the lab. Los Alamos accounts for $4.28 billion of the university plan, but the new pension plan would be much smaller. The UCRP would continue to hold assets for, and pay benefits to lab retirees and their survivors as well as any employees already vested. Typically, full-time lab employees are vested after five years of service. The proposal says benefits in that plan must be "substantially equivalent" to existing benefits in the UCRP. If the benefits are more than 105 percent higher than pension benefits at other weapons sites, the lab operating contractor must propose a timeline for bringing the benefits closer to those of the complex without reducing any benefits for any current employee. "They're going to have to come up with a very creative way to bring pension and benefits in line in a way that doesn't impact current employees," Przybylek said. Los Alamos employees and retirees are worried that they will lose retirement benefits in the competition. But NNSA officials say they're wary of doing anything that might be construed as a benefit cut and cause a flood of retirements or a brain drain at the lab. "We don't intend to do that. That's not what's in the works for current employees," Przybylek said. "We want someone to come in who has an eye on recruiting and retaining engineers and scientists of the caliber that we've had for years but still do it with some business sense." He said the move to a separate lab pension has nothing to do with a long-running dispute between the Energy Department and the university over alleged overpayments that the university made into its plan from Energy Department funds. The university contends the overfunding of its pension plan is overwhelmingly the result of prudent investment and good returns in the 1980s and early 1990s. But Energy Department audits going back to the 1980s suggest that taxpayers may have been charged $1 billion or more beyond what was needed to pay pensions at all three of the federal labs managed by the university. What happens to those alleged overpayments is likely to figure prominently in negotiations between the Energy Department and the university over creation of the new pension plans for the two weapons labs. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com.

From Anonymous:

To: Dr. Robert Dynes, President of the University of California

Whereas,

Director Nanos has caused unprecedented damage to the reputation and productivity of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and to national security, by his unilateral imposition of a lengthy shutdown of all work at LANL;

and

His reasons for this shutdown have now been shown to be either misrepresented or wrong;

and

Most LANL employees have lost confidence in Dr. Nanos' ability to lead the Laboratory;

Therefore,

We, the undersigned employees of Los Alamos National Laboratory, request that the President of the University of California immediately demand the resignation of Dr. Nanos.

Sign the petition by leaving a comment; "Anonymous" is a signature that will be noted.

From Anonymous:

A recent commenter on the "Petition to Remove Nanos" post disparages the puny turnout of ~60, mostly anonymous signatures as of 2/18. Maybe he's right, maybe Nanos will win; maybe most LANL employees don't care enough to sign the petition. Or maybe they _are_ too cowardly to sign. Maybe "Baghdad Bob" Jim Fallin is right, and there is only a "small vocal group of complainers" at LANL, and most employees are perfectly happy with current leadership.

If it is the case that they are too cowardly, then LANL richly deserves the abusive environment of intimidation and retribution that Nanos has delivered to them. Actually, the same is true if the majority of the staff don't care enough to vote.

What is the excuse of the rest of you who don't fall into any of these categories? Got some special reason for not signing the petition, anonymously, even?

Dear Dr. Nanos:

In yesterday's meeting explaining the facts surrounding the CREM incident in DX Division, Mary Hockaday, former DX Division Leader, stood up and told the audience that, on the day after you ordered the shutdown, she had informed you that there was an indication that the "missing" CREM inventory may have been suspect. Yet you have persisted for over seven months in misrepresenting the facts behind your stated reasons for the shutdown.

The time for an apology from you to the staff of the Laboratory is well past due. The only honorable course that is now open to you is to resign your position as Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, effective immediately.

Sincerely,
--
Brad Lee Holian
Technical Staff Member
******************************
Theoretical Division
Group T-12, MS-B268
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM 87545 (USA)
------------------------------
phone: 505-667-9237
fax: 505-665-3909
email: blh@lanl.gov
******************************

All:

A note on the placement of the petition to remove Director Nanos: The submitters (plural) of that submission requested that it be a "floater" at the top of the blog for a period of two weeks. After that period it will be moved to a sidebar link. I, on my own, decided to group the two posts that follow the petition with it because they closely relate to the subject of the petition.

--Doug

Albuquerque Journal North
Friday, February 25, 2005

2 Punished for Misusing LANL Funds

By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer

Apologizing for what they said was a terrible mistake, two men accused of illegally buying more than $300,000 worth of hunting equipment, outdoor gear and television sets on a Los Alamos National Laboratory account were each sentenced on Thursday to serve time behind bars.
U.S. District Judge James Parker sentenced former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee Peter Bussolini, 67, to six months in prison followed by six months of house arrest and $30,000 in fines.
Scott Alexander, 42, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison. He will be eligible for release after 10 months and two weeks with good behavior.
Parker also ruled that the two former highly paid laboratory workers jointly pay $39,401 in restitution to the University of California, which manages the lab for the Department of Energy.
Bussolini, who worked at the lab for 24 years, was a team leader in facilities management. Alexander was part of the facilities management team.
LANL officials have said they have been able to return or put to good use all but about $20,000 worth of items Bussolini and Alexander bought.
The two men were fired in December 2002 after being accused of putting hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable purchases on the lab's account, giving the items bogus names to make them seem more in line with lab uses. A television was called a "command center monitor"; a picnic table was a "workbench."
A 20-page indictment accused the pair of buying everything from televisions and CB radio equipment to vacuum cleaners and automobile tires between Feb. 1, 2001 and Oct. 31, 2002.
The sentences, with Alexander's potential reduction for good behavior, were slightly below the recommended federal sentencing guidelines of 12 to 18 months, which federal judges no longer have to strictly abide by following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
"I've tried to impose what I feel are fair and just sentences on each defendant, although they are different," Parker said, adding that deciding on the terms was "not a pleasant thing for a judge to have to do under these circumstances­ this is very difficult."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Federici argued that Parker should stick to the minimum guideline for both defendants and that Bussolini should receive the same prison term as Alexander.
"The people would expect the punishment to match the crime," he said. "It wouldn't be just to distinguish between the two of them." Both men "chose to turn a license to purchase into a license to steal," Federici said.
But Parker decided a combination of factors in Bussolini's case favored a lighter prison term. He said Bussolini's age, exemplary work history and community service in the past all contributed to his decision to reduce Bussolini's sentence term, as well as the fact that Bussolini's wife requires care for her diabetic condition.
"I find it most difficult to impose a sentence," Parker said.
Bussolini and Alexander pleaded guilty in October to counts of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit a felony and acknowledged their actions cost LANL $120,000 to $200,000, although lab investigators have estimated that the purchases amounted to much more. In exchange, prosecutors dropped 26 other indictment counts against the two.
As Parker read Alexander's sentence, the former laboratory employee's family and friends muffled sobs. Bussolini's wife, Lee, and son, Jeffrey, sat shoulder to shoulder in the audience, looking on quietly.
Both men apologized to their families, the laboratory and the University of California. Alexander read from a statement, punctuated by tears, and Bussolini made a few unprepared remarks.
"I know better and I want to offer my apologies," to my family, friends and the laboratory, Bussolini said.
"I know better than my actions prove," Alexander said, adding that he was sorry for the harm and embarrassment he brought to his family and the laboratory.
"They trusted me and I failed... for that I am truly sorry," he said through tears. "I do not know if I will ever be able to make it up to them, but I will not give up trying."

From Anonymous:

I am looking forward to when potential bidders are taken on a tour of LANL and are shown buildings (at TA-3 SM123 and SM200 for example) where water from leaky roofs falls onto expensive equipment and desks requiring them to be covered with plastic, causes mold to grow in the walls, drips into huge waste cans via an assembly called a "diaper", causes ceiling tiles to fall, and causes the work area to smell like a dirty fishtank. Who wants to contract to manange a facility where the repairs to aging buildings will cost millions of dollars and trying to build new structures can easily be a 7 year project because the money has to come from the DOE?

Pictures

The facilities people at LANL have wasted several years and many thousands of dollars trying to patch flat roofs, thus making the KSL roofers richer and richer and moving the leaks from one location to another. Before long employees working under such miserable conditions will start reporting work related illnesses because of the mold and the stench.

Then another scandal about LANL will reach the newspapers.

From Anomymous:

This won't be a popular view, but it's mine and the site says that
everyone's views are welcome. So here goes:

Director Nanos never said that the entire scientific staff is comprised of
"cowboys" or "buttheads." Listen again to the tape of that all-hands
meeting. He used those terms in reference to a very few individuals who
knowingly and/or willingly ignored the rules for handling classified
materials, thereby jeopardizing national security, or who likewise ignored
the rules for safety and jeopardized the health and well-being of fellow
employees. He has always said that the vast majority of LANL employees are
honest, hard working, and committed to the nation's best interests.

From the rants and raves on this site from those who scream like scalded
cats that the Director has impugned their professional integrity by calling
them cowboys or buttheads, I therefore can only draw the conclusion that
must be the shoe fits -- e.g., he/she knowingly or willingly ignored the
rules for handling classified materials, or for ensuring the safety of
fellow employees. Because those are the ONLY people to whom the Director
referred in pejorative terms. His language may sometimes be a bit salty, but
at least you have no doubt where you stand with him. That approach is much
preferred -- at least by me, to those in this laboratory who will smile
sweetly to your face and then stab you in the back the moment you turn away.

My background is private industry in positions that reached equivalency with
the senior executive team or executive board, whatever name you wish to use.
My tenure at LANL is relatively short -- no, I'm not yet vested. I can
assure you that the attitudes and behaviors reflected by many of those
posting to this site would NEVER be tolerated in a Fortune 100 company. You
would either abide by the rules and get with the program, meeting
expectations for your individual and/or team contributions and production,
or you would be shown the door. Period. There is no tolerance in industry
for the whining, bellyaching, prima donna complexes that seem to exist in
such great quantity at LANL.

The Director said, in response to a question at one of the forums last
summer, that he would share the full information from the investigation at
the earliest possible date. What he could NOT do is preempt a federal
criminal investigation by saying, "Never mind! We just couldn't tell the
difference between a bar code label and a disk of classified information."
DOE dictated the process -- the investigation findings went to them and
then, and only then, THEY would release the results. Until that happened,
the lab's hands were tied. Senator Domenici wasn't bound by that
requirement, but you can bet your boots -- and your program money -- that
DOE would not have taken kindly to anyone from within the lab who jumped the
gun before the FBI finished its investigation.

The detailed briefings given by Scott Gibbs fulfilled the Director's
promise, and they were given in what for the lab was an amazingly short time
frame after DOE referenced the FBI conclusions in a news release on a
separate subject. The discipline taken by the lab against people involved in
both the ACREM mess and the laser incident was measured and far more
restrained than you would have found in most settings.

This laboratory's contributions to the nation are awe-inspiring. Its future
potential is limited only by the constraints placed on us by those who feel
he or she is so special that playing by real-world rules is beneath them.

For goodness sake, get off your high horses, buckle down and fulfill LANL's
potential. That's what you're paid very well to do. And please get busy
doing it before Congress decides this bunch of malcontents on the Pajarito
Plateau just isn't worth the trouble.

From Anonymous:

Anybody care to speculate on what Bodeman will be telling us tomorrow? I hear from a couple of sources that UC is more than just slightly disenchanted with our beloved director. Shouting matches have apparently been occurring on a near-daily basis between our director and the Office of the President of UC. DOE has been a frequent visitor to the blog, so they know what we collectively think of Nanos. Domenici, Bingaman, and Udall have all received requests to initiate congressional hearings on Nanos' misconduct. NNSA recently announced that UC would manage the contract for at least another 6 months; the thought of Nanos remaining here even untill September was intolerable, much less 6 more months. What do you think: will Bodman announce Nanos' departure tomorrow, or will we just be subjected to more "attaboy" crap?

From Anonymous:


I would like to know if anyone has gotten, or heard of anyone getting, the so called bonus for helping with the restart?
If you use simple numbers and say the average salary at LANL is 100k. The average raise was 2% and there are 8,00 employees.
According to Pete's concept of "Shared Fate", we will all be getting a $500.00 bonus. What a guy.

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

I hate to play conspiracy theorist, but did anyone else think today’s snow delay was odd? It seemed to be completely unnecessary especially given the lack of a delay when conditions were far worse. Maybe Pete was throwing us a bone the day before the new Secretary of Energy visits?

Albuquerque Journal North
Thursday, February 24, 2005

Doubts Raised on Bids for LANL

By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer

Will the Department of Energy, now holding a competition for the contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory, receive any bids from worthwhile potential managers capable of operating the nation's largest and oldest nuclear weapons research facility?

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., acknowledged on Wednesday that since DOE announced in April 2003 that it would put the LANL contract out for bids, he has developed some doubts.

"With the passage of time, I began to wonder and I wonder if the DOE has been wondering, too," he said.

Even before the draft criteria that DOE will use to evaluate potential managers was announced, two of the front runners in the putative field of competitors dropped out of the running­ the University of Texas and Lockheed Martin, which operates Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

Other potential bidders have discussed the scarcity of competitors and how slow partnerships to seek the contract have been to form. Thus far, not a single company, university or consortium has announced firm plans to bid on the laboratory's $2 billion-a-year contract.

Once close to announcing a partnership with a business to manage LANL, University of California officials now say only that negotiations with potential partners are ongoing.

UC has held the contract since the lab was created to develop the atomic bomb during World War II, but DOE decided to put the management contract out for bids after a series of security and management problems at LANL in recent years.
Domenici talked about the LANL contract competition following a talk at Los Alamos on nuclear non-proliferation issues hosted by LANL and the Los Alamos Committee on Arms Control and International Security.

Federal officials announced on Tuesday major changes in the criteria for managing LANL, many of which were designed to make the contract more attractive to bidders.

A draft request for proposals was published in December and the changes this week announced amend that document. Federal officials said they received numerous comments from potential bidders and hundreds of comments and questions from current LANL employees about the terms of the document.

They are now seeking additional input through March 4 on the changes.

Aside from doubling the proposed fee for the next manager of the Los Alamos lab­ to a level about seven times what the University of California now earns for running LANL­ federal officials have also decided to extend the university's current contract by about six months. The contract previously was set to expire in September.

Federal officials originally proposed a 1.5 percent management fee for the next manager based on LANL's $2 billion budget, but the changes boost that offer to 3 percent, or about $60 million. That dwarfs the $8 million that the University of California is now eligible to earn and doubles the $30 million fee originally proposed in the bidding criteria.

"I think the raising of the fee is a good thing," Domenici said, adding that it now "seems to be sufficient."

The contract extension for the University of California, if approved by the secretary of energy, will allow federal officials reviewing the contract competition for LANL to evaluate pension benefit packages offered by companies seeking to operate LANL.

The extra time also will allow companies to develop "substantially equivalent" benefits to those provided now by the University of California and for LANL employees to review the proposed benefits to decide whether they want to stick with the new operator or retire under the UC pension plan, according to the amended criteria released Tuesday.

Domenici said he and his staff are still reviewing the criteria changes but that he has some concerns over a proposed requirement to create a free-standing pension plan and a limited liability corporation to manage LANL.

"Seems to me they (federal officials) are looking for something," he said. "What is it they have in mind?"

Despite all the uncertainty and "commotion" about the contract competition, which Domenici said is natural in the midst of unknown territory, he predicted that LANL employees and the laboratory will come out well in terms of the contract.

"It is too important an institution to risk any changes that will elicit a major change in the caliber and quality of the workforce," he said.

From Anonymous:

I have been working at the lab for a little for more than 18 years. In all this time, I have not seen the morale as low as now. Firing Nanos would not fix our problems but, certainly, would improve our morale. It is hard to imagine how successful he was in loosing the respect of almost everyone at this institution.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

LANL contract extension asked by NNSA

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and ... wait ...

The National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear weapons complex for the Department of Energy, will seek to extend the University of California contract by six months.

During a month in which NNSA has financially penalized UC severely for management infractions at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the quasi-independent agency now finds the need to keep them on the job while NNSA struggles to demonstrate a viable procedure for competing the contract.

NNSA's surprising proposal arrived in a batch of e-mail notifications that had been plugged in the NNSA system for at least three weeks.

The recovered information included a number of potentially significant revisions to the current draft request for proposal.

NNSA is already a week behind its own projections of Feb. 15 for distributing a final RFP, and the flurry of suggested changes include an additional review period for comments on the new proposals as well as an extra 30 days, a total of 90, to prepare the proposal.

"The SEB (Source Evaluation Board which has responsibility for the contracting process) will ask NNSA to seek Secretary of Energy approval to negotiate an extension to the current UC contract," states the white paper on pension benefits for current and retired LANL employees.

An overview of the 14 major issues that will be adjusted to reflect bidder concerns provided details on the rationale for the delay, which is needed for the anticipated transition period.

Sixty days are allowed for the successor contractor to develop a "substantially equivalent" pension and benefits plan; 60 days for the Contracting Officer to decide if the plan meets the definition; and a final 60 days for current employees to decide to transfer to a guaranteed job or retire.

If approved, UC may continue to manage the contract for more than another year, until April 2006.

If senior DOE managers go along with the suggested changes, there will be no difference between pension requirements for UC and other offerers.

Both will require setting up a "stand-alone plan" for the LANL site, according to the new information.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, objected immediately to the stand-alone plan on Tuesday, saying, "Right off the bat, one significant change that raises a red flag is the call for a stand-alone benefits plan at Los Alamos. That needs to be fully reviewed."

Both Domenici and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, have expressed concerns about the prospect for destabilizing and demoralizing delays in arriving at a new contract at LANL.

Pension and benefit concerns were raised on the first day that NNSA vowed to recompete the LANL contract at the direction of former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in April 2003.

Two years later, NNSA is still looking for an acceptable formula.

At the time, NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said he didn't know how the change might be accomplished, but was confident that it could be done.

After the draft RFP was released, a mounting clamor of dissatisfaction at LANL, based on vague language and perceived threats to the existing system, caused NNSA to extend the comment period briefly, while an additional public meeting was held with LANL employees at the end of January.

NNSA also failed to meet its own tentative schedule in developing the draft RFP, creating a likelihood that a new contract would not be in place when the current contract expires on Sept. 30.

Al Stotts, a spokesperson for the Albuquerque service center of NNSA, said the new proposals were in response to comments received from LANL employees and potential bidders.

"This is another step in the process, to be timely in response," he said. The second round of suggestions and bidder responses were meant to say, "Here's what we're thinking. You tell us what you're thinking about," he said.

Comments are due back to the NNSA officials by March 4.

Among the other major changes:

SEB proposes to double the total available fee from 1.5 percent to 3 percent of the budget, nominally from about $25 million to $50 million as well as doubling the reimbursable work fixed fee from 1 percent to 2 percent.

The increase is supposed to compensate the contractor for the non-reimbursable risks, including substantial liabilities.

SEB wants to increase the base term of the contract from five to seven years to promote workforce stability.

Apparently some bidders may want to have the flexibility of hiring some existing senior management, so SEB proposes to give them that flexibility.

Chris Harrington, UC spokesperson, said he had just received the notices for the month of February on Friday.

"We were able to start looking at it on Friday," he said. "We'll continue to look at it, as we have the entire RFP."

The UC Board of Regents has yet to state their intention to compete for the contract UC has held for more than 60 years, although they have a staff working to prepare a proposal, should that decision be made.

Harrington declined to comment on what effect a potential 180-day delay might have on UC's plans.

NNSA's webmaster in Albuquerque, Lou Lubitz, said the system had consistently delivered a message saying that recipients had duly received their notifications.

"I screwed up, in terms of taking the automated response as gospel," he said.

"Now, we're going to open the hood every Monday," for a weekly check.

From Anonymous:

The news articles regarding the latest RFP changes are
concentrating on the clarifications made about pension benefits.
I've yet to see anything regarding the following paragraphs
from the "Draft RFP Major Issues from Potential Offerors and
NNSA SEB Proposed Actions to Stimulate Competition" document
available on the RFP webpage,

http://www.doeal.gov/lanlcontractrecompete/DraftRFP.htm

in which they propose changing the wording of the RFP regarding the
requirement to hire all LANL employees except senior management:
-----------
Issue #8: Section H clause on Workforce Transition requires hiring of all staff except Senior Management. Need flexibility to adjust the workforce to enhance productivity and savings.


SEB Response: SEB proposes revising the Section H Workforce Transition clause (which requires the Contractor to offer employment to all employees except Senior Management) to specify that DOE expects the Contractor to subsequently exercise appropriate managerial judgment regarding employee retention and job assignments. In addition, for current employees who do not transfer to the successor contractor and either retire or “freeze” their account in UCRP, the successor contractor will determine whether they should be hired as new employees or not.

From Anonymous:

ATTENTION:  Anyone at LANL who has a contract with a small New Mexico 
business for support comparable to what KSL provides will no longer be 
permitted to contract with that business unless the contract is for over
$500,000.  This is another slap in the face of small northern New
Mexico businesses since none of them have that large a contract with
LANL.

If KSL does not want to perform the requested service, they will
then subcontract it to another company.  But they have no intention
of subcontracting to any non-union companies.  Most small northern
New Mexico businesses are non-union.  One company I have talked to
will lose about 30% of its business at LANL because of this.

If LANL were truly interested in saving money, KSL would have to compete
on all contracts along with small businesses.  But LANL is permitting
this waste of taxpayers' dollars rather than supporting the small
businesses.  Furthermore, the amount of safety paperwork the small 
businesses must do is monumental, thus adding to their cost of doing 
business, yet KSL can get away with doing very little paperwork.

Are you listening, Bill, Tom, Jeff, and Pete?  Do you care about businesses
in our state?  Are you truly committed to supporting them?  Or do you believe
that farming all work out to a monopoly which can then subcontract to their
union buddies is good for New Mexico?

From the 2/23/2005 LANL NewsBulletin:

New DOE chief to speak at Lab Friday

Samuel Bodman, the new Department of Energy secretary, is scheduled to speak to the Laboratory on Friday afternoon.

Bodman's all-employee talk begins at 1 p.m., from the Administration Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3. Standard Laboratory clearance and escort rules apply for Lab workers who want to hear the talk in person. It also can be watched live on LABNET Channel 9 and on desktop computers using Real Media and IPTV technology.

Bodman was recently named DOE chief succeeding Spencer Abraham. Bodman most recently was a deputy secretary in the U.S. Treasury Department.

Bodman will be accompanied to Los Alamos by Linton Brooks, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici.

While at Los Alamos, Bodman will meet with Laboratory Director Pete Nanos, receive briefings on Lab programs and visit several facilities. He also is scheduled to meet with Laboratory R and D 100 award recipients as well as Los Alamos' three most recent E.O. Lawrence Award winners.

Albuquerque Journal North
Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Benefits Plan Added to Proposed LANL Contract
The Associated Press

LOS ALAMOS­ Federal officials have amended a draft request for proposals regarding contract competition for Los Alamos National Laboratory, ensuring that the winner of the contract would have to provide a total compensation package for employees that is "substantially equivalent" to the benefits and pensions provided by the current contract with the University of California.

The impact of a potential switch in lab managers on employee benefits has been a source of concern within the lab and among state leaders and the congressional delegation.

Workers would be able to transfer their accrued service credit and leave balances with the new lab manager, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration's Source Evaluation Board.

The board said it will ask the NNSA to seek approval from the Energy Department to negotiate an extension of UC's contract to provide enough time during the transition period for the winning bidder to submit a "well thought out pension and benefits package."

The changes came after members of Congress, watchdog groups, employees and others sent their questions and comments to the NNSA to improve the proposed contract for managing the lab.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Tuesday he was evaluating the board's changes. "Right off the bat," he said, "one significant change that raises a red flag is the call for a stand-alone benefits plan at Los Alamos. That needs to be fully reviewed."

The board also extended the base term of the proposed contract from five years to seven years and doubled to 3 percent the fee awarded to the contractor for DOE and NNSA work.

The board will accept comments from potential bidders through March 4. Bidders also can meet with the board via teleconference this week or schedule a meeting next week in Washington, D.C.

The government plans to select a contractor this summer to begin work Oct. 1. The new contract includes possible extensions up to 20 years.

The contract is going out to bid for the first time in the lab's 60-year-plus history.

Los Alamos has been managed by the University of California since the lab's inception as a top-secret World War II project to develop the atomic bomb. However, the Energy Department decided to put the contract up for bid before its September expiration after a series of management failures and security problems.

From Anonymous:

Mission Accomplished

From Anonymous:

Somebody made an interesting comment to me today about the blog. This someone is a Los Alamos native and a non-LANL employee. This person is a part of the local business community. The comment went something like this: "It's interesting to see the folks at LANL starting to regain some of their self-respect, even beginning to find their center again after so many months of intimidation and abuse. The freedom and social dynamic that the blog has provided has made an amazing difference in the attitude of LANL staff."

From Anonymous:

Nanos will be out Sept. 30 if not earlier, so why vote?

Yes, this is the worst it has ever been here (speaking from 15 1/2 years as a TSM, previously DOE employee). The oversight from DOE, Congress, and NNSA, lack thereof from UC, are significant contributors along with the suspiciously rampant over reactive media coverage on LANL. Money, politics, something's behind this.

It is very sad to see here what fear and powerlessness lead to. I agree with what's been stated above: Nanos is our punishment, not the original problem and removing him will not solve the problem. I can where intent may be fulfilled in purging the lab and that may very well have been his hired purpose. Has anyone looked across America lately? Corporations, laboratories, etc. Where has science gone? Where has holding leaders accountable gone? Who anymore expects ethics in business? Why should LANL be any different?

One note on retaliation here at LANL: the outside legal firm that trained the managers to "recognize and prevent" retaliation admitted that in all the surveys they have ever taken, LANL had the highest perception of retaliation they have ever seen. As compared to many nuclear facilities and companies. Costly stand-downs at nuclear facilities have been mandated by the NRC simply to "correct" high perceptions of retaliation. Why aren't we doing that here? That wasn't even an issue in the Management Self Assessments in the Restart, as I recall.

We need to bring problems to the surface in a peer-reviewed fashion, open to discussion, with no fear of reprisal. Then safety and security issues may be prioritized, strategized and resolved.

Retaliation here is real and career killing. Extending across the oceans, even. This is a one-company town. Get fired or forced out here and you must leave. And LANL has influence across the world in our specialties. So if you really cause a stink, our Chief of Staffs have no problem contacting other companies to simply say "this person has some issues."

And having national news coverage of newly hired employees (either fired or not) who do not understand the technicalities behind what they observe, who exponentially overstate these observations, does not help! Whatever happened to investigative reporting?

Of course we're all signing anonymously. ADWEM, as Division would be too revealing and dishonorable.

LANL - Where the Zeal to Achieve Mediocrity is Unexcelled

From Anonymous:

I like the unintentional piece of self-deprecating humor in the new
"Director's Notebook" feature on the LANL intranet: a video clip
titled the "Nanobyte." The ordinary meaning of this word would be
"billionth of a byte," but since the smallest possible unit of
information (the bit) is one eighth of a byte, it becomes a synonym
for "zero information content."

-dug (*Not* Doug)

From Anonymous:

So much of the commentary about the Media applies here within our own little microcosm, LANL. Think about the Public Affairs guys and their desperate attempts to spin the Lab news.


-----


Blogs or Blotto?
by Butler Shaffer

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

~ Lord Kelvin (1895)

"Video won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."

~ Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox (1946)

"I can assure you on the highest authority that data processing is a fad and won’t last out the year."

~ Business books editor at Prentice-Hall (1957)

The foregoing quotations are to be found in a delightful book, The Experts Speak, by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky. Described as a "compendium of authoritative misinformation," it illustrates how even highly respected authorities in their fields of endeavor can get tripped up and embarrassed by the unpredictabilities inherent in a complex world.

If another edition of this book is forthcoming, the authors would be well-advised to pay attention to the whining coming from members of the established media, who are doing their best to convince us that Internet "blogging" is just another fad that will soon go the way of the hula-hoop and the hokey-pokey. A recent CNN news feature on "blog power" was such an exercise, with one speaker focusing on the fact that there are so many sources, so much conflicting data and analysis, and so much error inherent in the blogging process that readers are burdened in their efforts to discover the truth of things. No mention was made, of course, of the lying, distortions, and propagandizing that has long infected traditional news outlets; nor was credit given to blog-sites for catching and correcting a number of these institutional deviations from truthfulness. The search for truth and understanding depends upon a constantly energized mind that searches, weighs, and analyzes, all with an enduring skepticism as to what one finds.

In the face of so much competing and conflicting information, CNN hostess Judy Woodruff pondered, would people not be better advised to rely on the "mainstream media" for their news? She might just as well have added: "you have been content to let us do your thinking for you; why do you want to undertake such tedious and unceasing work? Let us continue to tell you what we think you should know!" That CNN is one of the "mainstream" institutions, the self-interested nature of her question expresses the empty desperation of the practitioners of an information system model that is rapidly dying.

The image that comes to mind when I think of the present institutional order, is that of the stegosaurus, the bell-curve-shaped dinosaur with plated armor along its spine. The stegosaurus was so large that it had two brains, one in its head the other in its tail. It is said that a stegosaurus might have been fatally attacked at its backside, while the frontal brain – due to the sluggish nature of the animal’s nervous system – might have continued munching tree leaves, not knowing that its fate was already sealed.

So it seems with denizens of the institutional order, particularly those in the news media. The minds at the major television networks, newspapers, and other "mainstream" purveyors of information, either (a) don’t understand that the vertically-structured information model – which operates from the premise "we will tell you what we think you ought to know" – is in as terminal a state as our stegosaurus; or (b) they do understand this, but hope that, by denying the inevitable, they can forestall the fatal consequences.

There is nothing "faddish" about the collapse of vertically-structured institutional systems, and the emergence of horizontal networks of interconnected individuals. Centralized systems are rapidly becoming decentralized – a matter about which I have written before – producing a fundamental change in how people will organize themselves in society. Because of the Internet, the information-genie has escaped its institutional confines – where it has been controlled, manipulated, and hidden from view, in furtherance of institutional interests to monopolize the content of the minds of subjugated men and women.

The role of the "mainstream media" has long been the same as that of the government school system: to condition minds to not only accept, but to desire having society organized just as it is. As the United States’ wars against Afghanistan and Iraq progressed, major news outlets were preoccupied with propagandizing the Bush administration’s party line. One retired general after another – most employed by defense contractors! – was brought on camera to assure the American people that the war policy was justified and the military strategy was in competent hands. Critics of the war were not to be seen or heard, save for the one channel that has preserved its journalistic integrity: C-SPAN.

American television, in particular, has so diluted the substance of "newscasts" as to render them virtually meaningless to thoughtful men and women. While bloggers, Internet websites, and individual e-mailers were often making factual and analytical challenges to political policies and programs, network television was anesthetizing minds with prolonged coverage of the Scott Peterson trial, entertainment world gossip, or trivial events writ large as the "lead story" of the day. Driving down the Pacific coast the other day, my wife and I listened to a BBC News show on satellite radio – a phenomenon that is carrying decentralization into the realm of broadcast radio. It was refreshing to hear newscasters discussing something other than who had won what particular "Grammy" award the night before!

The establishment media is so intellectually bankrupt that the most informative television news program is "The Daily Show, With Jon Stewart" on the "Comedy Central" channel. When satire becomes the most effective means of understanding human events, it is a sign that established society may be in an irreparable state of collapse. Air-headed television voyeurs who partake of the sociology of men and women transported to a remote island, or locked up in a suburban house – shows peddled to the American public as "reality" – overlook the reality that such mindless programming represents: the continuing failure of an establishment media to appeal to intelligent minds.

News reports abound of the sharp declines in television viewing and newspaper subscriptions. Men and women intent on understanding the world in which they live are increasingly turning to the Internet, a system that expresses the phrase "marketplace of ideas" as no other has up to this point in time. Websites and bloggers are learning the same lessons that now beleaguer the established media: in a rapidly decentralizing world, men and women will develop their own demands for information that serves their interests. With the Internet, people need no longer be passive recipients of what institutional authorities regard as the "politically correct" content of their minds!

Established interests have always been discomforted by innovation and change. In the face of the Internet challenge, I suspect that many media chieftains would find comfort in the sentiments of a Michigan banker who, in 1903, opined that "the horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad." Because, as the study of chaos informs us, complex systems generate unpredictable outcomes, "blogging" may, indeed, be a short-term phenomenon. But as long as the channels for the flow of information remain unrestricted, today’s blogs will likely evolve into more sophisticated, horizontal processes that allow individuals to freely communicate their understanding to one another, without the need for institutionalized oversight and control. Individuals who are both the producers and consumers of information will have incentives to create more effective systems and mechanisms for the pursuit of understanding.

Such establishment shepherds as Hillary Clinton will continue their pleas for Internet "gatekeepers" to keep the marketplace of ideas as subject to rigid regulations as attend other economic activity. Nor will there be a shortage of Judy Woodruffs imploring the ovine herds to give up their wanderings into uncertain territories and return to the fold wherein minds are soothed and left untroubled by events they are told are beyond their ken.

But such efforts will not avail the institutional order. Gutenberg put the establishment on the defensive centuries ago, demonstrating the creative consequences that flow from a loosening of monopolies on information. The Internet – with its proliferation of websites and bloggers, and the continuing collapse of the vertical into the horizontal – has taken the Gutenberg revolution to exponential dimensions. How far this will extend and what forms may arise are completely unknown, which makes the process all the more exciting. Perhaps, sooner than we think, we shall be witness to a new "reality" show, wherein Hillary and Judy find themselves on an island with a group of bloggers. Who would be the likely "survivor" in such a world? I know upon whom I would not be betting!

February 21, 2005

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law.

Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com

From Anonymous:

Here is the Work-free Safe Zone sticker of LANL All-Hands and Science fame.

Work-Free Safe Zone

Pete totally missed the boat on this one.  He went on a diatribe about how
the people who created this sticker didn't care about safety.  This is a
total misrepresentation of what this was about.  This was a commentary on
the increasing trend towards paper-based safety, a trend which continues
unabated.  Please post on the LANL Blog as I'm sure people would enjoy
having their own copy.

From Anonymous:

There have been some updates to the website for the DOE/LANL contract:

http://www.doeal.gov/LANLContractRecompete/DraftRFP.htm

As of today, Monday 2/21, 12:00 pm this site has had 16,699 visitors and 80,417 page views. If you think you have something important to say, now is the time to do so, as there are lots of people listening. If I can suggest: please take an extra minute to make sure that your message is well thought out, and addresses current issues at LANL. Take another minute and run it through a spell checker. Many eyes will be looking at what you write.

--Doug

The replacement power supply for my home machine (the one hosting documents linked to by the blog) is here. I'm taking the machine down for about 30 minutes, during which time those documents will not be available.

--Doug

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

On the subject of the recent UC policy change regarding working "at the will of the director", I sent email to Domenici, Udall, and Bingaman -- it only takes a minute to find their web pages.

http://domenici.senate.gov/resources/contactform.cfm
http://www.tomudall.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=Udall&type=Helping%20You%20
http://bingaman.senate.gov/Contact_Me/e-mail_form.htm


Here is the message I sent them:

Dear XXX

Were you aware of the following new policy at LANL?

http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com/2005/02/at-will-of-director.html

As one poster comments, "This is just plain wrong."

Do you think a Congressional Hearing is in order to investigate Director Nanos?

Regards, XXX

From Anonymous:

This comment [on working "at the will" of the director] is not quite correct. UC issued a new policy for positions determined by the directors of their three labs in early January. This new policy calls for "at will" of the employee not just the managerial title. The policy says that any "at will" can be terminated with 60 days sevrence pay -- although efforts can be made to find the employee another position in the lab, there is no obligation. In effect, a manager gives up TSM status when they become a division leader (in the UC system this is like giving up tenure to take the position of Dean -- which is unthinkable). This policy was pushed from Los Alamos -- it was one of Nanos' priorities when he first came on because he believed that when leaders were terminated they often hung around with bad attitude. That is probably true! Although this change in policy may sound subtle, it is scary to managers because it is soley at the discretion of the Director -- and the Director has a 2.5 year documented history of disregard for rationale though.

Examples: Tom Meyer was teminated because the Director did not think he fit on the team (probably a valid point), so he was terminated. All within the Director's rights. What is disconcerting is that Nanos never meet with Meyer in the six months between his removal as ADSR and his ultimate resignation. Never - what kind of leader is that?

Al Sattleberger was terminated because of the C Divsion laser accident. One could argue that responsiblity resides with the DL, but this is not a simple case. Sattleberger was leading a new safety approach, but an employee did not follow the rules.
Worth removal as DL? In subsequent discussions, Sattleberger was promised some things at LANL, but the director backtracks because he has personal dislike for the former head of C division. Lab Leadership?

Promotion of Micheline Devaurs to ADSR was stunning. Although Devaurs is a fine person, there is nothing in her background that says "scientist", nor any leadership skills for science. But, she had the confidence of the director because she did what ever he asked, and made no waves, and kept science down. Devaurs routinely goes through the motions of an AD -- goes to meetings, etc., but is amazingly clueless. This is not her fault - it is like asking Sig Hecker to run an aircraft carrier.

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

In the interests of clarity, I would like to comment on a couple of posts to this blog.

In the case of Steve Younger and DTRA: Younger remained a LANL employee while at DTRA, the same as any of us who go on change-of-station or are assigned to another Federal agency to DC. Thus, it was not Nanos' role to rehire Younger.  But it was the Director's decision on how to bring him back and at what salary - nothing is guaranteed when you return (something that many LANL folks have learned the hard way).  Making him a Senior Fellow is the decision of the Director, but it could easily have been John Browne who agreed to it before Younger went to DTRA.  Younger certainly would have known that one needs things in writing before leaving.

The statement that all division leaders serve at the pleasure of the Director is true, but not new with Nanos.  His ill-conceived contempt of them (like the remainder of the staff) is the novelty.  Serving at the pleasure of the Director goes back to Oppenheimer.  Hecker used the policy liberally - remember the Lab reorg in '94?  But Nanos' authority only extends to removing them from their management position - he cannot terminate them since this is governed by the UC employment rules.  But you can certainly argue that neither HR nor UC will stand up to Nanos, but he must at least go through the process.

And he has certainly threatened them recently that they had to back him or else. But this is also not new; Jim Jackson and Joe Salgado both did this routinely, even on occasion threatening physical violence and using language that Nanos might find amusing.  Nanos is just less astute - or is it that he wasn't 'one of us' before becoming Director?

From Anonymous:

You may command obedience; you must earn respect, as it flows up from the bottom.

From Anonymous:

I have been a technical staff member at the Lab for 24 years. Until recently I had no plans to retire because I enjoyed my technical work at the Lab. However, conditions have degenerated so badly since the work stoppage that I have decided to retire at the end of June. Nanos has allowed the bureaucrats to gain control of the Lab so that practically all we do is fill out useless forms and try to understand all the new confusing rules and procedures governing safety and security. Even when work gets back to “normal”, I believe that the added bureaucracy will be so onerous that very little technical work will get done. I believe a good safety program has to be based on simplicity (so that it can be understood by all) and must be graded so that the most dangerous situations are given the most attention. It is clear we have neither.

I have done my own independent analysis of the Lab’s safety record based on data reported to DOE and find that the Lab’s safety record exceeds the average for all DOE research contractors over the last three years and is good as or better than those of LLNL and SNL. Where did Pete get the numbers he presented at the last all hands meeting for reportable incidents and lost work days? By the way, the viewgraph he showed comparing various safety records has not been made available on the Lab web site, which is the norm for director’s presentations. I do not believe there was firm basis for stopping work at the Lab for such a long period of time on the basis of safety, which is now what the director is tying the shutdown to. As for security, it is clear from various briefings there never was any missing CREM and thus no damage to national security. Needed improvements to safety and security could have been targeted to organizations in the lab that were most in need of improvement rather than standing down the whole Lab. This mismanagement needs to end. I whole heartily support the petition to dump Nanos.

From Anonymous:

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? This director has on several occasions stated that those who have acquired legal support because he (Nanos) accused them of misconduct, must pay for their legal assistance but he doesn't have to. Are those accused by Nanos able to get the NO out of pocket legal aid that he is being afforded? Director devious has implied to them that he can defeat them by financially draining them with the cost of there legal fees but, are we the tax payers the fools who will pay for his? What a scam! (DRAIN THEM FINANCIALLY AND THE OPPOSITION GOES AWAY). Where is the Nanos' legal support coming from? Washington, D.O.E, U.C or lab funds? Whereever, we're paying for it! You, as an employee of the laboratory (past or present) if your career and or reputation have been compermised because Nanos has taken action against you for what has been investigated and determined that you are not guilty of, have the right to the same legal rate that he has. This is a work place issue at a federal institution. Don't let Nanos skate out of this.

From Anonymous:

------------------------------------------------------------------
Irreversible Breech of Trust: Why Pete Nanos Must Resign
and Other Observations
------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm feeling a bit introspective at the moment, and the weekend weather is
dreadful, so I decided to engage in some wild speculation on just what are
the problems with Los Alamos. This piece rambles on for quite a bit, so
please forgive me. I need to get this off my chest (and thanks to Doug,
maybe I can).

Maybe it goes deeper than Pete Nanos. Perhaps, as some have implied, Nanos is
simply the manifestation of our problems (ie, "We reap what we sow"). Then,
again, maybe the problems lie elsewhere, outside of the Lab. This is very
important, because if our problems really comes from broken internal structures
or if they comes from external sources, then ditching Pete Nanos won't really
solve things.

I suspect Pete came in here with good intentions, wanting to "fix" this place.
After all, we had just gone through the Wen Ho Lee fiasco, NEST missing
hard disk fiasco, purchase card fiasco, and the property accounting fiasco.
Am I leaving out any fiascos? Hard to say, as there have been so many over
the last 5 years.

Pete's a Navy "can-do" kind of guy, so he arrived ready to roll up his sleeves
and make some necessary changes. He had a plan. It was the IWM. Just watch
the video (it's archived over at the LANL media site) of his kick-off meeting
on IWM back in November of 2003 -- a full seven months before the latest
CREM fiasco. In the video, he harangues the upper level staff, telling them,
in effect "you'll do this IWM thing whether you like it or not". Don Cobb,
he says, has taught him about the ways LANL really works, so you'll not be
pulling one over on "The Admiral". Highly structured methods are required,
he rants, as we've had a slew of safety incidents. As always, he then
launches into very loose, ad-hoc use of the facts to make his case that the
safety trends looks ominous. No hard evidence, mind you, just the usually
hearsay that "the sky is falling" and he's here with the IWM plan to save us
from ourselves. He's probably thinking, "I restructured and modernized
NAVSEA while in my last job -- I'll do the same here, and end up looking like
some kind of hero". This was the start of the Integrated Work Management
plan.

Now fast forward to July of 2004 and the beginning of the CREM incident. All
hell is breaking loose and DOE is extremely angry (though, whether that is
justified is debatable). Pete, with his IWM plan in hand, perhaps, sees
this as his moment of action. The reluctant staff will now have to start
using highly structured plans to accomplish their work. They have no choice.
So Pete takes a big gamble. He knows DOE is mad as hell, and he knows he
wants to enforce his new way of doing business, the IWM. He decide his best
gambit is to shut-down the Lab. By doing so, he both placates the DOE and
can also implement the IWM plan in a radical, no-compromise fashion. From
this point on, highly structured planning (and the voluminous paperwork
it entails) will be required for EVERYTHING!. Unfortunately, as usual,
Pete jumped the gun. He didn't bother to check the facts. Facts are
things Pete seems to consistently ignore. But this time, his jumping
the gun and ignoring the facts will cost the Lab dearly. Bundles of money
will be lost, and his ill-timed decision will come back to haunt him.

Pete knows how to completely shut the Laboratory down. Any clown could
do that trick. But what he doesn't know (and worse, doesn't know he doesn't
know) is how he will get the Lab re-started. That takes great managerial
talent, and Pete seems to be sorely lacking in this arena. After all, this
place is not a military installation. You can't simple order that things
be done at Los Alamos, though, Pete hasn't quite pick up on this important
tidbit of information, even as of yet. There is no military-style chain
of command here at LANL. The staff has not been indoctrinated with a
command and control mind-set. We don't go through boot-camp on job entry.
And scientist tend to be highly individualistic people who resist demands
from authority. Without fully understanding his actions, Pete makes a
great mistake by totally shutting down the Lab and throwing IWM-style
management down the throat of a reluctant staff. Bad medicine goes down
better when taken very slowly with lots of sugar. Pete takes a bottle
of Castor oil and dumped it down our throats and it makes everyone feel
very sick.

Shutting down the Lab and moving us cold-turkey into a rigid IWM-style of work
structure may have been a bad executive decision, but it is not the worse
thing he has done to the Lab. In hindsight, it looks like shutting down the
Lab was probably a mistake, but we've all made bad decision at one time or
another. Making a bad executive decision is not necessarily a good reason
for firing a manager. There is something else that is far worse that I
suspect Pete may have done which calls for his resignation.

Remember the heat that Pete feels from those above him at the beginning of
the CREM fiasco? Members of Congress are rumbling to "shut the place down",
and talk of Congressional investigations are in the air. We've all seen
these Congressional inquisitions -- they are not pleasant affairs. Blow-hard
Congressman are allowed to control the microphones and usually end up staging
these investigations into tasty little sound-bites for the media to digest.
They are anything but fair and balanced and Pete may become their next victim.
You've got to have some sympathy for anyone who may be hauled into these
modern day Kangaroo courts. In addition to this, Linton Brooks has just
sent his Deputy at NNSA, a fellow named Kyle McSlarrow, out to Los Alamos for
an extremely brief visit of the "crime scene". Kyle is told to get to the
bottom of this matter as soon as possible.

Now, Kyle must be a very brilliant fellow, because in a brief 3 hour visit, he
quickly determines that the situation in Los Alamos is far worse than anyone
could possibly imagine. In his brief 3 hour visit he discovers that
horrible things have occurred at LANL, and worse, there is a "culture of
arrogance" at the Lab. Bear with me on this for a moment, because this is
where I feel the whole CREM fiasco, and Pete's part in it, becomes extremely
important.

Where, exactly, did Kyle pick up this information? He was here for 3 hours.
He may be a quick study, but a 3 hour whirl-wind tour is hardly enough time
to come away with the broad accusations Kyle makes right after his visit.
I'm speculating, but perhaps he picks up these views from our beloved
Director. After all, Pete has been very clear about this -- he has the
very same views as Kyle McSlarrow!

If Pete, indeed, colored the facts at this critical junction to make LANL look
as bad as possible to McSlarrow, then Pete was clearly acting the part
of the "toady" -- the type of guy who finds advantage in selling out people
for his own private benefit. Another name for type of person is a Judas.
History is full of stories of people of this ilk, and they are not looked
upon very favorable. This is especially perplexing given the military's
strong code of loyalty. Perhaps there are times in Pete's early military
training when he wasn't paying attention. Loyalty to your troops is
lesson Number One in military leadership. You can criticize those under
you, but you never, never sell them out. It appears to me that Pete may
have sold us out at this pivotal point in time. We now know that high
level people at the Lab who were close to the incident were telling him
that there was a rational, non-threatening explanation behind the the missing
CREM material. If you attended either of the two official meeting on the
CREM incident, you heard this point being made time and again by people in
the audience. But Pete appears to have ignored this information and put us
in the worst possible light at this most critical point in time.

The ethical thing to do when a leader feels he can no longer trust his troops
would be to resign. Did anyone hear Pete offering to resign during this
mid-July period? No, instead he adds to the general media's feeding frenzy
by continuing with the verbal attacks on the staff. We hear it from his
own mouth during several "All-Hands" meetings. He's leading a pack of
"butt-heads", and is more than willing to fire the whole lot of us down to
a core of only 10 people whom he can really trust. His use of the concept
of trust is a bit strange at this point. After all, these words are coming
from a man who many of the staff feels they cannot trust. And if we don't
trust our Director, how can we reasonable expect him to put his trust in us?
Trust, after all, is a two-way street. And our trust has been severely
broken in the eyes of many of the staff by this point in time, for he appears
to have sold us out to the media, Congress, and the DOE.

This gets to what is, I think, the heart of the matter. Pete has created an
irreversible breech of trust with the staff by his actions, particularly
those that he made during the early part of the CREM fiasco. Once trust has
been irreversible breeched, it cannot be healed. Pete may hang on here a
bit longer, hoping in vain to keep his job, but the snickers he hears behind
his back and the anger he feels from the staff will only get worse with time.
Regardless of how he got to this point, the irreversible breech of trust
which has now taken place between the staff and it's Director means it is
time for him to leave.

Pete, if you are reading this (in my dreams) then you know this to be the
case. You've had a slight taste of it just this week during your "pep rally"
visit to DX-3. You know the break is now complete. You have no further
work to accomplish here. You know it's time to go. This is not the time for
you to "win one more for the Gipper".

The irreversible breech of trust between Pete and the staff requires him
to leave, but that is not at the core of our problems. Our management
style may improve with his leaving, but there are still serious issues that
need to be be addressed at this Laboratory.

There is some truth to this "culture of arrogance" thing. Heck, even my own
wife tells me that people at LANL frequently act as if they own the whole
world. It's the "Hill Attitude". And when we see it during trips "off the
Hill", it usually makes us want to cringe. And I'm just as guilty of it as
many others. Scientist are smart people, but that doesn't necessarily
make them better people. I tend to forget this at times. So do others at
the Lab. "Smart person" does not necessarily equal "better person". Some of
the best people I have known in my life have also been some of the dumbest.
Heart and mind can be separate things.

Beyond Nanos (a temporary problem) and the "culture of arrogance" (a more
long lasting, but curable, problem), there is one other major problem. That
problem is our beloved DOE. And just as with our leader, Pete Nanos, it
revolves around the problem of trust. DOE does not trust us -- not even one
itty-bitty ,teeny-weeny, little bit. And since they don't trust us, they feel
the need to set up a Rube Golberg system of check and balances containing hair
triggers that assure them of finding fault for SOMETHING at almost any given
moment. I have to wonder if this CREM fiasco would ever have escalated to the
point it did if we didn't have such short mandatory warning periods for issues
like the missing CREM. A longer time period would have given people a chance
to take a deep breath, relax, and then do some careful investigation before
sending people over at DOE into sudden heart attacks. We need some type of
"circuit breakers" in this particular area. You can see how it might have
made the CREM incident much worse than it needed to be, can't you DOE?
Cut us some slack. It will end up benefiting both of us.

The Labs relationship with our owners, the DOE, is not a healthy one, but I
don't believe DOE really cares about this issue. And, if someone other than
UC takes over the current contract for Los Alamos, the hyper-critical management
style from DOE will not end. To the people who do take the $50 million and
decide to run this place next Oct 1st, I say "good luck" -- DOE is buying you
on the cheap. I hope you use the money to buy lots of aspirin and Zoloft to
get through the contract period. Believe me, you'll need them. About the
only solution I can conceive of to "cure" this particular problem is for
DOE to directly take over operations of the Lab. I've noticed that R&D
organizations that are directly owned by government agencies tend to have
much fewer problems with hyper-critical styles of management. Heck, if
the Feds were willing to pay me a good salary with benefits, I'd have no
problems working directly for the government. Going under the Fed's direct
control doesn't mean we would have to go under the dreaded GS pay scale with
its lousy Thrift Saving Plan for retirement. The US government can, and
does, occasionally come up with "special" employment plans. It is my
understanding that special pay plan are used at various other government R&D
labs, such as the Navy's China Lake laboratory out in California. If going
directly under Federal control would end the DOE's carping, then I might buy
into this idea. Frankly, I'm not convince the UC moniker has been worth the
price of late. Perhaps it's time for a radical new experiment in the Fed's
operation of one of its premiere R&D labs.

And to end this long, "wind-bag" of a piece and finally get the last little bit
off my chest, I have to mention Wen Ho Lee. When this story first broke
I actually felt sorry for the guy. No longer. In many respects, the problems
we have suffered through over the last 5 years at this Lab have their genesis
in the person of Wen Ho Lee. Downloading tons of classified data into the
unsecured area was one thing. To then say, as Lee did, that you have no idea
what you did with some of the tapes you created is completely over the top.
Lee, I hope you rot in hell! I will no longer defend you, and I hope those
at the Lab who did during your trial now reconsider their actions. You set
us up for much of the current heartache we are now experiencing, and I hate
you for it.

Nuf' said. I can now get a good night's sleep.


Mister Anonymous.


PS: In case no one noticed, Kyle McSlarrow resigned his post as Deputy Dir.
of NNSA just two weeks before the report he headed up on the CREM fiasco
was release by the DOE. This is the report that issues the huge UC fines.
Was the timing in his resignation a coincidence, or is there more to this
story than meets the eye?

From Anonymous:

JOIN THE UNION NOW

It's the ONLY way we can join together as a collective voice to make a difference at OUR Laboratory! If we would all join the UPTE union immediately, then we would be allowed to collective bargaining rights that UC/LANL must recognize.

I have spent the last several years being tortured by a previous group leader. I went to every office at the Lab that supposedly was there to help the employee. NO ONE IS THERE FOR THE EMPLOYEE. The only relief and help I found was the UNION. I joined and they have helped me through the entire mess. PLEASE - if you do nothing else, JOIN THE UNION!!!!

From Anonymous:

Tom Meyer in his letter claimed that LANL senior
management staff have weak scientific credentials. I
checked this out using the search engines on the LANL
library webpage. Tom is right. With only a few
exceptions, LANL senior management do not even have
the credentials that are generally expected for
promotion from post-doc to staff member. Yet the same
search engines and databases indicate that LANL as an
institution is ranked tenth in the world in physics in
terms of citations. Where have all the scientists
gone? Clearly not into management.

From Anonymous:

I have spent several hours today rereading all the posts and comments to the blog, as well as a number of newspaper articles which I have kept since July. The last time I felt as I do now is the day I came back to town after the fire, and I felt totally betrayed by the NPS. The government, no matter which department, is supposed to protect, not destroy. However the decisions made by the NPS are equivalent to those made by the Director - totally destructive based upon the wrong assumptions (remember what assume does).

In one of the comments to a blog posting someone asked what form new management should take at LANL. And it's correct that it's not enough to say out with the old with no idea of what should replace it. We do not have the option that our founding fathers had after the Revolutionary War of being able to convene a Constitutional Convention, write the Constitution, and then hold an election. The 13 colonies were able to function fairly well during this transition because they were pretty self-contained.

But LANL can't work that way. Programs span divisions. We need a plan for a new management structure, we need a way to get there quickly, and we need the support of UC, DOE/NNSA, and our Congressional delegation, all of whom have been remarkably silent the last few months. More importantly, we need to make LANL an organization which appeals to post docs to continue the important work we do. Yes, we can point our fingers at all the programs that were not successful and the possible reasons why they were not, but the bottom line is we won the Cold War, not because of President Reagan, but because we did the work we had to do to ensure that we were stronger than Russia. And many worked 60+ hours/week with no extra pay because we believed that what we were doing was critical to the nation. How many families were sacrificed? How many of us now feel that our work has been recognized as being important?

Is it the Director's job to decide what programs will be supported at LANL? Is it the job of the Chief Science Officer? Is it the job of the Division Leaders? Who is responsible for how money is ultimately spent - the Director, the Division Leaders, or the Group Leaders? What happens to a responsible Group Leader when the Division Leader hires a Chief of Staff who ultimately makes critical decisions that affect how the group functions? Are Chiefs of Staff technical or administrative? Do they make decisions that affect the technical side of LANL without the right background? Are they willing to make technical decisions based upon staff recommendations or their own egos? How many of them believe their responsibilities are to march to the same drum as the Director rather than do what's best for their Division when the two conflict? Who or what caused Division leaders to spin off important
decision making to Chiefs of Staff?

At LANL there are too many paper-pushing positions which add no value. Paper-pushing becomes the justification for the job. More paper-pushing means that your job is more important. About 15 years ago, I read the original DOE order for unclassified computing. It was clear and required very little paperwork. After that order passed through the Albuquerque office, the LAAO, and the computer security people (they were not cyber security then), the amount of paperwork was incredible. It was comparable to an unfunded mandate and required computer system admins to perform certain tasks that were not assigned by their Group/Division Leaders. In fact, the additions by LANL computer security people demonstrated how little they knew about networked computers. They were not competent to make the decisions they were making, and they were totally unwilling to modify their requirements.

This is how bureacracy works. Jobs are pushed down to the lowest possible level with the paperwork pushed up. There is no value to much of this work. And too often decisions are made by the uneducated to justify their positions rather than to better the insitution. It would be interesting to know what is returned for every dollar the taxpayer gives to LANL now compared to 1970, 1980, 1990, etc.

I don't have all the answers about restructuring LANL managment. However, my thoughts are the following:

1. remove the multi-layers of management (SET) between the director and the division leaders;
2. remove all technical decision making from all Chiefs of Staff unless they truly have a techinical background; if not, then let them coordinate the efforts of the admin staff (ssm's), but decide nothing that the tsm's do;
3. decide what the responsibilities of the Director are and hire someone who can do the job;
4. get rid of the Chief Science Officer, the Deputy Chief Science Officer, etc. since science is the Director's responsibility;
5. support safety and security from the bottom up, not the top down by listening to the folks who do the work; they know where the problems are;
6. clean up all the conflicting rules, regulations, processes, etc. that impact LANL work rather than adding to it;
7. use EVERYONE in the community - contractors, UC retirees, etc. to support LANL's mission; contract as much as possible with small businesses, make KSL compete with local companies for work such as air conditioner maintenance, electrical work, etc; in other words, get rid of all the monopolies that support LANL and use northern New Mexico businesses as much as possible;
8. support the staff; point out the good work that they do; point out the unfairness in newspaper articles, etc.; hold press conferences to dispute inaccuracies (such as purchasing a Mustang); punish those who break the rules but make sure that the punishment fits the crime; and
9. stop having all-hands-meetings (all hands on deck!). It's not the Navy.

From Anonymous:

With respect to the submission about Martha Stewart, she may be in jail for a crime that never happened however, fraud is a crime and it did happen here. George P. Nanos should be getting nervous. I can imagine the singing from Fort Leavenworth already, " Hey there Georgie Girl."

From Anonymous:

You believe there is a double standard? Many postings to the blog point out the various discrepancies in safety and security violations at multiple laboratories that make LANL look better than any of them. There was a death at Savannah River last year. Did NNSA shut them down? Have they been smeared like LANL? Have their employees been called buttheads and other worse names?

Nanos says there were 322 injuries at LANL last year, but the report filed with OSHA says 267. What were the other 55 injuries?

We have a weak UC president who won't stand up for his employees; we have a weak Congressional delegation who won't stand up for us and actually berated us based upon Nanos' description of the missing CREM which turned out to be false; we have newspapers in the state that will not write the truth (no Woodward's and Bernstein's in New Mexico ready to expose one of the largest waste of taxpayers' money ever).

We need to keep contacting our Congressional delegation to support us and to convince DOE/NNSA and UC to remove Nanos and the entire upper management structure. We need a streamlined managment where the Division Leaders report to the Director and a Deputy Director, where the Director is the Chief Science Officer, and where the rest of the UC employees are paid to support the missions of LANL, not push paper from one desk to another. We especially need to remove the Chief of Staff management level in division offices because their main purpose is to push paper. They contribute nothing to LANL goals.

We need a complete repudiation of the CWP and of the Director's Instruction Number 04-006.1 which is a discriminatory policy directed at UC retirees. We need a safety policy that is bottom up, not top down. And certainly there are other policies that need removing/strealining.

But first - he has to go. We can't function as we are now.

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

On Monday, February 14th (yeah...a great Valentine's gift...it is how
we know that Pete really cares about us), Pete Nanos graced my group
with his presence at a group meeting, along with Doug Beason and Sara
Scott, our AD and DL.  He spent 45 minutes telling us how great we
were and that our mission and people are the numbers 1 and 2
priorities (although it was not clear *whose* priorities they were).

One of the non-cheerleading messages he came to bring was that NNSA
and Ev Beckner had decided that they would explore the possiblity of
"federalizing" my site, TA-18.  In other words, DOE or LASO or someone
else would run it...not LANL.  Ugh.

After the 45 minutes, he was reminded by Beason that he needed to get
back to his office.  Nanos informed us that Beason and Scott would be
delivering "the rest of the story."  So after he left, Beason  had to
tell us that the problem was a perception problem in DOE that the
TA-18 Early Move project was not moving fast enough for NNSA (despite
the fact that we have met every deadline they have set for us).  NNSA
blamed the fact on TA-18 being managed by the TR directorate, despite
the fact that the early move funding was coming from the weapons
program.  As a result and a preeimptive strike, Beason announced the
the people working the early move project would be Form B-ed (yes, I
know that form doesn't officially exist anymore, but it is an
appropriate verb for the equivalent action) to NMT division and that
NMT would take possession of TA-18.

Well, the people at the meeting saw right through this.  Nanos was too
much of a coward to give us the really bad news and decided to play a
game of good cop/bad cop that went bad.  We all felt really bad for
Beason and an even larger hatred for Nanos for doing that to, by all
accounts, a good guy like Beason.

But hey...if anyone is looking for someone from TR to comment on
Beason, so far he gets a big thumbs up from me.  It took a lot of
character to deliver that message, especially when thrown under the
bus like that.

From Anonymous:

I was told that Nanos had to cancel a number of meetings at LANL next week because he was called to Washington. Does anybody know what that is about?

From Anonymous:

I believe that there is a double standard. Sandia may severely injure people and it never makes the news. There was a recent unintentional premature test explosion that my unconfirmed info says that permanently injured at least one person and could have easily killed several. But, it didn't make the news. This may not be true. If true, NNSA covers up Sandia mistakes, but leaks LANL mistakes. Ask NNSA or Sandia if this is true. If true, is NNSA higher-ups getting kickbacks from Lockheed-Martin to make then look good?

From Anonymous:

It seems there might be an opportunity for a class-action lawsuit against UC and Mr. Nanos on the deferment of our annual salary increase for three months. While individually it's not a lot of money, collectively there should be enough money here to interest a lawyer. Has anyone looked into this?

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

Can't hardly wait:

Sneak preview of Daily Newsbulletin feature to debut Tuesday

Spring is traditionally a time of renewal. And come this spring, there will be budding trees, blooming flowers, nesting birds and a redesigned Daily Newsbulletin.

Since the Daily Newsbulletin was launched in September 1996, it has served as a timely source for a variety of Laboratory news and information. The upcoming redesign will update the look and allow for the introduction of some additional features. One new feature will be the "Director's Notebook," which includes information, sound bites and employee recognitions from Laboratory Director Pete Nanos and other senior managers.

The redesigned Daily Newsbulletin will continue to offer readers many of the features they've come to expect, such as a calendar of events around the Lab; the Bulletin Board; safety tips; news from the research library; links to other Public Affairs communications products; links to the University of California and Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration Web pages; and of course, the ever-popular Reader's Forum, a format through which employees can share their views on Lab-related policies and issues and engage in constructive dialogue.

As a sampling of things to come, the "Director's Notebook" will be unveiled in Tuesday's Daily Newsbulletin. Subsequent issues of the "Director's Notebook" will publish on Mondays, except when Monday is a Laboratory holiday.

The Public Affairs Office will continue making improvements to the Daily Newsbulletin in an ongoing effort to bring employees news and information they can use. And keep watching for the redesign.

From Anonymous:

With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan and the Pirate’s
of Penzance

NANOS:
I am the very model of a former Naval Admiral
I’ve information vegetable, animal and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights
historical
From Wen Ho Lee, to Waterloo in order categorical
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters
mathematical
I understand equations, both the simple and
quadratical
About the missing disks I am teeming with a lot
o’news,
…lot o’ news.
….with many cheerful facts about the futures of the
lot of you.

ALL:
With many cheerful facts about the futures of the lot
of you
With many cheerful facts about the futures of the lot
of you
With many cheerful facts about the futures of the lot
of you

NANOS:
I’m very good  at integral and differential calculus;
With accuracy or peer review, I rarely make a lot of
fuss.
In short in matters trivial, fantastic, or incredible,

I am the very model of a former Naval Admiral

ALL
In short, in matters trivial, fantastic, or
incredible,
He is the very model of a former Naval Admiral.

NANOS:
I know our mythic history from Teller to old what’s
his name
I answer hard acrostics, and basically I have no
shame.
I quote Appendix F and other administratium
Someday they hope I’ll even learn to spell plutonium.

ALL:
Someday we hope he’ll even learn to spell plutonium.
Someday we hope he’ll even learn to spell plutonium.
Someday we hope he’ll even learn to spell plutonium.

NANOS:
I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you every detail of Foley’s aging uniform.
In short in matters trivial, fantastic, or incredible
I am the very model of a former Naval Admiral.

ALL:
In short, in matters trivial, fantastic, or
incredible,
He is the very model of a former Naval Admiral.

NANOS:
When I know what is meant by “mamelon” and “ravelin”
When I can tell at sight a Cowboy from an Indian
When such affairs as safety and security I’m more wary
at,
And when I know precisely where the barcodes are
located at
When I have learnt what progress has been made in
modern hydrotests
I can rid my self of experts and those pesky aging
physicists.
In short when I’ve a smattering of elemental strategy
You’ll see when talking smack, no one is quite as good
as me.

ALL:
You’ll see when talking smack, no one is quite as good
as he.
You’ll see when talking smack, no one is quite as good
as he.
You’ll see when talking smack, no one is quite as good
as he.

NANOS:
In scientific knowledge, though I’m plucky and
adventury,
I’m mastering the concept of the turning of a century
In short in matters trivial, fantastic, or incredible
I am the very model of a former Naval Admiral

ALL:
In short in matters trivial, fantastic or incredible
He is the very model of a formal LANL Admiral.

From Anonymous:

I have recently learned that ADs and Division Directors come to work each morning "at the will of the Direktor".

I can confirm this. It also means that Division Leaders have been told, and coerced to sign a document, which states that they will be terminated from the Laboratory if the Director does not want them to be Division Leaders any more.

It's clear he demands absolute and complete loyalty and will enforce with career-damaging leverage if necessary.

The incentive is clear: even if a Division Leader wants to do the right thing, and it would be good for the Laboratory for a Division Leader to show the Director is wrong about something, their motivation to do so is seriously weakened by the jeopardy they put their Laboratory career in.

There's no strong culture of committment to improvement when the actions of the chief leutenants are hindered by fear and scorched-earth politics.

Nanos takes no prisoners, and no one can tell him he's wrong.

How dangerous is this for the Laboratory and the Nation when he is wrong, and no one will say so?

Ok, most people seem to think the reference below is low-quality, fringe, conspiracy theory-class journalism. However, since it was submitted, and since the main reason this blog was created was in reponse to a newly-instituted censorship policy at the LANL NewsBulletin I will leave it here for people's amusement, nothing more, nothing less.

--Doug

http://www.sfbayview.com/092204/nuclearweapons092204.shtml

From Anonymous:

I remember sitting at one of Pete’s All Hands and he said that a new CIO, whom he knew and had worked with while in the Navy, was coming to LANL. A few days later, this was the official LANL press release:

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 7, 2003 -- Raymond Kenneth Neff has been named chief information officer for Los Alamos National Laboratory…

"Information management is a crucial part of the Los Alamos strategy for performance improvement," said Interim Director G. Peter Nanos in announcing the appointment. "Raymond Neff's outstanding experience at some of the nation's top educational institutions over the past three decades makes him the ideal choice to lead this key aspect of the Laboratory's infrastructure.”

Ray Neff quit being LANL’s CIO after about 8 months. No explanation was given to the workforce. Was Ray forced out? What was the real story – we’ll never know. There was no lawsuit, so did Pete and UC make some sort of financial settlement with Ray Neff?

The same accountability that Pete rants and raves about doesn’t apply to Saint Pete. Pete used terms like “outstanding” and “ideal choice.” Well, Pete, after Ray was forced out, you should have stood down the Director’s Office as you did the entire Lab. I find it ironic that you are so fast to blame others, but I’ve never once heard you apologize for any of your actions or even admit to making a mistake. How about holding yourself to the same standards that you hold the LANL workforce?

But it gets better …

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 10, 2003 -- The Secretary of Defense has announced the resignation of Dr. Stephen M. Younger as director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, effective Feb. 27, 2004. Younger will return to Los Alamos National Laboratory as a senior fellow.

Pete Nanos hired Younger back, but here are the facts:

Younger was allowed to resign. It is well known that the Secretary of Defense was not pleased with Younger’s performance or his ability to get along with DoD and the other Federal Agencies.

It is widely known, both in DC circles and in LANL circles, that Younger would travel to DC and stay only at the Intercontinental Hotel when Steve was working as a LANL employee, at rates higher than the approved government rate. Senior Lab management allowed Younger to do this, and never made him stay, like the rest of us, at hotels that offered the government rates. John Tapia, you should look into Steve’s travel, or do the rules not apply to senior management and fellows?

Younger couldn’t cut it at DTRA, and obviously did such a good job there that none of the DC beltway consulting firms would offer him a job, so Nanos gives him a fellowship.

Pete: you are a cowboy and a butt-head! Thanks for hiring another incompetent.

From the 2/18/2005 LANL NewsBulletin:

Feb. 16, 2005

Safety initiative

I took a brief look at the new "behavioral excellence" Web page and I am a bit confused. Since the suspension of operations, safety is adversarial. The goal is to make sure that you have someone to hold accountable if things go wrong. Instead of trying to fix things, managers get brownie points for turning people in who have safety violations. Basically, it seems to be a combination of the military "cover your butt" approach and the "snitch system" which worked so well at the New Mexico State Prison in 1980.

The "behavioral excellence" approach seems to be one of these touchy feely "we're all in this together" sorts of things. Am I missing something, or is this somewhat incompatible with the approach we have experienced over the last few months? Can someone enlighten me on this? Regardless, I do think they need to change the name. "Behavioral Excellence" sounds like we are all going to dog obedience school.

--Rick Nebel

From Anonymous:

I love my employment with UC and I want to stay a UC employee after this
contract competition is over. Thus, I would like to suggest that we be very cautious on any information that we might post on this Blog that would give any potential bidders for the LANL contract a competitive advantage over UC.

I would like to urge you to please keep this fact in mind when you enter your useful comments on this Blog.

From Anonymous:

It is reported that Socrates once proposed that, because there were far more fools than wise men in the world, any majority decision must be worthless. His peers agreed and approved his proposition by a large majority.

From Anonymous:

A recent post mentioned a shouting match pitting our director against one of his direct reports. I have experience in that realm from having worked with the arch-shouter herself, Dr. Ines Triay lately of Carlsbad DOE fame. I didn't enjoy shouting but she did. It wasn't really a personal thing, just a way of expressing herself. But of course the subordinate has no equal footing from which to shout, leading to a thoroughly satisfying rant for her and a boatload of humiliation for the recipient of the Tourette's-like emission. But suppose you have two sultans of shout, two titans of tirade, two presidents of pout, two babies of bashing, two infants of infamy, two leaders of lash, two mullahs of the mouth trying to tear each other down instead of us. If Pete and Ines could be put in the same ring I would buy a ticket to watch.

Another post suggested attracting Michael Moore to document the lunacy of LANL. No thanks. There are enough lies and deception flying around already. We don't need his kind of help.

From Anonymous:

Jeff, Pete, and Tom, please read the following carefully. This policy clearly discriminates against northern New Mexico businesses started by or employing retirees. And it is contrary to the direction of UC/DOE to contract some LANL work to small businesses.

Director's Instruction
Number 04-006.1


Title: University of California Retirees Returning to Work at
the Laboratory

Summary:

This instruction explains the process to be used whenever a
University of California (UC) retiree (retiree) seeks to return to
work at LANL, either as a UC employee, as a contractor, under a
task order, or under a consulting agreement or similar
arrangement. Director's approval is needed in most cases before
retirees may be rehired.

Application:

This instruction applies to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
UC retirees, LANL employees who may contemplate returning to work
after retirement, and LANL managers who may contemplate hiring
retirees. Managers must follow this instruction prior to
extending offers of employment to UC retirees. This instruction
is in effect on July 7, 2004, and supersedes prior LANL policies
and guidance.

Background:

In conjunction with UC, LANL is preparing a policy that will
require a compelling operational justification for utilizing a
retiree for work at LANL. This is necessary both from a financial
perspective and to ensure that managers and employees effectively
plan for the transfer of knowledge when an individual is planning
to retire. Until the proposed policy is issued, this Director's
Instruction provides interim direction to ensure that UC retirees
who return to work at LANL are hired for compelling operational
reasons. Compelling operational reasons are unusual circumstances
that make the utilization of a specific UC retiree's unique
capabilities critical to LANL's successful pursuit of its mission.
Examples include transfer of critical knowledge and expertise to
avoid failure of a project and completion of short-term LANL work
in progress at the time of retirement that cannot be completed
through other means.

Instructions:

With the following exceptions, this instruction applies whenever
LANL managers wish to retain the services of a UC retiree as a UC
employee, a staff augmentation contractor, or pursuant to a task
order, consulting agreement or similar arrangement. The
exceptions are:

- UC retirees who are Retired Laboratory Fellows.
- UC retirees who will perform work for PTLA, KSL, or Aramark.
- UC retirees currently performing work for LANL
("grandfathered" retirees) in a non-UC status, so long as
there is no change in work assignment, such as assignment to
a new project, different group, or an extension of time.
- UC retirees currently performing work for LANL
("grandfathered" retirees) as a UC employee, until such time
as the retiree is no longer a UC employee (i.e., if the
individual ceases UC employment and thereafter wishes to
return, this instruction will apply).
- UC retirees performing work for companies that provide to
LANL ancillary maintenance and repair services (e.g., copy
machine repair) or other ancillary services such as package
delivery (e.g., UPS or FedEx) or building construction
(e.g., Hensel Phelps).
- UC retirees who are receiving annuity payments and who will
suspend such payments and re-enter the retirement plan upon
rehire.

Other than the exceptions above, the Director must approve all
hires of LANL UC retirees. Prior to the UC retiree commencing
work at LANL, the following steps must occur.

1. The LANL manager must send a memorandum to the Division
Leader for Human Resources (DHR) that states the UC
retiree's: a) name; b) retirement date; c) position at the
time of retirement; d) proposed assignment, including a
description of the work to be performed; and e) proposed
start date. The memorandum must also state the compelling
operational circumstances requiring the UC retiree's return
to work at LANL.
2. The DHR will determine: a) whether the UC retiree has had a
true separation from service (required pursuant to Internal
Revenue Service regulations governing the UC pension plan);
and b) whether the memorandum addresses the issues set forth
in paragraph 1.
3. If the DHR determines that there has been a true separation
from service and that the memorandum addresses the issues as
required, (s)he will forward the memorandum to the Director
for review and decision. If the DHR determines that there
has not been a true separation from service the requesting
manager will be notified that the proposed hire cannot take
place on the proposed start date. If the DHR determines
that the manager's memorandum does not address the issues as
required by this instruction, the DHR will so notify the
manager; the manager has the option of revising and
resubmitting the memorandum or dropping the proposed hire.
4. The Director will determine whether to accept the proposal
and will provide a written decision to the DHR. The DHR
will then coordinate with the proposing manager to carry out
the Director's decision.
5. Under no circumstances may a manager commit to procure the
services of a UC retiree covered by this instruction prior
to the written approval of the Director as communicated
through the DHR.

From Anonymous:

From Anonymous:

Since the Director's newest initiative has a logo, I concluded your
efforts in Blogging Excellence (BE) could use one as well, so here is
my contribution.

Stop

Use it together. Use it in peace.

From Anonymous:

In the current newsletter, the Director addresses the new behavior based safety program. It is founded on the DuPont STOP program, an approach presumably championed by Dave Herbert, formerly of DuPont and now a consultant at the laboratory. As the Director points out in the newsletter, the central tenet of the new approach is personal responsibility, or to quote the Director -- "all employees are responsible for their own safety". I know little about the program, but have heard from industrial hygienists that its true beauty is that this single concept removes the responsibility from management.

That is certainly a cynical point of view, but may be shared by the workers at DuPont's Niagara Falls plant, a site which has been using STOP for some time. The plant was fined this summer for failing to report the injury of a worker exposed to chlorine gas. As the attached article explains, this comes on the heels of a National Labor Review Board (NLRB) ruling against the company for refusing to tell workers (the local union) where the hazardous chemicals were stored. I can only speculate as to why management would not tell the staff where the dangers lie, if indeed safety is principally the staff's responsibility.

DuPont has had problems in the past with safety reporting. Some of you may remember the days of the tiger teams when DuPont's safety record and TRC was held up as a shining beaon by the DOE. In fact, our own Director told us at an all hands meeting this fall that we are 'not even in the same league as DuPont' in terms of safety. He was presumably not aware of the fact that DuPont paid a fine to OSHA for under-reporting during those years, and was required to resubmit the 'correct' numbers. The court ordered 'correct' numbers are reported in Holian's op-ed piece, where it can be seen that DuPont and the laboratory have been very similar in the past few years, with TRC rates of about 2 injuries / 200, 000 hrs. worked. One hopes the fact that DuPont makes over $100 million per year selling the STOP safety program had nothing to do with these reporting oversights.

All of us agree that safety is extremely important. It is also extremely complex, and can't be captured in a single statistic such as the TRC, although that is an important indicator. Individual responsibility is indisputably important, but so is an attitude on the part of management to work with the staff, as opposed to burying them under paperwork and creating an atmosphere where fear of reporting an injury, by both employee and supervisor, is the hidden directive.

The original article can be found at:
http://www.paceorganize.org/PRdupont_july12_2004_1.htm

I have a fan going out on the power supply of machine at home that I have hosting the attachments to this blog (e.g. all the documents accessable via the sidebar links). I need to bring the machine down (briefly, I hope), during which time those documents will not be available.

--Doug

From the 2/16/2004 LANL NewsBulletin:

Feb. 11, 2005

On the Reader's Forum

As the Reader's Forum staff are aware, I have been critical of their failure to publish mine and others letters in a timely manner. I still believe that criticism was justified. There seems to be a recent change in the timeliness in publishing letters since the first of the calender year. For that change, and the hope it continues, the Reader's Forum staff should be recognized for their efforts. More importantly, I brought my related complaints to Carolyn Zerkle just before the Christmas break, and it would appear she promptly addressed the Reader's Forum timeliness. Special thanks to Carolyn; if we have more senior managers willing to listen and address problems before they get out of hand, we might not have to read about them every day in area newspapers or via a non-Lab Web site.

--Tommy Hook

From Anonymous:

DX IS STILL LOCKED DOWN, BEGINNING 8TH MONTH

Contrary to public statements, not all of LANL has restarted and it is not a "happy new year". Most of DX is still shut down (7 months today). The main reason for this is all of DX was declared "high risk" level 3, even though most operations are minimal risk.

From Anonymous:

It’s official!!! Nanos met with UC (Buck Koonce, Merna Hurd, John Birely) tuesday and they told him he was going. The new lab director for UC will be Paul Robinson from Sandia. His deputy will be Linda Trocki from Bechtel, the “industrial partner” along with BWXT, Washington Group and Honeywell. AD’s will be Paul Hommert (weapons), Doug Beason (threat reduction), Terry Wallace (Strategic Research) and Scott Gibbs (to be created since he is friend of Rich Mah UC proposal manager). All other AD's will come from "the partner". All four of them have been asked to go to Bechtel’s office in California to write the proposal for two months and they went last week to get oriented and meet the “partners.” Losers are the current SET including Don Cobb, John Immelle, Tom Bowles, Dave Beck, Susan Seestrom, Frederick Tarantino, Carolyn Mangeng, Michelline Devaurs and Rich Marquez who now all have to find new jobs. UC told them to walk the plank with the Admiral.

Anonymous I need my job but want to celebrate Nanos going with you.

From Anonymous:

A Parable about Punishment

My wife left town yesterday morning on a business trip. When I got home
from work, I found that one of our two dogs had urinated on the kitchen
floor, leaving a large puddle. There was no way to know which dog had done
it, so I gave them both a beating to be sure.

Later that night, my wife called from her hotel room. She said that she
left the house in a big hurry to catch her plane, and in her haste she
spilled some soda on the kitchen floor. "Did you clean that up, honey?"

Question: what should I do now?

From Anonymous (understandably):

The dictionary defines hooligan as a ruffian or
hoodlum, traits displayed by our beloved dictator
Nanos. Please sing these lyrics to the tune of
Gilligan's Island. 

The Ballad of Hooligan's Island

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, 
A tale of a fateful Lab
That started from this desert site
That's bound to get you mad, that's bound to get you
mad

The weather started getting rough, 
The SS Nanos ship was tossed, 
If not for the paperwork of the fearless crew 
The contract could be lost, the contract could be lost

The mate was an unpublished physicist
The Admiral in need of a charm school oar
With five ADs they set sail that day 
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour. 

The ship set ground on this uncharted desert isle 
With Donny Cobb and
The Admiral too,
What they found was a quagmire
It was called a policy zoo, a policy zoo 

Rich Marquez and Kimberlyn
The great money pit called EP
It promises to one day
Set the workers free, set the workers free

The politician Phil Goldstone 
The professor Billy Press 
and senior fellow Stevie Younger
Can someone show them how to dress, show them how to
dress?

The Admiral barks his commands
The auditors are a-coming
We need to secure those classified files, 
Here on Hooligans Isle, here on Hooligan's Isle

So this is the tale of the castaways, 
They're here for a long, long time, 
They'll have to make the best of things, 
It's an uphill climb, it's an uphill climb. 

The Donny and the Admiral too, 
Will do their very best, 
To make the others uncomfortable, 
In this high desert nest, high desert nest. 

No CREM, no disks, no parking, too
Not a single luxury, 
Like Robinson Crusoe, 
As primitive as can be. 

So join us here each week my friends, 
You're sure to get a smile, 
From seven stranded management castaways, 

Here on "Hooligan's Isle."

From Anonymous:

'Lab public relations officials say Roberts' blog is the latest refuge of "the same, small but highly vocal (group of) people who have always been there" criticizing lab managers, as spokesman Kevin Roark puts it.'

Did Nanos tell Roark to say that, or did Roark dream this response up on his own? In either case, the claim is wrong, and I doubt that anybody is fooled. Make no doubt about it: the majority of LANL staff would like to see Nanos go.

Livermore security breaches overlooked

By Betsy Mason
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory has quietly weathered the media firestorm ignited by the reported loss of classified computer disks at Los Alamos Laboratory in July, but Department of Energy records show Livermore has had more serious security incidents over the past three years than its embattled New Mexico cousin.

In response to the missing disks and resulting scrutiny from the press and the federal government, Los Alamos Lab director Peter Nanos shut down all activity there July 16. A week later, the DOE halted all work involving removable classified media, such as computer disks and drives, at all of its facilities, including Lawrence Livermore.

Work resumed at Livermore a few weeks after an inventory accounted for all classified removable media at the lab. But work at many high-security facilities at Los Alamos remained stalled for more than six months. Recently completed investigations by the FBI and the DOE concluded the missing disks never existed.

Many more security incidents have occurred at the DOE's four nuclear weapons labs, including Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and California, that haven't gotten the same attention as the lost disks.

Records recently released by the National Nuclear Security Administration within the DOE show that of 87 security incidents at Livermore Lab from 2002 to 2004, 35 were Category 1, defined by the DOE as incidents that "pose the most serious threats to national security interests and/or DOE assets and could potentially create serious security situations."

Category 1 incidents are considered the most serious security incidents because they could result in top secret nuclear weapon information falling into the wrong hands. The incidents may include classified information provided to an unauthorized person or put on an unclassified computer system, and unsecured or unattended security containers.

At Livermore, four incidents resulted in confirmed disclosure of classified information to an unauthorized person.

"In all those cases, the determination was made that the impact was minimal," said NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes.

While the specific nature of these disclosures is classified, an example could be one level of classified information being disclosed to a person with a lower security clearance level, Wilkes said.

Meanwhile, Los Alamos Lab, commonly viewed as the worst offender when it comes to security lapses, had more total incidents with 102, but only 22 were considered Category 1 incidents, 13 fewer than Livermore Lab.

Like Livermore, Los Alamos had four confirmed disclosures of classified information to unauthorized people.

Another 39 incidents at Los Alamos and nine at Livermore are still being investigated and haven't been confirmed or rated yet.

Sandia in New Mexico had the most total incidents with 160, but only 14 were Category 1. At Sandia in Livermore, three of 42 total incidents were Category 1. The two labs combined had two confirmed disclosures of information to an unauthorized person.

It is difficult to compare the numbers between labs because each site uses its own judgment when reporting and categorizing security incidents, Wilkes said. "We're working on that," he said.

NNSA takes each incident seriously, Wilkes said, but it is important to keep the numbers in perspective. "When one considers the numbers of transactions we have, they number in the hundreds of thousands or millions," Wilkes said. "So these (security incident) numbers are fairly low. We are confident in the safety and security at all our sites."

Both Livermore and Los Alamos referred all questions about the security incidents to NNSA.

Even before the incident numbers were made public, employees at Los Alamos had begun to speak out about the shutdown and resulting tensions at the lab. Some employees have said they think Nanos overreacted and the complete shutdown, firings, demotions and reprimands were overkill.

On an Internet blog called "LANL: The Real Story," a few employees have been venting about Nanos, who in the days and months following the report of missing disks called workers "cowboys" who feel they are above the rules. Some lab employees have even called for his resignation. Others have called the climate at the lab "poisonous."

The security incident numbers are adding to some employees' opinions that Los Alamos was unfairly punished for a problem that exists at all the weapons labs.

From Anonymous:

To get an idea of security violations (Level 1 and Level 2, the most serious and moderately serious incidents affecting national security) over the 3 years (2002-2004) for LANL, LLNL, and SNL (ABQ and CA combined), I took the total incidents at each site, divided by 3, and multiplied by 200,000 person-hours over the total person-hours at the three sites (from the DOE safety CAIRS website for 2003). This gives a number that is comparable to the TRC safety numbers (~2), but now for security.

LANL

LLNL

SNL

0.13

0.21

0.18

From the 2/15/2005 LANL NewsBulletin:

Feb. 11, 2005

More on state of denial

Randy Kasik asserts that "...To accuse the director of perpetrating fraud is not only ridiculous but libelous..." One must ask what evidence he has seen to believe that the accusation is ridiculous? To many here, it does not seem ridiculous at all.

--Allen Cogbill

From Anomymous:

Think about this figure for a moment. If 322 people were injured at LANL during
the last year, that works out to be almost 4% of the workforce! Does Pete
really believe this? If so, then he's more out of touch with reality than I
ever imagined. Either that, or the anti-nuke folks are right and this place
needs to be shut down immediately. Which is it, Pete?

My hunch is "The Admiral" sees this letter as a loving Valentine's Day gift. It's
his ackward way of demonstrating to the staff just how much he cares. After all,
he states he'll be taking the time to personally train each and every AD in the
"Ways of Safety". The Master's knowledge will then be passed on down the line
to the students.

Pete, if you really want to help people from hurting this next year, then
please resign. The biggest injury I've seen around here is emotional -- it's
the staff who are now completely demoralized, despondent, and fearful largely
because of your failed leadership. Let the healing begin. Please go now.

I received the following request, which I respectfully decline. My role here will be limited to submitting posts that are emailed to me for publication on the blog.

--Doug

From Anonymous:

It has been suggested that a petition expressing “no confidence” in Director Pete Nanos might
convince DOE, UC, Congress, and the public of the urgency of the situation at LANL and get some
action [David Simmons blog and comments]. While this is a good idea, it suffers from the drawback
of possible reprisals against the signatories. On the other hand, an anonymous web poll where people
could vote multiple times would be meaningless. I suggest another alternative. If an unimpeachable
agency could be found to compile unique but anonymous votes of LANL employees, the results
should be convincing to both sides. There are companies that provide this service. The votes would
have to come from “.lanl.gov” email addresses and duplicates would be rejected. (I do not think that
this “incidental” use of LANL email would be improper, but this should be confirmed.) There might
still be some spoofing but, with appropriate precautions, not enough to seriously subvert the
credibility of the result. The referendum would determine if indeed the large majority of LANL
employees believe that Nanos’s actions have been contrary to the interests of the Laboratory and
national security, or if it is just the same small but highly vocal (group of) people who have always
been there criticizing Lab managers, as maintained by Lab spokesman Kevin Roark [http://
www.insidebayarea.com/ci_2566794]. Of course, some non-anonymous person would have to set up
the process and there would likely be some cost involved. Doug, as a person who has already
exhibited admirable courage, are you willing? My guess is that collection pots, set up off LANL
property, or a special account at LANB would quickly recover the cost.

From Anonymous:

Does it ever end? I agree I do not want to see people hurt but where are the numbers coming from? What types of injuries are these? I am sure the laser accident is in there but I wonder how many are sprains, ergonomic, back, scratched finger, slipped on ice? Chronic sick people? Things that happen in the real world to real people. As they say shit happens but I guess at LANL it means something more.......

________________________________________________________________________________________

From/MS: G. Peter Nanos, DIR, MS A100
Phone/Fax 7-5101/Fax 7-2997
Symbol: DIR-05-072
Date: February 14, 2005
Subject: Behavioral Excellence Safety Initiative


Last year 322 people were hurt at the Laboratory. This concerns
me and I know it concerns you. Our recent work suspension
identified over 3,000 conditions requiring action. The most
serious ones have already been addressed; the remainder are being
worked off as quickly as possible through the Operational
Efficiency Project. But 322 people being hurt are too many and
we must do more. We need to become a Laboratory where everyone
can recognize the difference between safe and unsafe operation,
and everyone communicates support for safe operations and
everyone takes action to address unsafe ones.

To take the next step in safety improvement, we are going to
focus on "behavioral excellence". We will do this by enhancing
our Integrated Safety Management System with the DuPont Safety
Training Observation (STOPTM) Program. The DuPont training will
improve our ability to recognize at-risk conditions and
behaviors, and improve our effectiveness working together to
address those conditions and behaviors. This year we will train
managers and supervisors to help them be more effective in their
management walk arounds and in their day-to-day safety
observations. I will begin by teaching the first of eight 1-hour
sessions to the Associate Directors on February 15. ADs will
teach division leaders, who teach group leaders, who teach
supervisors. After managers and supervisors have learned and
modeled safety observation and communication skills, we'll roll
this training out for everyone.

Let's put our care for each other into actions that prevent
people from getting hurt.

I have been retired from LLNL for over 11 years. I was once asked if I ever took classified home with me. I replied that I did, every night (in my head). And, of course, so does everyone else with a Q clearance and access to classified information. I believe that the attempt to force security about nuclear weapons through the application of draconian measures and increased paperwork, ignores the rather obvious fact that security depends absolutely and completely upon the loyalty of the individuals in the work force.

It is certainly true that a dedicated ideologue (like Klaus Fuchs) will successfully acquire all your secrets and make off with them, no matter how many controls are put in place to punish even the most minor infractions of the rules. The conflict over secrecy certainly goes back at least to the Groves/Oppenheimer disagreements during the Manhattan Project.

The present-day operative model in Washington politics seems to be that of the Strict Family (replete with the autocratic, 'always right' father, who uses old-fashioned disciplinarian measures to correct 'errors' made by his subservient wife and children; i.e., the Old Testament and/or Islamic model), rather than the Nurturing Family (where husband and wife share responsibility and the children are respected and loved into adulthood, not spanked, shamed and humiliated). Alas, it is quite true these days that when congress (or 'whoever' in authority - you fill in the blanks) wants to punish someone, someone will be punished, regardless of whether the outcome is unfair, or even counterproductive.

My heart goes out to my professional colleagues at the LANL, who are presently bearing the brunt of the mindless and punitive response to errors that have (and have not) occurred. I'm afraid there will always be those who are more concerned with punishing than with progress, with scaring subordinates than with scientific success, with building up themselves than buoying up their associates.

--Cal Wood

From Anonymous:

I suspect you've seen these suggested already, but if you haven't please add them to the blog:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_2566794

http://www.blogherald.com/2005/02/14/blogging-los-alamos/



BTW, I think your blog is great. Hang in there.

From Anonymous:

fyi...

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001388.html

A quick note on LANL's official policy on blogging: I received the following official email from the LANL Public Affairs Office recently when a reporter contacted them requesting permission to speak with me:

Subject:	media query
Date:	Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:29:15 -0700
From:	<>
To:	media_queries_standard@lanl.gov

CALLER: Ian Hoffman, Tri-Valley Herald and ANG Newspaper Group

STORY: I understand there's a very interesting blog on some of the
contract issues that is done by a LANL employee, Doug Roberts. I'd
like to talk with him.

RESPONSE: As Roberts maintains this blog from home using his personal
resources, I suggest you contact him directly, rather than through
the normal Public Affairs channels.

Of course, all Laboratory employees have the right to blog, talk to
reporters or make speeches on their own time and using their own
resources.

Not, mind you, that even for a moment do I suspect that LANL would rewrite that particular policy and attempt to invoke it retroactively...

--Doug

From Anonymous:

Here's the most frightening aspect about the whole LANL mess. Eventually,
the odds are we'll have another safety or security violation. It happens
even in the best Agencies, and the statistical odds are that it will happen
here at some point. In most places, such an incident would be taken in stride
and proper corrective actions would be made. But when it happens here, we could
become "Rocky Flats II". Don't think for a moment that LANL is too important
for Congress not to shut us down. Rocky Flats was a one-of-a-kind facility
doing strategic national defense work, yet it was closed for good by the Feds.
Congress can rationalize that even with Los Alamos shut down, they can still
use Livermore for doing most of their DOE defense R&D work, plus save some
much needed cash to boot.

Thanks to Nanos, the Press, and some in Congress and the DOE, we are now
being held to standards that are almost sure to trigger a future "incident".
It's become a stacked deck against us. Is it any wonder that the staff is
totally demoralized and ready to jump ship? One might as well head for the
Titantic's life boats while there is still room to get on. Why wait for
the panic of the crowds near the end?

The thing that makes me most angry about this situation is that our top
management does almost nothing to defend us. For example, I've observed many
other Federal agencies never bother to inventory and bar-code classified
media starting at the secret level. At least LANL knows when this media is
missing. These other Agencies have no system in place to even identify the
problem! Why can't Nanos and company at least lift a finger to educate the
Press and Congress on these matters? He worked in the Navy -- did he see
them bar-code and inventory all their secret level floppies (I doubt it!).
And as far as the safety incidents go, many of them, like the famous "13kV"
substation incident that Nanos is so fond of telling, actually involved
local subcontractors who are hired by LANL contractors to do demolition work.
They are NOT caused by UC staff. They are caused by subcontractors to the
contractors to the Lab. Funny how Nanos never bothers to mention this little
fact when he spouts out his safety "horror stories". I wonder why this is?

And speaking of missing media, why is it that we have heard nothing further
about the classified disks that DOE announced were missing from their
Albuquerque office. We found ours (it was an accounting error). What about
these DOE disks? It's high time for some DOE confessions on this matter.

From Anonymous:

Diana, I suggest you research the following very carefully.

• In the first six months of 2004, top-secret data was transmitted via e-mail 18 times at LANL, more than the three other labs combined.

1. Did someone from NNSA say top secret or just secret?

2. Did someone from NNSA tell you that LANL and LLNL have different metrics for reporting this problem? At LANL any email that might contain classified information that is sent on the unclassified network is reported. At LLNL only that email which leaves LLNL is reported. Of course, it's impossible to determine if the mail leaves LLNL so LLNL probably under-reports.

3. "Further evidence of security breakdowns emerged from a report on violations over three years at the nation's four nuclear-weapons labs prepared at the request of The New Mexican. It revealed 74 violations considered to potentially pose the most serious threats to national security. Of those, 35 took place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; 22 at Los Alamos." This paragraph contradicts the paragraphs that claim that LANL is worse than LLNL.

Note that NNSA does not have standard reporting requirements for all national labs so each lab can report problems in a way that makes them look less bad.

From Anonymous:

Gee, Pete [Domenici], now you are "upset that NNSA has slashed funding for the University of California, which operates the Los Alamos lab for the government" and you think "the university and the lab are not totally responsible for the problems".

It's about time. Where have you been for the last 7 months? What a sinkhole for money NNSA has been, particularly since its launching was based upon Wen Ho Lee, and we all know the outcome of that investigation. It was certainly humorous to see pictures in the Los Alamos Monitor of the FBI in protective gear searching the County dump for Wen Ho's tapes! And the assumption that someone born in Taiwan would spy for the Red Chinese was a tremendous leap. Another waste of money, an apology by a federal judge, another botched FBI investigation - yet it was LANL's fault.

How about the funding requests that NNSA did not include in the budget that would have helped to prevent the missing barcodes? Why aren't they being held responsible for their decisions?

How about different security rules at LLNL and LANL (we all know who the favorite is)? As an example, at LANL if mail containing classified information is sent out on the unclassified network, it's a security issue. At LLNL, only if that email goes outside LLNL is it a security issue. Now do you really suppose that LLNL is reporting email that goes outside LLNL? And do you really suppose that LLNL even knows if it happens? And why doesn't NNSA insist that both LLNL and LANL follow the same rules - the LANL rules which are more secure? And why doesn't NNSA publicly praise LANL for its more stringent rules?

NNSA wastes too much money trying to defend parts of LANL from truck bombs without any concern for the folks who pass that area on their way to and from their homes in the Jemez and without any regard for the promises made to Los Alamos County to help develop more local businesses that would make the County more self-sufficient by giving them land on the north side of West Jemez Road. Maybe Los Alamos taxpayers should file a suit against DOE/NNSA for breach of contract.

I venture to say that NNSA has spent a lot of time researching the government's treatment of Native Americans and has decided to apply the same principles to LANL and Los Alamos County.

Finally, don't spend time listening to Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. They have one agenda - close LANL and to hell with everyone in northern New Mexico. They are a very vocal minority which is only interested in criticizing LANL at every opportunity. They do not respect anyone whose opinion differs from theirs. They have benefitted from LANL research without giving it any credit.

The bottom line is that problems go much deeper than missing barcodes, a dispute over safety records, etc. The basic problems are the two faced approach from NNSA ("clerical errors in Albuquerque last summer" that didn't make the press like the missing barcodes at LANL), the lack of support of their employess by UC against a Director who believes his job is to teach the employees the ABC's - Arrogant, Butthead, Cowboys - and a lack of support by our Congressional delegation.

--

From Anonymous:

Haiku:

Navy admiral -
Peter Principle applies:
in over his head

From Anonymous:

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy…

You know you may be the director of a formerly great national laboratory if you believe that Physics Today is not peer reviewed, but that Director's colloquia are.

You know you may be the director of a formerly great national laboratory if you believe that just because the statistics that you use to prove your point are incorrect and concocted, the moral force of your argument is what matters.

You know you may be the director of a formerly great national laboratory if you define an IWD as a one page document with an oil stain, and then immediately issue a 180 page encyclical outlining the process with 12 pages of required forms that need to accompany the aforementioned 1 page oil stained document.

You know you may be the director of a formerly great national laboratory if you think that the terms "butthead" and "cowboy" are synonyms.

And finally, you know you may be the director of a formerly great national laboratory if you think that an organization like PS, whose only mission in life is to create mountains of paperwork and byzantine process, will simplify if asked to do so politely. Can you say "IRS"?

From Anonymous:

Over beer this weekend, my friends and I decided that
the tale of Pete Nanos and his war on the laboratory
deserved a poetic treatment.  Given the obscenely
ludicrous nature of the situation, the limerick seems
the most appropriate form for this.   So we came up
with the idea of a Pete Nanos limerick competition.   

After a few false starts (hmmm,  what rhymes with
CREM?), we came up with a few to get the ball rolling:


Director Pete Nanos has said,
if you do science you are a butt-head.
So he stopped all work,
that moronic jerk!
Now science at LANL is dead.


Under LANL's new management plan,
if you try to do science you're canned.
Shall we instill a revolt?
Or just give up and bolt?
Either way, it's "game over," man.  


Quoth Nanos, "Disks are missing, oh dear!"
"They're neither here, nor here, nor here!"
"You're all cowboys, I say."
"Now we'll do it MY way!"
Make way for intimidation and fear.


These cowboys have met their match!
Just watch, the bad actors I'll catch!
Guilty or not, I'll fire the lot!
With ten men, I'll start over from scratch.


Security lapses must stop!
So Nanos decides to play cop.
After half a year,
the verdict is clear:
Barcodes:  a billion a pop.


Oh Nanos, why don't you just leave us?
Your actions really do grieve us.
Those missing disks?
Just labels amiss!
If we're butt-heads, then you must be Beavis!


The next challenge is to write a Pete Nanos haiku.  

From Anonymous:

ALBQUERQUE JOURNAL NORTH - OPINION PAGE
Sunday, February 13, 2005

LANL's Priority Must Be Excellence

By Charles R. Mansfield
Member of the executive council of the Coalition for LANL Excellence and the president of the Laboratory Retiree Group, Inc.

OTHER VOICES: The Coalition for LANL Excellence has recently been organized to address issues surrounding the draft Request for Proposals to select the future management contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The coalition was started by LANL retirees and employees concerned about the lack of definition of benefits in the draft. However, the issues that have been raised go beyond the issue of benefits. Indeed, these issues affect all of northern New Mexico and the nation.
Maintaining an appropriate balance between administrative oversight­ management­ and academic freedom has been a major concern since the establishment of the laboratory in 1943. The mission of the Manhattan Project exceeded the capabilities of technology at the start of the project. Gen. Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the Manhattan Project district for the U.S. Army, argued that the project should be organized along strict military lines.

The project's director, J. Robert Oppenheimer, knew that in order to solve the multitude of problems that existed, the maximum creative ability on the part of the participants would be required. The initial choice to manage the Manhattan Project under the University of California was a choice fought for and won by Oppenheimer. This balance between academic freedom and strict control has been difficult to maintain; however, it is one of the fundamental reasons that LANL has become synonymous with scientific and engineering excellence for the nation.

LANL's impact
How does this balancing act affect the people of northern New Mexico and the nation? The answer lies in the maintenance of excellence. The economic impact of LANL on northern New Mexico, including Santa Fe, cannot be overstated. LANL must continue to be the primary economic engine of this area and to expand this role when possible. The people of the area and of the nation are affected by the cutting-edge research and development that takes place at LANL.

What factors are important in achieving excellence? Achieving and maintaining excellence are not easy tasks for management. Both technical staff and support personnel contribute to excellence. Since new concepts and approaches to solutions generally originate with the technical staff. I will concentrate on that group of employees. In order to maintain excellence, the very best scientists, engineers and professional support staff must be sought out and retained.

The first important factor is to attract the very best. What is the attraction for the best scientists and engineers to come to a small town in the northern mountains of New Mexico? The attractions include: challenging problems to solve, recognition in universities and technical societies, an excellent local school system, the best support personnel and attractive compensation and benefits, including retirement.

The second important factor is to keep the best. Retention factors include: leadership on the part of local management, respect given to all employees by local management, support by the laboratory for professional organizations, and encouragement of employees to publish technical results where possible. Above all, the employees must feel confident that their benefits will be substantially equivalent should there be a change of the management contract of the laboratory. Moreover, the employees must know that their efforts are rewarded with compensation and benefits commensurate with those efforts.

Strengthening the RFP
The coalition arranged and hosted a meeting on Jan. 16 with Tyler Przybylek, Chair of the source evaluation board that will evaluate the bid proposals received and make a recommendation for a contract award to the secretary of energy. More than 500 people were in attendance. There was a lively, extensive and informative exchange with Przybylek and the attendees addressing concerns over the draft RFP and its failing to adequately address the importance of employee and retiree benefits, including salaries, retirement plans and health care. On the following day, a town hall meeting attended by more than 300 people, employees and retirees with U.S. Rep. Tom Udall alerted the New Mexico congressional delegation that significant problems with the draft RFP might affect the long-term stability of the laboratory.

The coalition believes that comments it submitted in response to the draft RFP will help to strengthen the final RFP in areas that will improve the attractiveness of LANL in the recruitment and retention of the best scientists, engineers and professional support staff. We encourage involvement of additional interested parties in the coalition. We intend to remain active throughout the award of the contract and beyond to ensure that our voices are heard.

The coalition will stay in communication with our congressional delegation and the contract evaluation board throughout the award process and hopes to provide information that will be of value to these parties, as well as to those most likely to be affected by any changes in a successor contractor. The coalition has also recently requested the development of a "communications channel" with LANL: the Yahoo Coalition for LANL Excellence group Web site, available to the public.

To date the Coalition has incurred costs, amounting to about $1,500, for such things as the rental of the Duane Smith Auditorium for the meetings with Przybylek, the production of PAC-8 videos of the meetings with Przybylek and Rep. Udall and the distribution of these videos to the New Mexico congressional delegation, Governor Richardson, the laboratory, the public access channels in Los Alamos, Española and Santa Fe and the public libraries in those same cities. A coalition account has been established at the Los Alamos National Bank under the name "Coalition for LANL Excellence." Contributions of any amount to support the coalition's efforts will be greatly appreciated.

Mansfield is a member of the executive council of the Coalition for LANL Excellence and the president of the Laboratory Retiree Group, Inc. He would like to thank Newby Ellington for editorial support in writing this article.

From Anonymous:

I have a hard time swallowing most of the ABQ Journal article from our
friend, Don Brown.  As a denizen of TA-18, I couldn't even tell you
who this guy is.  He allegedly was hired on in 2003 to evaluate QA
across the facility.  However, I can't point to a single time I saw
him at 18.  That doesn't mean he wasn't ever there, but how many times
could he really have been there?  Further, the article states, "...he
recounted problems he said he uncovered at LANL's Technical Area-18,
where the lab performs subcritical nuclear experiments."  TA-18 is
where the *critical* assemblies are housed.  Sure, we do stuff at the
subcritical level, but we also operate at the delayed critical, we do
bursts, etc.  However, the statement that TA-18 could have a
Chornoby-type accident is just completely bogus.  All of these little,
technical errors definitely point to someone who clearly has no idea
what a critical assembly is or does or how any type of a failure of
the system might work.

Yet it doesn't change the fact that we, the denizens of 18, are most
likely going to have to address these completey far-fetched claims.
Lab management has *never* understood what it means to operate such a
facility.  They constantly ignore the input of the experts in order to
pacify people who have clearly demonstrated they know nothing about
what they are talking about, such as Don Brown.  The result is a set
of safety analyses that are based on accidents that are impossible to
occur.  The scientists at TA-18 have for nearly two decades (or
whenever it was that the tiger teams occured) had to rationalize their
existences against a set of ridiculous and impossible safety
requirements.

The end result is that TA-18 is being shut down.  The Category I/II
quantities of nuclear material are being moved to the Nevada Test
Site.  The scientists are having a mass exodus because of managements'
inability to demonstrate a clue.  The vital missions being performed
at TA-18 are being handed off to Livermore.  One guy I know, one of
the most brilliant minds when it comes to the designing scenarios to
test various detectors against, is transfering out of N Division
because, "someone needs to make management see how they are killing
this group."

It is truly sad that incompetant unknowns (i.e. the Don Brown's of the
world) are dictating how we do criticality safety at LANL and in this
country.

From Anonymous:

Nanos' salary in Oct 2002 was $200K.

He was Principle Deputy Associate Director of ADTR.

From Anonymous:

I confess to being one of the many who "just don't get it". I don't get why thousands of hard-working safety- and security-conscious people have to get punished for the mistakes (whether deliberate or innocent) of a few. The ruler who chops off the feet of the residents of a village on account of the disrespect shown by a few justly deserves the criticism of posterity.

The climate at LANL has become poisonous. Many have already left, many more are contemplating doing so. The rest of us dread opening the morning newspaper for fear of yet another revelation that will send the gavel of doom down upon us again.

What would happen if a real spy were detected in our midst? Our Nano-manager might well shut the doors and gates and close us down forever. Meanwhile our spy (who must be very smart, if he were hired by Los Alamos in the first place) would have eluded the trap set for him and is now living comfortably in the country that employed him, while the rest of us have lost our livelihoods forever. (Forgive the arbitrary gender assumption.)

Is it any wonder that we are preparing our exit strategies?

From Anonymous:

I went to the CREM meeting too. I was buying everything that the speaker was saying until people started asking questions and that bald guy stood up and started to tell what really happened. After that one lady asked about the people who had been fired and Scott Gibbs ducked the question the bald guy said his boss was fired for taking too much training. Is that possible at LANL? He came right out and said this guy was fired for reasons totally unrelated to what happened. To me that just screams SCAPEGOAT!!! I wish he would have talked a little longer about that. He also said that they can't find a single rule that he violated.
If that's true then Nanos IS a liar and a fraud and all the grief we've been taking about cowboys and culture problems was a scam. If these guys were as bad as Nanos says then they should have had pages of rules violations to show us.

The bald guy also said that they tried to set him up and that people actually quit the lab over it. He said offices were being entered after hours and records were seized and people were pressured to keep quiet. It sounds like NanoGate to me. Gibbs tried to say that wasn't true but then that other lady stood up and said she was there and that everything he said was true. Something really stinks here and I don't think we're anywhere near the source of it yet. The guy said there was a lot more to this than we've heard and I believe him. They're planning on giving another meeting because there wasn't a single seat in the auditorium that wasn't filled. I think they should let that bald guy give the next one so we can hear what really happened.

From Anonymous:

Don Brown seems to be claiming that there are (at least) 23 "warehouses" at LANL containing "nuclear supplies" that are not accounted for in a formal "chain of custody." I suspect (hope) that this is not the case and that there is a rational explanation. At least, I hope that these materials are not used in critical applications that require a degree of quality control. But, after the secret sequestering of a few $100k of "camping materials" on Lab property, what else might be there without the knowledge of most workers? Can anyone shed light on this issue? Is this just an "obvious" miss-interpretation by someone not familiar with the Laboratory?

-----------------------------------

lamonitor.com
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
Friday, February 11, 2005
Last modified Thursday, February 10, 2005 2:56 PM MST

Whistleblower claims quality assurance failures

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
A quality assurance auditor for a Los Alamos contractor has come forward as a whistleblower, claiming that he has been punished for discovering and documenting a dangerous breakdown in quality assurance programs at LANL.

Don Brown was hired in May 2003.

According to documents he has distributed through an independent government watchdog group, including a formal complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Brown charges that LANL's nuclear facilities are too unsafe to operate and that it's modern pit production process has been compromised.

In a recent interview on CBS Evening News, Brown said, "I started finding problems that would stop any other nuclear facility in their tracks."

He said he found as many as 1,000 faulty welds in one nuclear building.
"It looks like it was welded with a Hershey Bar," he said.

Contacted in Los Alamos, Brown referred questions to his lawyer, Tom Carpenter of the Government Accountability Project (GAP).

Speaking by telephone from Seattle, Carpenter said Brown had approached GAP last spring, and was advised to go through normal procedures, and then if he wasn't getting anywhere, to escalate his concerns.

The response was a stone wall, barely an acknowledgement, and then he was informed that his job was being reorganized and that he would have to apply to keep it. He was not selected for an interview, and has been told that he is expected to resign, GAP said.

Among his findings was the existence of a score of warehouses, which Brown claims are "off the books." These warehouses are full of equipment and supplies and are known as "Graceland." The warehouses are said to contain material without bar-codes and serve as a supply depot for nuclear operations at the lab.

Carpenter said that procurement formalities for nuclear supplies requires very explicit acceptance, inspection and certification. A formal chain of custody procedure provides assurance that the pedigree is known.

"When it comes time to put it in, you know the pedigree," Carpenter said. "None of it is in place. Graceland is one area, 23 warehouses with supplies that don't exist."

GAP has written to new Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman calling for a full investigation of the matter under the Price-Anderson laws.

LANL public affairs had not responded to a request for information by today's publication deadline.

From Anonymous:

Hmmm. Diana Heil says:

"The New Mexican last July asked the U.S. Department of Energy for data on Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia — the nation’s labs most involved in nuclear weapons."

It took 6 months to receive this data? Is this a case of NNSA concealing information from the taxpayers? Or is it the Public Affairs folks at LANL? Or both, perhaps?

Is this an example of how LANL senior management believes in transparency and open communication?

UT rejects any LANL alliance

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

Off again, on again - the University of Texas finally made it official. They will step up participation with a national laboratory, but it won't be Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Instead, University officials announced they would strengthen ties with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

The Board of Regents approved a five-year agreement with SNL on Thursday, spelling out an expanded relationship of educational collaboration and research initiatives, as well as a project for UT to review Sandia's science and technology programs.

The Regents also voted Thursday to drop its pursuit of a bid to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Sandia option appears to have been a back-up plan that was developing behind the scenes in parallel to preparations for bidding on the Los Alamos management contract.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who had encouraged UT to pursue the Los Alamos contract, was credited with arranging meetings between UT and Sandia officials last year where discussions about the expanded collaboration began.

"Because of the complexity and magnitude of the (Los Alamos) lab, we always envisioned that we would be part of a joint venture to put forward a proposal to manage and operate Los Alamos in partnership," UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof told board members.

As reported by the Associated Press, Yudof recommended that the system not bid to manage Los Alamos, because they had not been able to find a workable partnership.

The decision puts a final full stop on a quest UT began in February last year, when the Board appropriated $500,000 to begin preparations for the competition.

Then in July, UT's presumed partner for their bid, Lockheed Martin decided not to pursue the Los Alamos contract.

The arrangement with SNL is significant because it is specifically limited to non-classified activities.

John Pruett, a member of UT Watch, a student organization that has tracked UT's weapons lab ambitions, said he attended the meeting and was impressed that the Regents made a strong point about only doing basic and not applied research.

That was peculiar, he said, in an institution where security clearances measure status and level of involvement.

In 2002, UT geared up for a potential bid for SNL, but were thwarted in that effort when DOE decided to renew Lockheed-Martin's contract without competing it.

"Why are they spending all this money and investing these things if they're not even going to go through with the bid?" Pruett asked, speaking by phone from Austin.

Pruett said a team of 15 scientists would be visiting Sandia next month.

The agreement between UT and SNL calls for UT to conduct a review of the science and technology program. UT officials called it the first independent peer review agreement conducted at any of the 15 Department of Energy national labs.

From Anonymous:

Regarding the Feb. 9 posting, same subject, here is an important point: (too many characters for a comment)

Please note an important insecure position all these new UC employees were being put in: LANL has new employee probationary periods up to to 2 years plus for TSMs (1 year for SSMs and 6 months for non-exempt employees). LANL HR and Legal informed UPTE in September 2004 that any employee still in their probationary period during the contract change-over the end of September 2005, would be a risk of losing their job. So, for exempt employees in hired after 9/04, it wouldn't matter if they were Contract or brand-new UC employees, they are just as much at risk. Now that we're down to 6 months away from the contract change-over, all employees converted now, including non-exempts, will still be in their probationary period come 9/30/05. And they would all be at risk. Granted, they may never earn time towards UC vesting, but this way these contractors can accrue more time under their current employer. The RFP must address contract employees, not just UC. But if the "real" intent is to drastically cut the LANL work force, then I guess not.

From Anonymous:

Former LANL official critical of lab director

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

The former associate laboratory director for Strategic Research, who said he was forced to resign during the safety and security crisis last July, has publicly reproached Los Alamos National Laboratory Director G. Peter Nanos for mismanagement and failure of leadership.

"In a relatively short period of time, a series of critical management mistakes have started to undo what it took 60 years to build," said Thomas J. Meyer during a return visit to Los Alamos Wednesday. "When you look back, the lab shutdown was a cover up for mismanagement at the top."

Meyer has written an eight-page essay, "What Happened at Los Alamos," (available on an Internet weblog at http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com), giving his account of the circumstances surrounding the total suspension of operations at the lab on July 12 and the implications of that decision for the lab's future.

Meyer was the highest ranking laboratory employee disciplined by laboratory management, which made a point at the time that it was meting out punishment high and low, without regard to position. Four others lost their jobs at that time.

Because of his responsibilities in charge of a major directorate at the lab and as a member of the senior executive team, Meyer wrote, he could see what was happening at the highest level.

"I have a perspective on the shutdown that I feel obligated to share with the larger Los Alamos community," he said.

What he saw as the problem was not the "negative culture" within the LANL scientific community, which was publicly rebuked and subjected to a kind of collective punishment and humiliation.

The laboratory's decision to idle 12,000 employees for more than seven months, in some cases, was not justified, according to Meyer, who said there was an alternative.

"At other laboratories, staged stand downs are commonly used to focus on areas where there is known concern," Meyer wrote. "This allows limited resources to be brought to bear quickly and effectively on problem areas with the work force sensitized, best practices instilled, and training provided."

Meyer defended the safety record of thechemistry division, which was his responsibility before the laser accident, noting that management had not supported an effort to hire an Operation Deputy for the Division, whose job would have been to oversee the day-to-day operations and safety.

Meyer said Nanos whipsawed the overhead charged to customers last year, driving prices to uncompetitive levels at first, and then reducing them in the middle of the year, creating havoc for many support organizations and new projects, including a day-to-day safety officer for the chemistry division.

Among other accusations:

The University of California has expressed concern that there is inadequate representation for science in the current senior management team.

Important scientists are gone or leaving the laboratory.

Important programs have been lost to other laboratories; others are threatened.

Current recruiting for postdocs is at an all-time low.

Meyer said his departure from the laboratory was handled crudely.

"I never spoke to Nanos, never got anything in writing. There was nothing, zero," Meyer said. "No exit interview. No pretense of dealing with this in a sophisticated way."

Meyer said he will be returning to UNC-Chapel Hill as the Arey Professor of Chemistry. He was on the faculty there for many years before coming to LANL.

Despite the bleak evaluation of the situation, Meyer saw a potential rebirth in the lab's future.

"LANL is a sleeping giant, waiting to reassert itself," he concluded his critique. "A path forward must be found quickly to provide leadership and a clear vision for the future."

LANL public affairs did not responded to a request for information by today's publication deadline.

Feb. 8, 2005

More on justified blame

I read David Simmons and Doug Tuggle's letters; one hass been here 2.5 years, the other 27 years. I have been here 25 years off and on. Lot's of changes? Is it the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration fault? We use to have an office for Laboratory contract compliance, one for UC/DOE. That was compromised years ago. We used to have a local DOE office that lavished us with excellent appraisals. Did we lose the check and balances we once had? We allowed groups with budget to drive policy. Are we drowning in red tape now? Did we or do we "have sloppy inventory controls and security failures? Who pays us, and who watches the "Lab Coop" now?

So we were fined ... somebody did something wrong ... where were the "checks and balances." I have enjoyed working at the Lab at times, and sometimes the "my way or the highway attitude" has made me move to different job areas to do work and stay out of the politics. We all are facing a new challenge, maybe a new employer, and I hope new and better attitudes. Change is not always bad. So Mr. Simmons had to go to "Wendy's" ( doing very well in the stock market), and Mr. Tuggle may have to find a Wendy's of his own, to do work. Wouldn't it be nice, if now that there is an opportunity to change, we could change the Lab for the better.

--Johnny Baca

From the LANL NewsBulletin:

Feb. 10, 2005

State of denial

Just came back from the CREM incident briefing and I must say that based on some of the questions and statements made there are many still working at the Laboratory that just don't get it. To accuse the director of perpetrating fraud is not only ridiculous but libelous. The sooner everyone can gets past this state of denial the sooner we as an institution can continue to improve our secure work practices.

--Randy Kasik

From Anonymous:

I'm afraid it's time to face some harsh reality, folks. Our "chain of command" has had ample opportunity to invoke its system of checks and balances and intervene in the now moderately famous case of "LANL management run amuck". In the aftermath of recent news proving what we at LANL have always known, e.g., there was no rational justification for shutting the entire laboratory down last July; for castigating honest, well-intentioned staff, and for running off many talented scientists and a not-insignificant number of good customers. Have we heard a peep from UC President Dynes? How about NNSA head Brooks? Or the brand, spanking new DOE Secretary Bodeman? The head of the Albuquerque DOE office? Domenici? Bingaman? Udall?

Nope. What does that tell us? Aside from telling us that the system is pretty badly flawed, and that there is more cowardice than integrity at the top levels of our food chain, we should be getting the message that we are being told, "Don't rock the boat, we don't want the Vice Admiral to fall out!"

Why is that, do you suppose? Is this condition immutable? If enough people shed their fears of reprisal and spoke out in a way that could be heard do you think we could cause at least one "right" thing to happen?

The one individual upon whom the blame for causing this disaster at LANL squarely falls needs to be removed. Most of you agree that we cannot even begin to put this disaster behind us until Director Nanos has been removed. Why are you still afraid to say so? If we all continue to remain silent, we will be no better than UC President Dynes, or Linton Brooks.