Chu, white House Expected to Play Larger Role in LLNL Director Search

Contributed by John:

This is also long but a very interesting read if true...


Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor
June 10, 2011
Chu, white House Expected to Play Larger Role in LLNL Director Search
-- Todd Jacobson

Energy Secretary Steven Chu and officials at the White House are expected to assert themselves in the search for a new director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, strongly pushing for candidates with more of a basic science and energy background after similar concerns raised during the recently completed Los Alamos National Laboratory director search came too late to influence the selection. Chu was lukewarm about the selection of Charlie McMillan as Los Alamos National Laboratory’s next director, NW&M Monitor has learned, initially favoring a candidate with more of a basic science and energy background before signing off on the choice.

Several officials with knowledge of the search have confirmed that White House Science and Technology Policy advisor John Holdren also contacted Chu to make the case that Los Alamos would be best served by a lab director without a weapons program pedigree. One official said that Holdren did not suggest a particular candidate, but wanted “somebody who was safe and reliable and not of the weapons program,” though that input came near the end of the search process. “They’re not going to make that mistake again,” the official said, referring to the fact that the White House became involved in the LANL search late in the process. DOE and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy did not respond to a request for comment. Potential intervention by the White House has stoked speculation that the University of California, which has the responsibility to conduct the search for lab contractor Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, could veer from the weaponeer profile embodied by retiring director George Miller, former LANL Director Mike Anastasio and McMillan in favor of a director with a more basic science-based resume. More than at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore’s mission is evolving toward energy and threat reduction, though it will still play a significant role in weapons design and maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Chu and Holdren are believed to favor a lab director that better represents the evolving mission.

UC Turning Attention to LLNL Search
With the Los Alamos search out of the way, UC in recent weeks has turned its focus to the Livermore search. In a June 3 message to Livermore employees, Norman Pattiz, the chairman of the Board of Governors for Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC and the director of the Livermore lab director search committee, said the search will be very similar to the hunt for Los Alamos’ director that officials said drew approximately 150 applicants.

Pattiz said membership of the search committee hasn’t been finalized, but he said the panel will meet at the laboratory “within the next two months … to hear from various constituencies and to determine the criteria that we will use to evaluate candidates for the next director.” A screening task force will also be formed to recommend a pool of candidates to the search committee, though the committee could add additional names before bringing in candidates for interviews. He encouraged lab employees to submit potential candidates to the search committee

Different Approach, Different Candidates
If the search committee goes in the direction of a weaponeer, then Bruce Goodwin, the head of Livermore’s weapons program, is the front-runner, according to weapons complex observers. But if the committee were to seek a candidate with more of a science background, Under Secretary of Energy for Science Steve Koonin and Livermore Deputy Director for Science and Technology Tomas Diaz de la Rubia would be natural candidates, though there are likely many others in the scientific community that could draw interest. “Holdren really wants the Livermore director to be a nationally recognized scientist, as does Chu, and not someone from the nuclear weapons community,” another official told NW&M Monitor, adding: “There’s no doubt that if Holdren and Chu were picking, it would be someone that people in the [weapons] community had never heard of.” That potential approach has generated concern from some in the weapons community, given the central role of the weapons laboratory directors in annually certifying the nation’s nuclear stockpile. Though Livermore’s showpiece project, the National Ignition Facility, is up and running and eventually could lead to advances in clean energy, its primary mission involves maintenance of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Livermore will also have its hands full over the next decade as the lead laboratory for the W78 warhead refurbishment, which is expected to be the first refurbishment that will create a common warhead that can be used on intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Stockpile a Priority in Procurement Docs
Procurement documents from the competition for the lab’s management in 2007 also place a premium on certifying the stockpile in the discussion of requirements for key personnel, listing it first among the experience demanded for potential lab directors in a list that also includes leading “a broad-based and world-class scientific organization” and leading “an organization that includes multiple operations and business functions.” Certifying the stockpile “is the main mission,” another industry official said. “That’s where all the money goes, and they can try to change that all they want, but that remains the most important thing.”

At Los Alamos, McMillan suggested in a recent interview with NW&M Monitor that his background within the weapons program would help the laboratory meet the large list of weapons-related challenges it is facing over the next decade, which includes work on several life extension programs, a busy experimental schedule, and construction work on a new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility. “The labs have different needs at different times in their histories,” McMillan said.

“My view is today many of the deliverables that we face are in the weapons area and so someone who brings not only knowledge of that area, but also the sets of relationships with DoD and DOE/NNSA is the right kind of person today to be able to help ensure that we deliver on the kinds of commitments we have particularly in that area.”