Albright named president and CEO of HRL, Laboratories LLC
LLNL Newsline- 10/20/2014
Parney Albright, former director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been named the president and chief executive officer of HRL Laboratories, LLC [Hughes Research Laboratories].
He takes over the job formerly occupied by William Jeffrey on Nov. 3.
HRL is a commercial research and development center focused on advanced microelectronics, information and systems sciences, materials, sensors and photonics, among other disciplines. It specializes in integrated circuits, antennas, networking, smart materials and lasers. Formerly a research arm of Hughes Aircraft, HRL produced the first working model of a laser in 1960, by Theodore Maiman.
"This is one of the premier scientific institutions in the country, a storied lab with a long history of innovation," Albright said. "It is quite an honor, and I look forward to being a part of such a talented team."
Albright, who will retire from Lawrence Livermore effective Oct. 31, said, "It has been an honor to be a part of this Laboratory. I will miss the people and their dedication to the mission, and I look forward to possible future collaborations."
"Parney has been an important part of this Laboratory, as a director, senior manager and adviser," said Lab Director Bill Goldstein. "With his background in national security work and his management skills, he will make an excellent leader for HRL. We congratulate him in this new position."
Albright came to the Lab in November 2009 as the principal associate director of Global Security, which supports the Lab's biosecurity, counterterrorism, defense, energy, intelligence and nonproliferation missions. He served as Lab director from 2011-13, steering the institution through budget cuts brought on by the recession, sequestration and government shutdown. Last January he took an assignment with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Albright has more than 25 years' experience in the federal government and the private sector. Prior to joining the Laboratory he worked with Civitas Group, a homeland security consultant in Washington, D.C. He has served as assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), assistant director in the Office of Science and Technology Policy and senior director in the Office of Homeland Security in the White House; and program manager with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
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39 comments:
A former LLNS Director in and out of LLNS in just 5 years. An accomplished PhD "canary in the coal mine"?
Sure beats being exiled to the Atacama Desert.
No other comments from those remaining at LLNS? Interesting. Anyway, good luck and take care Director Albright.
Many of us passed along our regards in various ways immediately upon Parney's resignation. Not surprised to see he landed on his feet at another fine organization.
Albright is motivated to do things, but there is not much of anything for a former Director to do at LLNL except "advise". Never mind other issues, like that he pissed people off at NNSA and that the future of GS is murky. It's not surprising that he left and found a good position elsewhere.
"...You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life..."
Winston Churchill
Perhaps his positions or challenges presented to the NNSA were justified? Maybe we just lost a true leader
that we couldn't afford to lose.
Come on, Parney was a Beltway bandit. Try comparing him to Johnny Foster, Harold Brown, or Edward Teller.
Deceitful Crooks, all!
We can afford to lose all the GS people we can. That whole corner of the lab seems to just attract short-sighted, low-budget widget builders, and that's not what the lab needs right now. Unless we're to become a 'build widgets on a shoestring budget' lab, with no vision beyond what an array of external sponsors wants us to do this year.
Perhaps the GS present and future is as you describe, but that does not necessarily mean the set of leaders in GS are the sole cause right?
Our leaders don't have 100% control of the ocean currents. They can be evaluated on how well they navigate them. Beyond that, is an over expectation I think.
It is the managers that repeatedly fail to follow internal managerial expectations in this square mile, that are the real disappointment.
Parney paid the price of actually doing his job and dealing with some of the Lab's epic leadership problems.
Good for him, and best wishes.
"...Parney paid the price of actually doing his job and dealing with some of the Lab's epic leadership problems..."
Like Ed or others?
I expect each successive director will be fired in his/her time for standing up to the sponsors on some important point.
The real problems at LLNL are only sponsor induced. Congress, DoE and NNSA are ignorant, insecure and unreasonable people who neither trust nor respect LLNL leaders and employees. All manner of disagreement prompt crises.
They confuse and conflate their disagreements at each lab and apply responses generally to all labs, needed or not.
Can't get rid of Congress, but both NNSA and DOE could be closed and the US would function no worse, and a little less wastefully.
Good luck, Penrose
Best wishes to Parney on his new endeavor. Parney is a great guy, and made some good changes at LLNL/LLNS while he was director. He was approachable by the regular folks like me, and he attended just about every function that was ever put on. By that I mean all of the special months/weeks. Black History Month, Asian Pacific Islander events, Women's Association events, on and on. He was very visible and involved. He started his own blog, he is 'tech savvy' and reached out to all the worker bees. Like him, or not, he impressed many of us, and went to bat for us when he felt he needed to. And moving to Malibu doesn't sound too bad either. (HQ for his new employer)
Parney is a great guy, and made some good changes at LLNL/LLNS while he was director.
October 27, 2014 at 2:18 PM
Name one?
Getting rid of Moses. Dumping the SCAP. Killing LIFE. Calling bullshit at the stockpile reviews. Forcing budget transparency. Treating the staff honestly, like adults. That is a good start.
"...Getting rid of Moses. Dumping the SCAP. Killing LIFE. Calling bullshit at the stockpile reviews. Forcing budget transparency. Treating the staff honestly, like adults. That is a good start..."
I think LIFE was basically doomed anyway. Maybe Parney hit the red stop button first, OK.
As far as Moses goes, he stepped down and out in slow motion. I don't think that fits the classic definition for "getting rid of".
A ~5 year "tour of duty"' at LLNS will become the norm for post 2007 new hires with their portable 401k plans. Can you blame them?
The NNSA weapon labs should only be doing grand challenge type work that has the word "nuclear" in it. Everything else should just be shut down and those who don't like it should leave.
If GS fails, then it failed because it doesn't make sense to take on external work-for-other sponsors at the NNSA labs. The external sponsors try to constantly nickel and dime the projects they want executed at the labs and can't be counted on for long term financial support. There are other options that are cheaper, faster and easier for these sponsors to run to for their research needs.
Nuclear or nothing, that's the key. Yes, the weapon labs will be much smaller but they will also be focused on the problems they were designed to be focused on in the first place.
As the nuclear arsenal shrinks, so must the stewards.
"...If GS fails, then it failed because it doesn't make sense to take on external work-for-other sponsors at the NNSA labs. The external sponsors try to constantly nickel and dime the projects they want executed at the labs and can't be counted on for long term financial support. There are other options that are cheaper, faster and easier for these sponsors to run to for their research needs..."
Isn't this a reasonable response to some of the GS Leader criticisms?
Anonymous said...
The NNSA weapon labs should only be doing grand challenge type work that has the word "nuclear" in it. Everything else should just be shut down and those who don't like it should leave.
This. GS work-for-others was always a force-fit for the weapons labs, and an attempt to keep money flowing in an era of decreasing stockpile-related funding. Some of it makes sense, the parts that make full use of lab resources and expertise, particularly designers and simulations. The rest does not make sense.
There has always been non-nuclear work at the labs. It is not a force fit, but an acknowledgement that the talent and facilities at the labs are second to none, and can do important work for national security. The idea that much of the work needed by DoD or DHS can be done cheaper at other places is correct, but that is really besides the point. DoD and DHS do go elsewhere, but in many cases the DOE labs, or places like jpl or applied physics lab have the skills and focus and facilities that would require a big capital investment and years of hiring top talent to replicate elsewhere. The idea that small projects are unsuitable for the labs is simply wrong and ahistorical, and ignores not just decades of history at the DOE labs but also normal business in the DoD and nasa labs.
As the nuclear arsenal shrinks, so must the stewards...
until of course, you need the missing steward. which steward and when you say? That is the question.
Which part of the trillion dollar investment in the nuclear arsenal is critical?
One thing is certain, no one in Congress, DOE, NNSA or the presidential staff knows.
The great thing about Parney was that he was an outsider. But being an outsider also worked hard against him.
Bottom line - Parney could not "hack it".
"... Bottom line - Parney could not "hack it"..."
Your grand plan is to have LLNS senior leaders just go with the flow and assimilate? I'm sure Parney evaluated the LLNS situation and voted with his feet to Malibu. Good for him!
Parney "hacked it". What he did was put the Lab's interests ahead of his job security, and pushed Moses out knowing that Pattiz would get even.
"....Parney "hacked it". What he did was put the Lab's interests ahead of his job security, and pushed Moses out knowing that Pattiz would get even..."
Moses and Pattiz are pals? How so?
Are you that out of it?? Moses was Pattiz's superstar. They spoke on the phone often, and Parney regularly got calls from Pattiz complaining about something Moses has told him. Pattiz was sure that Moses was the victim of Goodwin and later Parney's conspiracies to undermine him. Holy cow, don't you know that is why Parney was fired?
Wasn't because he fired Moses. If that were true, Moses would have been resurrected after Parney left, but instead he was exiled to Chile. I hear the main reason was the shutdown debacle, and some of that debacle was caused by Moses.
What shutdown debacle?? Ask any senior manager and it was Moses. There was no chance he would be resurrected, since DOE would have gone crazy. And also Bret made it a condition that Moses was gone.
The PER from 11/22/13 is telling, in the final paragraph:
"NNSA has concerns regarding several management issues at LLNL. On several occasions LLNL
management engaged Congress contrary to stated NNSA strategy or in open opposition to that strategy. [Moses, infamous Lofgren letter] There were also a number of issues related to a lack of transparency of operations and program management decisions regarding the ICF program. [Moses again] NNSA and LLNL worked for several months to meet budget challenges requiring the reprogramming of funds to alleviate impacts due to the ICF program rate changes. NIF operating costs and assumptions were not transparent or well communicated to the NNSA Program Office, which made it more difficult to understand programmatic tradeoffs with FY13 budget pressures. NNSA raised concerns regarding the ICF spend rate that resulted in an extremely low level of carryover late in the fiscal year. [Moses burning through his reserves and unloading hundreds of people into the homeless ranks] NIF management also expended considerable facility time and resources on two facility activities (AMP 3 and ARC) despite input from the NNSA program office that these efforts were of a lower priority. [Moses again, pushing the hopeless ARC project] Communications with external stakeholders was a continuing issue. LLNL mismanaged external communications in several instances regarding ICF activities and budgets. LLNL attempted to mitigate some of these issues and improve communication with NNSA by making some mid-year organizational changes, and improvements were noted. [Moses was fired] Additionally, LLNL made changes to its senior management team (key personnel) as coordinated with NNSA leadership to improve performance in this area. [Albright was fired]"
DOE wanted Moses gone and Albright complied. There is no way Albright would have been pushed out if he himself had DOE support, because Pattiz knows who calls the shots.
"...Wasn't because he fired Moses. If that were true, Moses would have been resurrected after Parney left, but instead he was exiled to Chile. I hear the main reason was the shutdown debacle, and some of that debacle was caused by Moses...."
So Parney followed DOE orders and dumped Moses, and was subsequently fired for opposition to "shutdown" related impact to LLNL operations? Did we lose Director Parney for sticking up for continuity of lab operations and employee impact during the shutdown? Is that what you are saying? If so, what does that say of the new Director selection?
Did we lose Director Parney for sticking up for continuity of lab operations and employee impact during the shutdown?
November 2, 2014 at 5:29 PM
That is what I heard from two well placed sources, probably along with personality differences and maybe partly as a scapegoat for the issues listed above. The orders from on high were, shut it down and cause maximum pain and publicity against the Republican-led revolt. What that says about Goldstein, I'm not sure, but I guess he was the best on a very short list of plausible candidates.
Did we lose Director Parney...
November 2, 2014 at 5:29 PM
So touching, the "we" part of that. So naive, so juvenile, so clueless. If you continue with the "we" concept of work at LLNS/LANS you will be steamrollered along with your fellow clueless dupes. There is not, and never was, any "we" connected with employment at LLNS/LANS. Just you. And them. They win, all the time. Get a clue.
Parney was fired because he pushed Moses out. Pattiz couldn't take that. It is a fact, known by senior management, the board, and most of DC. The shutdown was not a factor.
"...Pattiz couldn't take that. It is a fact, known by senior management, the board, and most of DC. The shutdown was not a factor..."
Pattiz alone has that much power?
Yes. UC controls the lab director position. DOE will not interfere, and neither would Bechtel.
I understand just how late to the party this comment is, but Parney ultimately lost his job over the Shutdown. He cussed out some very high ranking officials during a several hour video conference for turning this into a political thing and attempting to ruin so many lives in the process. He was one of the only people in a "leadership position" to step up and tell Washington to go screw themselves. Yes, witnessed this. It was amazing.
PS: "DOE and Bechtel would not interfere? Furthest thing from the truth.
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