Wednesday, November 29, 2017
More on Wallace
Wallace to become director January 1, 2018 LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, Nov. 28, 2017— Dr. Terry Wallace has been appointed Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and President of Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), the company that manages and operates the Laboratory for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The appointments were announced today by Norman J. Pattiz and Barbara E. Rusinko, Chair and Vice Chair of the Los Alamos National Security (LANS) Board of Governors, and are effective January 1, 2018
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22 comments:
The beauty of this announcement, was Pattiz making the decision from his Beverly Hills mansion and having Kim Budil reading his decision at LANL. Not once, not once, did Pattiz as Chairman of the LANS Board of Governors visit Los Alamos to speak in person to LANL workers. This was an absolute disgrace, it's likely the Laker game interfered with this......again. Another "no show" for Pattiz.
Will Wallace top McMillian as the worst director ever? Many on the top floors say he has a shot of doing so. Most commonly used word to describe is arrogant.
"The worst director ever"? I thought that honor forever belongs to Vice Admiral Nanos.
Now, if you ask: Will the decay rate of the last 10 years accelerate further under Wallace? -- the answer will probably be "yep". Will it accelerate further still after the contract change? -- Quite likely, if the next director is Sarrao.
Why does LANL still have so-called “weapons designers” if they promote a geologist to director?
Even Sandia put a former LLNL designer in as director. Wallace seems like a joke.
Also, if you have a BS from NM Tech, I don’t care if a professor signed your thesis at Caltech.
Thesis title: “Rocks”? Try explaining a Rossi scope trace to this guy!
Wallace is Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and was a tenured professor at a major American University (Arizona). He is the first lab director since John Browne to have a credible scientific record. You can combine the scientific records of all 4 lab directors since John Browne and multiply that by 10 or even 100 and Wallace still comes on top. Look up his record, he is a legitimate scientist. It is pathetic that hundreds of LANL scientists are recognized fellows of their respective professional societies, yet for the past 11 years under LANS LLC the lab director was not. Terry Wallace at least meets this low bar.
Why does LANL still have so-called “weapons designers” if they promote a geologist to director?
December 1, 2017 at 1:18 PM
LANL had nothing to do with this selection. Blame another "stellar" Californian for this decision, the infamous Norm Pattiz. If anything, blame him for not bringing in another stellar physicist from LLNL, like Anastasio or McMillan to finally bring LANL to it's knees, once and for all.
I wonder how many actually applied for an obvious one-year dead-end position?
Why does LANL still have so-called “weapons designers” if they promote a geologist to director?
Even Sandia put a former LLNL designer in as director. Wallace seems like a joke.
Also, if you have a BS from NM Tech, I don’t care if a professor signed your thesis at Caltech.
Thesis title: “Rocks”? Try explaining a Rossi scope trace to this guy!
December 1, 2017 at 1:18 PM
You can say what you want about Wallace but he is much smarter than the last four guys and I would trust him over these guys any day when it comes to a real understanding the mission and mission needs.
Wallace has far more integrity that Nanos, Anastasio, and McMillan.
I really question why a geologist who showed up at LANL in 2003 would rise to director.
Maybe the local yokel factor is the only way to go with LANL employees.
Macmillan had too much of that fancy book-learnin’, experience with weapons designs, experiments, and codes.
Los Alamos high graduate means much more to them folks out there in them hills. Seismologist? What a joke.
Once UC wins the next bidding process (and they will), Terry Wallace becomes more than just a one-year director. He'll be the lab director at LANL for many years to come. That's why I suspect he took the job.
Are you saying that Terry is heading the UC bid team, 1:46PM?
It’s really pretty astonishing to see all these posts suddenly popping up here extolling the supposed smartness and “integrity” of Terry Wallace. Is this you Terry? Anyone who has tried to have a physics conversation with you in the last 15 years would be very surprised by such claims. You mean there were actually deep thoughts hiding behind that blank stare?!
It is indeed a very good question how a geologist who couldn’t tell nuclear cross sections from radiation transport schemes was able to rise so high in today’s LANL. Isn’t this by itself an indictment of the institution? And if this is the best UC can find, what does this tell us about UC management?
Macmillan had too much of that fancy book-learnin’, experience with weapons designs, experiments, and codes.
Los Alamos high graduate means much more to them folks out there in them hills. Seismologist? What a joke.
Look I have no real problem with MacMillan he seems like a nice enough guy, but book-learnin is not his thing if you know what I mean. I contend that you have way more intellectual horsepower with Wallace than you ever had with the last four Directors. Terry actually has some knowledge and connections to the outside world. Charlie was always at a lab through graduate school till now, that is pure isolation and is one of the big problems with labs is that they have utterly stagnated in terms of science. MacMillan scientific record is a total...total zero, similar to that last four guys. Compare it to Agnew, Hecker, Bradbury, Oppenheimer and you will see why LANL has been in such a decline.
Terry Wallace must be UC's scorched-earth policy.
Terry Wallace must be UC's scorched-earth policy.
December 4, 2017 at 7:17 AM
How does that work? Why would UC have a scorched-earth policy? I could understand Bechtel having a scorched-earth policy but not UC.
It is indeed a very good question how a geologist who couldn’t tell nuclear cross sections from radiation transport schemes was able to rise so high in today’s LANL.
December 3, 2017 at 9:26 PM
You either aren't at LANL or haven't been there very long. Terry got in and got promoted through his mother, Jeanette Wallace, long-time NM State legislator and political hack. She got him his job (his father worked at LANL), and was instrumental in demanding his promotions, without visible credentials. I interacted with him a few times, and found him incurious, disconnected (except for his own personal interests), and not particularly knowledgable given his position.
I interacted with him a few times, and found him incurious, disconnected (except for his own personal interests), and not particularly knowledgable given his position.
December 4, 2017 at 5:29 PM
Gotta call total..total BS on this as I and many others have also interacted with him and the last thing you would ever say about him is that he is incurious or disconnected. In fact I have never heard anyone ever say this about him. I have heard people say he is arrogant, I disagree with this assement but I could see who some people could say this since he will ask questions and challenge you but these are always very good questions and science is about challenging things. He also seems very knowledgeable and again I have never heard anyone say otherwise until your post. I have heard the whole thing about his mother but that just sounds kind of weak to me and pure speculation since you cannot prove any of it. You can say what you want about Terry but he is a real scientist which is something that we have not had at LANL for a long long time and a really good and smart scientist can understand all the issues that need to be understood and/or know and recognize the right people who will understand the issues and that is the key to success.
By the way of course he knows what nuclear cross sections and radiation transport schemes are. Please you just lose all credibility when you say something that stupid. Perhaps you are so ignorant to think that a "geologist" would not know such things, you have ever considered that geologists actually have to know about radioactivity, nuclear reactions, dating using decay rates, or why the earths core is molten and that there are whole fields of geophysics dedicated to just such fields? No I guess you would not know about that because science is not your thing.
Hey 1:18! Try explaining a Rossi trace to most of these blog denizens.
His mother passed away back in 2011. So while her political pull explains his initial rise at LANL, his successes in the recent years, culminating with this appointment as Lab Director, are thanks to LANS LLC and UC. I agree on “incurious, disconnected, and not particularly knowledgeable”. And this is the person UC thought was the best match to lead LANL.
"I agree on “incurious, disconnected, and not particularly knowledgeable”. "
Well I disagree. By the way I think what is going is that Wallace gets bored rather fast from when dealing with people that are how should we say this, not the brightest. LANL has some very smart people but that number has been declining over the last 15 years and now we have plenty of people that are... well not so smart. One of the issues with these people is that they are not smart enough to know they are not smart. In fact this would can be seen as cute at times expect that it usually ends badly. Imagine being Wallace and having to interact with these people, he could be rude and say get out but probably just listens and nods his head waiting for you to leave. You go away thinking that he was not interested or curiious in what you had to say but in reality you did not have anything of value to say in the first place. So the question for you to ask is simple do you really think you can judge if someone like Wallace is knowledgeable, curious or connected. Think about this really carefully.
A fascinating spin! A brilliant geologist cannot be wasting his time listening to those weapons designers and computer scientists. While he may often look lost and bewildered, that expression on his face actually signifies a great deal of understanding. He just can’t express it, as it would be way beyond the capability of the people who’ve been working in those subjects their entire lives. Yeah right. You made me laugh, 11:36 pm.
It’s an open secret at LANL that the level of technical expertise and general intelligence falls precipitously the higher you look in the org chart. So, 11:36 pm, either you don’t work at LANL, or you are near the top of our org chart. Think about this really carefully.
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