Thursday, January 30, 2020
Double-dipping
Is double-dipping becoming more common? I have a few former bosses/colleagues that have retired from one national lab, with full pensions, and gone on to start new jobs at other national lab. They are all over 65. Used to be guys left at 60-62. Was wondering if this is becoming a trend, particularly with baby boomers who want to keep working.
DJ Johnson of Honeywell
DJ Johnson of Honeywell is a textbook example of an Organizational Conflict of Interest. He is micromanaging and directing work at Sandia in order to raise the Kansas City performance evaluations. He is attending internal meetings which are far below his level and are not supposed to include people outside of the Sandia and Kansas City org structures. Sandia and Kansas City are legally distinct entities under different contracts. An FFRDC is not allowed to provide benefit to other organizations which may be related to their managing company.
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Ex-LANL scientist pleads guilty
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/ex-lanl-scientist-pleads-guilty-to-lying-to-government/article_85c1b06c-3ec6-11ea-b962-0bde11da0101.html
ALBUQUERQUE — A former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist accused of lying about his contact with a Chinese recruitment program pleaded guilty Friday to one count of making a false statement to the U.S. government.
Turab Lookman of Santa Fe accepted the plea as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors that includes dismissal of two other charges.
Lookman will be sentenced at a later date, probably within 60 to 90 days, federal prosecutor George C. Kraehe said.
He could face up to five years in federal prison and be fined as much as $250,000.
Lookman, who was 67 when he was arrested, admitted to lying to a LANL investigator in 2018 about his contact with a program that prosecutors said had been “established by the Chinese government to recruit people with access to and knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge B. Paul Briones told Lookman that the 10-month sentence the defendant had discussed with attorneys was “on the low end” and would not be binding to the U.S. district judge who will decide whether to accept the terms of the plea deal.
ALBUQUERQUE — A former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist accused of lying about his contact with a Chinese recruitment program pleaded guilty Friday to one count of making a false statement to the U.S. government.
Turab Lookman of Santa Fe accepted the plea as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors that includes dismissal of two other charges.
Lookman will be sentenced at a later date, probably within 60 to 90 days, federal prosecutor George C. Kraehe said.
He could face up to five years in federal prison and be fined as much as $250,000.
Lookman, who was 67 when he was arrested, admitted to lying to a LANL investigator in 2018 about his contact with a program that prosecutors said had been “established by the Chinese government to recruit people with access to and knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge B. Paul Briones told Lookman that the 10-month sentence the defendant had discussed with attorneys was “on the low end” and would not be binding to the U.S. district judge who will decide whether to accept the terms of the plea deal.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
UC/LLNL retirees settlement
UC/LLNL retirees have reached a settlement with the University of California to compensate the UC/LLNL retirees for health care benefit premium increases. What chance do LLNS employees have of acquiring similar retirement health care premium compensation from UC if they too were 100% vested UC/LLNL employees before the 2007 transition to LLNS?
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Debate instead of denigrate!
Dear blog visitor,
Please keep your comments on topic. Make them informative and interesting and not a way to win an argument. You will never win an argument in an anonymous fashion.
Together, let us improve our blog and make it a friendly place where educated people come to inform and debate, instead of regurgitate and denigrate.
I feel obligated and committed to filter out any useless, bitter attacks.
Cordially,
Scooby, Doobydew, Julian
Please keep your comments on topic. Make them informative and interesting and not a way to win an argument. You will never win an argument in an anonymous fashion.
Together, let us improve our blog and make it a friendly place where educated people come to inform and debate, instead of regurgitate and denigrate.
I feel obligated and committed to filter out any useless, bitter attacks.
Cordially,
Scooby, Doobydew, Julian
What would you revise?
If LLNS employees and UC/LLNL retirees had the opportunity to revise the current and future Prime Contract/Annual PER to manage LLNL, what would they want revised based on their post 2007 experience and impact to LLNL mission objectives?
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Hilarious Glassdoor review of Sandia
Hilarious Glassdoor review on Sandia National Laboratories
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Sandia-National-Laboratories-RVW30450680.htm
"Be Aware of Major Drawbacks"
Former Employee - Senior Member of Technical Staff in Albuquerque, NM
Doesn't Recommend
Neutral Outlook
No opinion of CEO
I worked at Sandia National Laboratories full-time for more than 5 years
Pros
9/80 schedule, health benefits, the freedom to move around to other projects or groups within the labs and job security.
Cons
Where to start? The politics, back-stabbing and dog-eat-dog competition is extreme to the point of being counterproductive, stressful and exhausting. Funding changes constantly, making it very difficult to develop and maintain core competency. Lot's of pressure to fit square pegs into round holes for the sake of capitalizing on a prior technology investment. The Good Old Boys network and nepotism are alive and well. The best way to get ahead is to go to the right church and have a degree from UNM. Old fashioned, corporate "management is God" culture. Career advancement in the science/engineering ladder is extremely slow, even compared to other national labs. To advance, you have to go into management. Much more emphasis on bringing in grant/program dollars, no matter the quality, than doing good technical work. Performance reviews emphasize nebulous "leadership" and "behavior" metrics that serve only to make promotion dependent on things other than job performance (like nepotism, friendships or religious affiliation). Lot's of crusty old guys, retired in place, like to keep the new generation down and systematically trash ideas from any fresh faces, in order to squash the competition. Overhead rates on your time/salary are so high, especially as you get more senior, that you will eventually price yourself out of doing any work. This also makes it impractical to compete with more efficient R&D institutions. Loss of mission and focus since outside of the ~30% of nuclear weapons work, the lab doesn't have a compelling advantage over more efficient private companies (e.g. Lockheed, Raytheon, HRL, SAIC, etc.), and Sandia is far too expensive and bureaucratic to compete with universities. Nevertheless, they spend much of their effort trying to compete with both.
Advice to Management
There really is nothing to say. In the 70 year history of Sandia, management has gone from AT&T Bell Labs for $1/year, to Lockheed for millions/year and now to the Honeywell conglomerate, which is widely considered to be one of the worst large employers in the US. Folks in Sandia have a very high opinion of themselves, but it is not shared by the outside world or the DOE / NNSA. They are viewed as an engineering shop, like Honeywell or Bechtel, and the government apparently manages them as such.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Sandia-National-Laboratories-RVW30450680.htm
"Be Aware of Major Drawbacks"
Former Employee - Senior Member of Technical Staff in Albuquerque, NM
Doesn't Recommend
Neutral Outlook
No opinion of CEO
I worked at Sandia National Laboratories full-time for more than 5 years
Pros
9/80 schedule, health benefits, the freedom to move around to other projects or groups within the labs and job security.
Cons
Where to start? The politics, back-stabbing and dog-eat-dog competition is extreme to the point of being counterproductive, stressful and exhausting. Funding changes constantly, making it very difficult to develop and maintain core competency. Lot's of pressure to fit square pegs into round holes for the sake of capitalizing on a prior technology investment. The Good Old Boys network and nepotism are alive and well. The best way to get ahead is to go to the right church and have a degree from UNM. Old fashioned, corporate "management is God" culture. Career advancement in the science/engineering ladder is extremely slow, even compared to other national labs. To advance, you have to go into management. Much more emphasis on bringing in grant/program dollars, no matter the quality, than doing good technical work. Performance reviews emphasize nebulous "leadership" and "behavior" metrics that serve only to make promotion dependent on things other than job performance (like nepotism, friendships or religious affiliation). Lot's of crusty old guys, retired in place, like to keep the new generation down and systematically trash ideas from any fresh faces, in order to squash the competition. Overhead rates on your time/salary are so high, especially as you get more senior, that you will eventually price yourself out of doing any work. This also makes it impractical to compete with more efficient R&D institutions. Loss of mission and focus since outside of the ~30% of nuclear weapons work, the lab doesn't have a compelling advantage over more efficient private companies (e.g. Lockheed, Raytheon, HRL, SAIC, etc.), and Sandia is far too expensive and bureaucratic to compete with universities. Nevertheless, they spend much of their effort trying to compete with both.
Advice to Management
There really is nothing to say. In the 70 year history of Sandia, management has gone from AT&T Bell Labs for $1/year, to Lockheed for millions/year and now to the Honeywell conglomerate, which is widely considered to be one of the worst large employers in the US. Folks in Sandia have a very high opinion of themselves, but it is not shared by the outside world or the DOE / NNSA. They are viewed as an engineering shop, like Honeywell or Bechtel, and the government apparently manages them as such.
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Apples and oranges
Glassdoor Rating of LLNL (LLNS) a Federally Funded Contractor Compared to True Private Sector Companies is a Stretch at Best.
How can Glassdoor rate LLNL (LLNS) a federally funded contractor among other true private sector companies that don't have the luxury of DOE/NNSA bankrolling every dumb or unwarranted workforce or employee litigation related decision they make like the UC/LLNL retirees health care benefits being transferred to LLNS decision, Dee Kotla being fired, etc. At best, there should be a derating factor for federal contractors that can easily intimidate or do as they wish to employees and not face any materiel business or profit blowback. DOE/NNSA contractor employee survey candidness should be taken with a grain of salt compared with the real private sector that face material and prompt consequences for how they treat their workforce.
How can Glassdoor rate LLNL (LLNS) a federally funded contractor among other true private sector companies that don't have the luxury of DOE/NNSA bankrolling every dumb or unwarranted workforce or employee litigation related decision they make like the UC/LLNL retirees health care benefits being transferred to LLNS decision, Dee Kotla being fired, etc. At best, there should be a derating factor for federal contractors that can easily intimidate or do as they wish to employees and not face any materiel business or profit blowback. DOE/NNSA contractor employee survey candidness should be taken with a grain of salt compared with the real private sector that face material and prompt consequences for how they treat their workforce.
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