Anonymously contributed:
Charles McMillan has been appointed director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and president of Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), the company that manages and operates the Lab for the National Nuclear Security Administration. The appointments were announced today by Norman Pattiz, chairman of the LANS Board of Governors, and are effective June 1, 2011.
Charles McMillan has been appointed director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and president of Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), the company that manages and operates the Lab for the National Nuclear Security Administration. The appointments were announced today by Norman Pattiz, chairman of the LANS Board of Governors, and are effective June 1, 2011.
Comments
Also, "150 nominees and applicants"? Times really -are- tough for CEO fodder!
May 26, 2011 7:14 PM
Say what you want, it is a fact that only one of the current LANL leadership has a family in Los Alamos. Care to guess who it is?
Expect Brett Knapp with his 'Adonis DNA' to be the next in line to be LANL Director once Charlie vacates the position. Knapp will soon be taking over Charlie's PAD spot, for sure.
While Charlie will be able to raise the LANS Director salary plus bonus to around $2 million (shhhh! It's corporate proprietary info!), I suspect Knapp will be able to up that to at least $4 million when he takes over the Director's spot in a few more years.
It's clear that competence and intelligence (shown by stronger candidates like Steve Younger) didn't matter one bit in this little LANS charade.
Thanks, LANS Board. Heckavajob! We'll just keep shuffling along here at LANL, wearing those famous "Shoes that GRIP!"
Sound familiar? Sounds like there will be an exciting chase scene someday. That will likely be when Knapp takes over in his Porsche Cayenne.
May 26, 2011 8:54 PM
The real satisfaction I will get from this decision will be to see Charlie kissing the toes of the local Native American Tribal Governors. Earn your pay Charlie!
May 27, 2011 12:36 AM
What's with all the toe fetish comments?
May 26, 2011 11:18 PM
It will be hard for him to dodge questions about being 'the 10 million dollar man' when it comes out what his total compensation package costs the Lab.
At least UT/Lockheed would have probably picked a capable guy like Younger to lead LANL. The LANS Board spent all of 10 minutes making this decision for Charlie McMillan. The "fix was in" from the very start, much like the LLC competition back in 2005.
Wonder what the recent NSF report will have to say about the decline of the labs under the Bechtel-ized "for profit" corporate regimes? Not that it will matter, mind you. It will follow a long list of official reports documenting the continuing decline of the US nuclear weapon national labs.
You are so correct. The single experience required to lead LANL is having been a Division Leader at LLNL of less than 100 staff. You must have been consulted by the LANS Board prior to them making the decision to select Charlie. That discussion would have been in '06?
May 28, 2011 12:41 AM
I agree with you that LANL was the cause for UC loss of the contract as a not-for-profit operator. You should not confuse that with Charlie's total and complete lack of qualification to lead such an organization, other than being Mike's personal pick for the job at the time LANS took over control. You are right, UC should not have picked someone that was from within the LANL culture. They had options of highly qualified candidates that were not given serious consideration. That is the sad, sad story here.
You are wrong. It was the Congress of the United States of America, and their naive belief that privatization solves all problems. These are the same clowns who haven't delivered their legislative products on schedule in recent memory, nor has the legislation done what it was supposed to do. Maybe Congress should be "privatized" to solve the problem of their dreadful performance record ! Oh, Wait, ...
May 28, 2011 5:32 AM
Hmm, I believe McMillan also managed weapon physics at LANL for a handful of years. Surely he picked up a little local wisdom in that period.
May 28, 2011 11:36 AM
Yeah, his "local wisdom" has consisted of lecturing every meeting with "at Livermore...at Livermore...at Livermore..." I've never seen him listen carefully to an opinion that differed from his own. I find it ironic that his weapon program experience at LLNL was with a LANL weapon system.
It usually helps to learn how to spell the name - plenty of papers and patents come up for CF McMillan. Looks like he has the best scientific record of any director since Browne, if not Sig....
May 28, 2011 1:48 PM
You make me laugh. Sig, of National Academy, being compared to Charlie, of no external peer recognition whatsoever. Would you mind sharing some more of the KoolAid with the rest of us....
May 28, 2011 12:41 AM
If Charile's so good why is he at Los Alamos? From what I have seen of Knapp and MacMillan I am less than impressed. We definitely got the "B-team" alright.
May 28, 2011 7:06 PM
Won't happen. I retired from LANL a couple of years ago, after getting mightily sick of LANS. The morale and cohesiveness of the LANL staff has been beaten down into the dirt, and I don't think it will ever recover. The appointment of a new Director with the experience, credentials, and gravitas of a Hecker, a Browne, or even a Younger, might have had a chance of re-forging the old LANL capability. But now, this is the final nail in the coffin. UC has bought into the NNSA and Bechtel vision of a compliant, mediocre, profit-making, unremarkable, drab, sad institution that has forgotten its own history and grandeur. It will never be again the subject of controversial Congressional hearings, which was the goal of the C students all along. They've won. The country has lost.
Younger
Goodwin
Koonin
Miller, Pete or George
Romig
Wallace
Reese
Albright
Cook
Add or subtract. Lets see what you have to say.
Notice what has happened over the last few years at LANL. LANS/Bechtel has no interest in LANL being a diverse, multi-mission science lab. NNSA doesn't want this and LANS take their marching orders directly from NNSA. LANS executives get a lucrative payout for being compliant regardless of the outcome to science at the national labs.
Is it any surprise, really, that LANS and NNSA are focused mainly on efforts involving buildings and construction efforts for their lucrative "science labs"? Bechtel managers come from the construction trade world. Heck, just look at the huge, new directorate Mikey created two months ago to head up capital projects... with a new VP from Bechtel heading it up, of course!
The one place where construction activity might have actually helped with multi-mission science was the building that was planned for Wallace's directorate. This building plan for the "Science Complex" had been in the works for almost 8 years. Wallace couldn't get his much touted "Science Complex" funded to house the multi-mission scientists left floundering under his directorate. Many of his people still work in old, decaying buildings built way back in the 1950s. That should tell you something about just how important a diverse, multi-mission lab is to LANS, Bechtel and the NNSA. They would just as soon be done with it. The crowning of McMillan as LANL's next Director fits well with this chosen path.
Pattiz created and now operates Al Hurra and Radio Sawa. Al-Hurra is an Arabic-language satellite TV channel that operates 24/7 out of Springfield, Virginia. It went online in 2004. The network cost U.S. taxpayers $62 million in its first year, including an extra $40 million for around the clock broadcasting to Iraq. It now drains $37 million annually for recurring operational costs.
I think the UC acronym must now stand for "Ultimate Corruption".
May 31, 2011 5:45 PM
Incredible understatement. His "handicap" is that he is not, by any measure, qualified to be Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Period. The fact that the past three directors were also not qualified is irrelevant. The only means by which UC and Bechtel will get away with this travesty is by the fact that Congress is preoccupied with reelection, and the general public has never known or cared what goes on in the US nuclear weapon community. Also, the New Mexico congressional delegation is so liberal that they won't squawk. They think anyone with "scientific credentials" is good. It is incredibly sad that the US and New Mexico forget the storied history of LANL and the immense respect that name once called up. McMillan is in no way an adequate successor to that legacy. Shame on UC and damn Pattiz.
May 31, 2011 10:37 PM
This blizkrieg is being brought to you by Pattiz and his billion dollar media. He can buy whatever he wants, including L.A. Laker player bench seats next to Jack Nicholson, a $400M mansion in L.A., and a $50M yacht. He claims he "get's a rush" by the players sweating on him, which is exactly what we are doing for him, "sweating on him".
Putin preselects Medevev in Russia.
Now Mike crowns Charlie at LANL.
The US Congress and the current Administration is letting UC run the nuclear weapons Labs by a dictatorship succession plan. Charlie is by far the least qualified Director selection ever in the history of LANL. Nanos was more qualified.
May 31, 2011 5:53 PM
What I heard today was that LANL is a weapons factory. I did not hear that LANL is a science Lab. I heard Darling extoll the many virtues of MacMilan. I did not hear any mention of any external recognition for him.
June 1, 2011 2:52 PM
First day on the job Charlie appoints Knapp as the Acting Principal Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons (PADNWP) and gives him a raise. Charlie's first really difficult decision. Charlie's next decision will be to select Knapp as the permanent PADNWP following the same heralded search process that was used to select Charlie. I sure do hope we have entertainment soon, like a missing disk or something, because this is getting really boring. Jessica, are you out there?
Hmmmm.....
Hmmmm.....
June 2, 2011 9:25 AM
I guess that makes Knapp fill the role of Robin. That's it! The "Dynamic Duo".
June 1, 2011 6:44 AM
Sad, but true. I challenge anyone in UC to dispute this fact.
1. a : an act of appointing : designation
b : the designation by virtue of a vested power of a person to enjoy an estate
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
'vested power' = Mike
'an estate' = LANS
"The saddest part of this story is Bruce Darling's 15 minute apology for the failure of the screening and search committees' failure to come up with someone better qualified out of more than 150 nominees. Not applicants, mind you, but nominees."
Now, now, it is not nice to put dirty laundry out for public viewing. UC knows that if the true story comes out they can not win. The only hope for them is for the facts to stay buried. Who was nominated and why the search committee did not consider them will never be made public by LANS. There were some highly qualified names that would have pushed MacMillian out if they were considered.
In the end, he may have been the best of those that were considered. The real story is how the committee made up the list of 'considered'.
May 31, 2011 6:11 PM
I strongly feel that to lead Los Alamos you must have national security credentials. This is not limited to nuclear weapons physics. I also see the position as needing someone that has a level of recognition beyond the nuclear weapons field. So the question is not who was the most qualified weapons leader, but of the 150 names did UC give serious consideration to anyone but MacMillian. I would like to see the list and for each one know who in UC contacted them and why they declined to be considered.
"Third-rate"? What hogwash. Undoubtedly they will lose some more faculty. They'll also get some new high fliers, too. A certain class of dons are in Brownian motion anyway.
UC will 'privatize' further by admitting more out-of-state students at higher tuition. It won't be pretty, but a lot of quality will be retained and many students will still be clamoring to get into the system.
Changes in the pension will not be a surprise. It will still be a good pension.
June 4, 2011 10:23 AM
"Changes" like rescission? UC nor the State of CA has any legal obligation to provide a pension. How about a cap of 50% of top salary after 30 years, maximum of $50k a year? Lots of state government pensions are like that.
June 4, 2011 4:20 PM"
3years? Maybe 2 at best.
June 4, 2011 4:20 PM
UC pensions are controlled solely by UC and the California Legislature. The LANL and LLNL pensions are controlled by LANS and LLNS, under scrutiny by NNSA, that they comply with the contracts. There is no connection between the two, since the pension funds for LANL and LLNL were separated at the establishment of the contracts. McMillan doesn't have to "fight" anything. If LANS decides to cut or freeze any benefits, it will have to be with NNSA concurrence, or will require a change in the contract. Try to keep up.
Will McMillan do the same? Hard to tell. However, one thing I do know is that you, 7:33 pm, are very foolish to think that DOE/NNSA don't have plans to bring the growing pension obligations to an abrupt halt, and soon!
The fact is that both the state of California and the Federal government are looking for cutbacks in worker benefits. You seem to be reading things into comments that don't exist. Try to keep up, ol' boy. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
LANS & LLNS -- profitable subsidaries of Bechtel incorporated.
Lovely playthings of the super-rich, the corrupt, the policitally connected.
Bring the black limosine around to the back lot, Jives...
...I fear the natives are restless tonight!
Pattiz and McMillan's golden laced invites to the Bohemian Encampment are in the mail.
Remember.. no woman allowed!
Unless they are of the special kind for pleasuring of our rich, rascally boys!
"Weaving spiders come not here" - Have you not heard?
Hail, club members, to Dr. Dynes! Dynes insipred Old-Money/Old-Boys club lives on!
"Our trading post in the remote colony of Los Alamos is doing well",
Says Grand Bohemian Leader Riley Bechtel.
"However, we must continue to keep the local riff-raff outside the palace gates!"
So it is, and so it will remain to be. Nothing will change.
Welcome aboard our rotting Ship of Science, Charlie!
Hip-hip huraaah to the new Captain!
Your weekly ticket back to the California Homeland is under your desk, Brother.
June 6, 2011 9:59 AM
Don't forget the tax gross-up bonuses (aka tax-free bonus), California housing allowance, and Audi/Porshe car allowance. I also hear Pattiz gives the dynamic duo (Million Dollar Man McMillan and Knappy) free time on his yacht and bench side L.A. Laker tickets.
Yes, in an acting capacity while they conduct a competitive search for the permanent PAD.
June 12, 2011 10:29 AM
It was will be far less competitive because Knapp has ensured he got rid of all his competition during the last 5-years.
June 14, 2011 6:45 PM
First, Bret chased off Dave Beck during the past month. Second, Bret never leaves a position he vacates. That is, he puts a puppet so he can make all the calls all the way down to the janitor. I assume that Craig "The Snake" Leasure is acting for Bret. I once saw Craig taking Bret's suits to the cleaners. I kid you not.