LLNL - The True Story -

UC opening for Lab 'Management' Frank Munger had this item from a few days ago. Darling was reported to be very close to Atkinson, both at UCSD and UCOP, but did not appear to be as near and dear to the present UCOP leadership. Some may recall his involvment in 'managing' the LANL interactions with Congress a few years ago. "Bruce Darling named NAS executive officer Bruce B. Darling, currently vice president for laboratory management at the University of California, has been named the new executive officer of the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council. "His transition from the university to NAS will occur over the next several months," the NAS announcement said. "He will succeed E. William Colglazier, who now serves as science and technology adviser at the U.S. Department of State." Posted by Frank Munger

MEDIA ADVISORY from Justiceinmedia@yahoo.com January 23, 2012 More than One Hundred Laid-Off Lawrence Livermore Employees to Rally against Bechtel-Run Weapons Lab as Trial Date Nears Contact: Gary Gwilliam, ggwilliam@giccb.com or (510) 832-5411 Deborah Colaianni, dcolaianni@justiceinmedia.com or (202) 679-2652 WHAT: A rally of 130 former employees of Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), who were fired in the wake of the laboratory’s transition from public to private control. The former employees, all plaintiffs in individual lawsuits against LLNS, will discuss strategy and developments as the first of their lawsuits nears trial. WHO: The five plaintiffs in the first trial will hold a news conference prior to the group meeting. They will discuss their claims against LLNS, ranging from wrongful termination to age, race and disability discrimination. Their consolidated lawsui...

Anonymous: Hey LANS, where's the $65,725,677? McMillan told us where the fee goes, but failed to account for $65,725,677. Senior Management bonuses baby, bonuses! Overall, of the $94,274,050 in total fee available for FY2011, LANS was awarded $83,725,677 for performing approximately $2.6 billion worth of work for the nation. Where the fee goes: Under the LANS, LLC structure, performance fee goes to LANS’ parent organizations: the University of California, Bechtel National, Babcock & Wilcox, and URS. From there: The University of California has provided approximately $9 million of its fee to fund collaborative research between LANL and UC scientists and engineers in areas important to the Laboratory. (For more information, see the recent Call for Proposals, which solicits ideas for this year’s collaborative research funding opportunities.) The four LANS partners provided $2 million from performance fee to upgrade the Weapons Neutron Research facility at LANSCE, at...

Anonymously contributed: Major Loss of National Security Expertise at Sandia New Mexico Business Weekly by Dennis Domrzalski, NMBW Staff Date: Friday, January 13, 2012, 4:00am MST - Last Modified: Friday, January 13, 2012, 2:07pm MST Sandia National Laboratories lost 428 people to retirement in fiscal year 2011, and it said good-bye to another 511 retirees in the first quarter of its 2012 fiscal year, between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2011. Together, those retirements represent about 11 percent of the lab’s 8,600-person workforce. The numbers were supplied by Sandia, which explained that most retirees choose the final quarter of the year to carry out their departures. In 2011, the first of the baby boom generation hit age 65, and for years, there's been speculation that Sandia and other large employers would start to see retirements.

Anonymously contributed: Comments on the revised LLNS 401 (k) plan Being prepared for new federal rules demanding more transparent fee disclosure for 401k plans, LLNS joined many other 401k sponsors nation-wide to reduce 401k expenses and fees this year. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s employees now have a new set of investment options. Overall, the move was a positive correction to a long-overdue 401k problem. But it still does not correct the excessive annual bookkeeping/administration fees. Also, some actively managed investment options are difficult to be explaind if LLNS is asked how they are acting under their fiduciary duty to protect the benefits of participants/beneficiaries. The first trouble is the excessive annual $86 bookkeeping fee. Many 401 k plans do charge employees flat admin fees. But the fees are usually around $25 per participant per year. Wal-mart, the latest company sued by its employees for expensive retail class investment options in an institut...

Rumors starting to surface regarding the first round of RIFS to begin at LLNL in late April! Anyone care to share in inf on this subject? Brewster McFrisk

Anonymously contributed: LANL Managers Rewarded By John Fleck / Journal Staff Writer on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 Federal officials this week awarded a Bechtel-University of California team $83.7 million for its management of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2011, plus a one year extension of its lab management contract as a bonus, but refused to release the performance evaluation report on which the decisions were based. The one-year extension means the current team will be in charge at Los Alamos through 2017. “The award is a tribute to our employees’ dedication to delivering on our commitments,” lab director Charlie McMillan said in a statement. “2011 was an outstanding year for science and mission execution at the Laboratory.” Refusal to make public the Los Alamos “Performance Evaluation Report” and a similar report evaluating Lockheed Martin’s performance managing Sandia National Laboratories, which the Journal has been requesting for more than a month, continues an agency p...

Anonymously contributed: Anyone know what happened to the LLNS 401k mutual fund dividends between Nov-Dec 2011? I have been expecting dividends from my LLNS 401k mutual funds since the fund changeover in October and have seen none in three funds. Does anyone know what is going on? Fidelity reps do not, they say the prospectus is unavailable. I have a call into LLNL benefits and am awaiting a reply. Background: In October of 2011, LLNS changed some of the mutual funds offered in the 401k plan to lower fees. The former Pimco Fund became the Core Plus fund with the same Pimco fund as its sole investment. Likewise the former Spartan SP500 fund, became the SP500 Fund with the state street SP500 Index (SVSPX). The former Vanguard Target retirement fund became the Vanguard Target retirement income fund with sole holding of the Vanguard target retirement income fund -Trust 1 (VTINX). Each of the holdings of the three new LLNS funds mentioned above have declared a dividend payable eithe...