Thursday, August 2, 2012
de la Rubia gone!
ANonymously contributed:
from LLNL Newsline...
Diaz de la Rubia stepping down as S&T deputy director
08/02/2012
Following a successful 23-year career as a scientist, senior manager and leader at the Laboratory, Dr. Tomas Diaz de la Rubia is stepping down from his post as Deputy Director for Science and Technology to pursue other opportunities.
He has agreed to remain with the Laboratory for a period of time to assist in the transfer of his duties and responsibilities.
"We wish to thank him for his years of dedicated service in the national interest," Lab Director Parney Albright said.
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29 comments:
Tomas, you will be sorely missed. Good luck in all of your future endeavors.
"Sorely missed"? For many who still remain at LLNL perhaps the soreness will subside as the old machinery of the failed organization known as CMS is finally dismantled. Tomas's minions who did his bidding to the detriment of talented and dedicated Lab employees can still to be found in mid-level positions throughout the Lab throwing their weight around like "made" men and women from Goodfellas.
To any of you ignorant fools that dares to call the former CMS organization "failed"... When I worked for CMS, it was very possibly the best organization the lab has ever seen! Every time there was an audit that had to be passed, CMS was held up as the standard.
Personally, I think it was a shame that PLS took over CMS and most of the CMS managers were "scattered to the wind". We are fortunate, to have them as mid-level managers.
The Mercury News / CC Times is on this now:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21222452/livermore-lab-loses-two-key-leaders
"When I worked for CMS, it was very possibly the best organization the lab has ever seen! Every time there was an audit that had to be passed, CMS was held up as the standard. "
Umm. Well, yeah that's great if your sole criterion for excellence is passing audits.
I confess that I was never a big fan of de la Rubia. Never saw anything in him that would lead me to believe that he was exceptionally talented in any aspect of management. But I never followed him closely so I could be wrong. Was he really an exceptional manager? If so, why? What were his strong points? His weak points?
Here we go again LLNL! You guys at LLNL just continue to make LANL "Flagship of the National Lab Fleet" look bad. Even Bret Knapp has stop saying "at Livermore, at Livermore, at Livermore,..."
When I worked for CMS, it was very possibly the best organization the lab has ever seen! Every time there was an audit that had to be passed, CMS was held up as the standard. "
Umm. Well, yeah that's great if your sole criterion for excellence is passing audits.
August 2, 2012 11:40 PM
Isn't that the highest priority for LANL/LLNL? I've personally spent 80% of my time supporting DOE-IG, DOE-LAO, DNFSB, and GAO audits during the past year working at LANS Transuranic Operations. Government "gone wild"!
CMS was able to pass its audits because they hide the truth.
The truth is that this division continues to have managers for CMS who retaliated and harass good employees.
CMS was able to pass its audits because they hide the truth.
The truth is that this division continues to have managers who came from CMS who retaliated and harass good employees.
There are a LOT of ULM that have done some pretty awful things and get away with it, because ULM protects ULM.
There are a LOT of ULM that have done some pretty awful things and get away with it, because ULM protects ULM.
August 3, 2012 9:20 AM
The perfect example of this at LANS was Anastasio "protecting" Knapp's behavior of harassing and threatening LANL employees.
Tomas departure is excellent for LLNL Engineering whose funding was swiped by Tomas by his S&T empire, stripping Engineering of its independence and ability to develop personnel and key technologies.
The loss of stature, becoming one of many S&T lackies, limited engineering's ability to enforce engineering discipline in Lab projects.
Tomas, raised in the inbred and myopic management of maintaining CMS prerogatives knew nothing, nor cared anything for maintaining separate excellence in the key engineering disciplines of mechanical and electrical engineering.
The three worst examples are that since S&T took all overhead ... engineering lacked even $1000 per person per year for training. In addition, the key development resource, first-line supervision was no longer paid for, so that leaders developing personnel needed to fit it in on their projects budgets rather than supervising and developing as a supported activity. Naturally it waned and was faked. Finally the key tech base projects went unsupported, so that research areas interesting to both engineering and key young researchers were not available to recruit retain and develop.
All mistakes, all proven techniques for keeping LLNL Engineering relevant, well-staffed and excellent.
The departure of Tomas and hopefully, the closure of the irrelevant S&T glutton, should be cheered by all LLNL engineers and all who like previous LLNL directors, Anastasio, Mara, Nuckolls, Emmett, Hausmann and Moses highly value an strong talented independent and dedicated Enginnering Directorate.
Engineering Alumni
The lab has many damn fine chemists.
Managing outside of your discipline is a challenge for all. The key is relinquishing control of the things you do not understand, not increasing it.
All mistakes, all proven techniques for keeping LLNL Engineering relevant, well-staffed and excellent.
The departure of Tomas and hopefully, the closure of the irrelevant S&T glutton, should be cheered by all LLNL engineers and all who like previous LLNL directors, Anastasio, Mara, Nuckolls, Emmett, Hausmann and Moses highly value an strong talented independent and dedicated Enginnering Directorate.
Engineering Alumni
August 3, 2012 10:41 PM
Engineering is unfortunately a "support" function at LLNL/LANL. This is particularly this case when the "Big Three (Anastasio, McMillan, Knapp)" came to LANL. They immediately began transferring Weapon Engineers and other highly skilled engineers/scientists to the facilities (TA-55, Waste, CMR) to mop floors. They consider engineering a service organization ensuring the bathroom fans operate and toilets are flushing (particularly in the NSSB) . Go to Sandia if you want to perform real Engineering.
Go to Sandia if you want to perform real Engineering.
Or there is still plenty of real engineering at the physics labs, both in traditional weapons program and expanding WFO. We just haven't figured out how to add (pad?) another digit to the budgets.
The last time LANL had strong leadership was under Sig, who is an engineer. None of the physicists since him have been as good.
Engineering has historically been treated very differently at LANL and LLNL, for instance in use of the matrix.
Until the S&T reorg at LLNL, about 3 years ago, Engineering reported directly the LLNL Director, and was and still is responsible for the safety, success and excellence of all Engineered activities at LLNL. The difference under Tomas is that he did not value the contribution enough to keep key sustaining activities adequately funded, he had other objectives.
LANLs engineering according to the 6-8 senior engineers that I have spoke to that have been employed at both sites for long periods, the treatment of engineering is very different at the two locations.
It is different again at Sandia, whose job is the management of the engineering relationships of the physics package and the rest of the system. This is a completely different mission than assuring that properly experienced technical personnel execute the engineered aspects of complex small and large scale R&D projects with proper rigor, safety and discipline.
Sandia engineers generally do not wish to work on lab projects and LLNL engineers at least, generally do not want to work on the type of development projects sandia supports. There are exceptions, but the work and rewards are somewhat different.
The Associate Director for Engineering at LANL is Steve Girrens. This so called "leader" of Engineering rides on the skirt tails of his wife Sharon Stover, Chairperson of the Los Alamos City Council. Steve is know an "Rambo" for his bulldog tactics and use of profanity in his former jobs at LANL. Steve was a abysmal failure as ESA-Division Leader and continues to be a "worthless do-nothing" Engineering AD.
The Associate Director for Engineering at LANL is Steve Girrens. This so called "leader" of Engineering rides on the skirt tails of his wife Sharon Stover, Chairperson of the Los Alamos City Council. Steve is know an "Rambo" for his bulldog tactics and use of profanity in his former jobs at LANL. Steve was a abysmal failure as ESA-Division Leader and continues to be a "worthless do-nothing" Engineering AD.
August 4, 2012 7:55 PM
I find it interesting that Sharon Stover does not use her husband's name. I guess I don't blame her.
7:55 sounds like a sore loser. Hands down, Girrens was the best available choice for this hard position. You can argue that he is not up to the job, but he blew away the rest of the entries in a limp field.
...and use of profanity in his former jobs at LANL.
Wow, that is a damnable indictment. Oops.
Cussin is not appropriate for the workplace, but neither is cheatin on your wife with a female underling. Just sayin.
Now now, don't be judging or getting in the way of true love. You never know. Maybe the two will run off into the woods, live in a log cabin with no internet or television, and raise many children, away from the mean and scary anonymous blog posters.
Anyways, its not just the managements' use of profanity that's bad, but rather, its use in conjunction with telling people to get out of "their spot" in conference rooms, that's the true indictment! Get it right!!
Yeah, many of you make such cynical and mean spirited comments about managers like Tomas, completely ignoring the fact that people like Tomas are just lovestruck and hopelessly romantic people that get caught up in romantic comedy-esque situations.
For example, this isn't just a story about Tomas cheating on his wife (a theme that is so human and all too common), but it's also a story about a man falling in love with a young beautiful woman. You know it was love at first sight when their eyes accidentally met each other across the large conference room where Ed Moses had just told someone to GTFO of his spot. But all the confusion and chaos seemed to have faded away as these two lovestruck nerds continued to bewitch each other, unable to disrupt their gazes towards each other.
And it was fate, they both knew it, that brought them together, for they both heard in their heads the same love ballad, while they were in their mutual dream state where the people shuffling around in the conference room seemed to be thousands of miles away, their voices muted.
Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my desire, It's my desire, It's my desire
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, When we kiss
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, when we kiss
When we touch, when we kiss
Fire in the disco
Fire in the disco
Fire in the taco bell
Fire in the disco
Fire in the disco
Fire in the gates of Hell
The voices kept singing over and over in their heads, for what seemed like an eternity.
This is true love. Love at first sight.
Remember this headline from a few years back?
"A Los Alamos scientist claims her boss kept her as a sex slave; he says she was a willing participant."
Just in case alone was wondering if the culture has changed over time.
7:42 AM is such a racist for making a reference to taco bell for Tomas. Add to that, he's not even Mexican.
I always thought that Hal was impressive in both good and scary ways. I really got the impression that this guy was politically and socially adept, while also knowing how to get rid of the bodies without leaving any traces.
Tomas doesn't even come close to Hal. Tomas does not have the mental and emotional discipline to be on any executive management team.
>Tomas does not have the mental and
>emotional discipline to be on
>any executive management team.
He did a bang-up job on PowerPoints, and isn't that about the most important job of LLNL's senior managers? Or is it updating the "We Value" poster?
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