Dear Members of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Community:
I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the status of our search for the next LLNL Director.
The Search Committee, which I chair, met at the Laboratory on January 9, 2014 to hear from former Lab Directors Parney Albright, George Miller and Bruce Tarter, five employee focus groups, and Livermore Field Office Manager Kim Davis Lebak. T he five employee focus groups, formed by the Director’s Office with input from each of the directorates , included technical senior managers, mid - career scientists and engineers (S&Es), early - career S&Es, functional representatives, and professional/administrative staff. The Search Committee will use input from Lab Day to further develop selection criteria to be used to assess the candidates during the search process to determine the best individual for the position.
The position description has been widely posted and nation ally advertised. Additionally, requests for nominations have been sent to a broad national audience. To receive full consideration, nominations and applications need to be submitted by January 31, 2014 as instructed on the LLNL Director Search web page: https://www.llnl.gov/director - search.
The Screening Task Force, chaired by Texas A&M Professor Marvin Adams, is meeting on February 11, 2014 to develop a list of approximately 15 candidates to recommend to the Search Committee. The Search Committee will use these recommendations and consider other potential candidates to develop the short list of individuals to interview for the position. Interviews are expected to occur in the March time frame.
As a reminder, it is the responsibility of the University of California (UC) to nominate the candidate for LLNL Director in accordance with UC Regental policy and the LLC Agreement. Appointment of the Lab Director is subject to the approval of the LLNS Executive Committee and the concurrence of the Energy Secretary and NNSA Administrator.
Let me encourage you to submit your comments regarding the Lab Director and any nominations via the LLNL Director Search web page noted above. The Search Committee and Screening Task Force are charged to hold all information received and their discussions in complete confidence.
Regards,
Norman J. Pattiz (UC Regent)
Chairman, LLNL Director Search Committee
Chairman, LLNS, LLC Board of Governors
Comments
Priceless !
NNSA incompentents have been kicking the labs around since the establishment of the restrictive new contracts. The culture of excellence; of personnel, of policies, and programs - established over 50 years under UC guidance - is almost gone.
Superceded by a culture of mediocrity, of acquiescence and compliance and of waiting for NNSA direction.
The new guy needs to be a strong weapons scientist with a vision, but mostly must be a bloodthirsty conqueror. One who needs to defeat the overlords of Forestal and one who can stand up to Obama's bumbling advisers.
January 11, 2014 at 5:17 PM
That sounds like Bret Knapp, mostly the later part. You can't have everything Livermore, please take him back, please.....
Rest assured that this sort of person will not be appointed.....people are not to be made uncomfortable these days!
January 12, 2014 at 9:51 PM
Your point?
January 12, 2014 at 9:51 PM
Sad occasion that LLNL has a Lab Director without a brain.
January 14, 2014 at 7:06 AM
I want to see evidence that Knapp has a GED.
Three Vice Presidents of technical divisions at Sandia National Laboratories do not have a Ph.D.: Hruby, Walker, Vahle. To my knowledge, these are the first ever Vice Presidents without a Ph.D. in Science or Engineering to lead techical divisions at Sandia.
Lets analyze whether Phds are worthwhile at the labs. Fact: LANL
has had the most problems of the labs. Fact2: LLNL has had the second most problems of the labs. Fact3 Sandia has had the least problems of the lab. Fact4 Sandia has the leas percentage of Ph.ds. You do the math. So it seems that Ph.ds are only liabilities at the labs. Besides not being very smart they have a tendency to be very arrogant and problematic. Lets just get of the lot and be done with with. The labs will have fewer problems, cheaper, and best of all they will be much more pleasant. It is a win win. Besides if you look at any typical private sector workplace they do have all these Ph.ds running around. Private is always better and this is what we should strive for. How many Ph.ds did it take the build the Hoover dam? How many Ph.ds to make Microsoft? How many Ph.ds to make Google...you see where I am going with this. If we want to make the labs succeed we need to be more like a company and good companies do not have that many Phds. Get with the program people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Carpenter
...in addition to the more recent findings of improper funding to politicians and penalizations from the federal government
http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=1499
Interesting rant, however do you have a shred of evidence to back any of it up? I suspect not.
I know a number of people over the years who have a Ph.d who have left for faculty positions, high-tech industry and other DOE labs such as Argonne, NIST and so on and have done very well. These where certainly not mediocre people. I also know many people who have moved to the labs from academic positions, high tech industry, and other DOE labs and they are very good and hard working people. Also I know that labs have have postdoctoral programs such as Directors Fellows and so on and the people that come through this are exceptional. Another tidbit is that the scientific publication record at least at LANL is the highest in the any of DOE complex, and Livermore and Sandia are up there. This seems to strong evidence against your point.
A more likely explanation for your rant is that you are a mediocre ex-lab employee who was fired due to incompetence and now you are projecting your anger to the world and saying complete utter nonsense. You are a very sad and bitter person of the same rank as our fried POS or you will end up like POS. The world does not owe you anything and pretending it does will not help you. Let go of your hatred because it is not hate of the world it is actually a form of self-hatred.
Go back and read your post (rant). You are not even able to construct a coherent sentence to say what you really mean, let alone make a coherent argument for your view. So you are obviously uneducated and think that you are qualified to judge the effectiveness and competence of people who actually chose to stay in school and learn something? Anyone who can speak and write coherently and convincingly can succeed at a very high level, regardless of the field of his/her education, and without the need for a PhD.
You might want to consider that the reason that the companies you mention don't have "PhDs running around" is that they never do fundamental research, but succeed based on the application and exploitation of results from PhDs at universities and government laboratories.
January 17, 2014 at 1:48 PM"
I agree with you point however I am pretty sure LANL has about 2.5 times more publications that LLNL and about 4 times than Sandia. I have seen this graph several times and if you go to Phys Rev this seems to be true as well. LANL was the very top in all of the DOE labs but I think in the last five years Oak Ridge may be higher.
January 17, 2014 at 7:32 PM"
Being old and not caring does not mean you speak the truth. It may mean you no longer care about the truth or are too old to change and face the truth. Your rant is not about the labs it is about yourself. Anyone can say I am old and speak the truth and say the moon is made out of cheese since it is self serving. 5:25AM gave very good arguments to why your rant is incorrect and you have not provided any arguments to refute this other than saying you do not care.
January 17, 2014 at 8:53 PM"
Ha, only PhD would say something so utterly stupid. Did it take a PhD to invent the airplane, the car, the gun, the sword, farming, hunting? Did PhDs build the pyramids. Has a single PhD set foot on the moon? Has there ever been a president with a PhD? There I rest my case, and yes I can and just did judge. You know what really burns me is this chart I found where it said Phds earn about 35% more than people with a bachelors and 75% than people with a high school degree. This is a true disgrace for this country.
January 18, 2014 at 6:25 AM"
Oh it is truth, but the person writing what you call a "rant" is someone else. I bet someone without a PhD and a long list of publications could have figured that out, especially someone from Sandia. ;-)
January 18, 2014 at 6:48 AM"
Touche my friend pure logic at its best. You see education destroys your ability to think. The poster lacks any kind of education and yet is a master of logic.
January 18, 2014 at 6:34 AM
Yes. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, PhD in geology, in 1972. Piloted the lunar module "Challenger." Do some research before you rant.
January 18, 2014 at 7:06 AM"
Sorry this does not hold water. You may say the country is producing far too many Phds, but in the physical science more than half are going to foreign nationals. As for you point that the Phds at labs are somehow of lower quality this does not seem to hold true. First of about half of the Phds in science leave the scientific field altogether after their Phds and in general the half that stay are the scientifically stronger. Second point the labs hire a significant number of Phds through the postdoc programs. There is an automatic weeding out at this point since Phds have to compete for with each other for such positions. The labs pay very well so the competition can be steep. "When they are stuck at a lab, unable to transition to academia or industry" This point makes no sense. The labs are much better than many academic and industrial positions so many people will not want to transition out so they are not "stuck" in the lab. The people that I know who have left for academic positions have left for rather high level schools or distinguished positions, I know many who turned down offers from academic and industrial positions to stay in the labs. Your idea that people are "stuck" at the labs is absolutely ludicrous. On the old LANL blog in 2005 crazy posters would say "anybody who could leave" has left. Yet every single after this statement people left for academic and industrial jobs and new people joined for academic and industrial jobs. You are either out of touch, out of your mind or both. You keep posting on here but you never provide evidence, facts, or data. If you like we can go through the names, the places that the people went or came from. This was done on the LANL blog as well.
A simpler explanation could be that you are simply a sad bitter POS who spews out nonsense. Go crawl back under your rock and leave the world alone and everyone will win.
Screw all you people. I hate the labs, I hate people who earn Phds. In fact I hate anyone who accomplishes anything with their lives. To tell the truth I hate the world. You took everything from me but in truth I had nothing. The world made me look at myself for what I am and for that I hate the world everyone in it. Bitterness is all I have to cling to and I will not let it go and to the very last I will try to make the world a worse place.
January 18, 2014 at 9:37 AM"
First of all I think there are not that many lab lifers as a large fraction of the people at the labs move to other places and only spend part of their career at the labs. Second the previous poster have very strong arguments that what you where saying about the labs is wrong. You never seem to have a counter point with any kind substance. I think your hatred has blinded you to the facts.
(2) "There is an automatic weeding out at this point since Phds have to compete for with each other for such positions. The labs pay very well so the competition can be steep." I have hired and tried to hire many postdocs and staff in several places, and the truth is there are not many really good people out there applying for lab jobs, despite the pay. In fact most are third rate, and you count yourself very lucky to score a good hire. The best don't come here, because the lab is a mediocre place for a postdoc (back-stabbling, unpublishable "programmatic" work, and/or classified topics), and it is only good for a staff job if you plan to become a "lifer" and learn to become a liar and a backstabber like so many of the rest.
(3) ""When they are stuck at a lab, unable to transition to academia or industry" This point makes no sense." It does when you realize that the labs are unique sheltered places, detached from reality in so many ways. Look up and down your hallway, many of your colleagues are sociopaths who need an extensive and expensive infrastructure to support them before they can become even moderately productive. Pluck them out, and most will sink, excepting some of the more entrepreneurial types in a few places like GS. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions. And if your office is in a place like B program, nearly all your colleagues are unemployable anywhere else.
(2) " I have hired and tried to hire many postdocs and staff in several places, and the truth is there
are not many really good people out there applying for lab jobs."
Sorry I am calling total BS on this there is no way in hell you have ever hired postdocs at one of the labs or anywhere else.
If you had you would know just how utterly untrue what you just said was. There are a huge amount of people
applying for the postdocs at the labs and they are considered some of the most desirable postocs positions in
in the United States. The competition is indeed fierce for these positions and I know at LANL the Directors postdoc
programs have hundreds of applicants for a very limited number slots and for the higher level prestigious postdoctoral fellows you
need to have an extraordinary scientific record. Every cycle there is a significant number of people who turn down
postdoc offers from other top places to accept postdoc positions the labs.
Some of the postdocs convert and stay at the labs and others get faculty or other
lab positions. I an can only speak for my lab but every year there are postdocs or staff who where postdocs who received faculty positions
at very strong institutes and just from my division this includes MIT, Princeton, Chicago, Texas, Colorado,
UCI, Minessota, North Carolina, Maryland, U of Washington, Illinois, Purdue, Penn Stat, Arizona, Wash University, Indian University,
UCSD, UCD, Ohio State, Oregon,
Notre Dame, Tufts, SMU, Tulane, Toronto, Cornell, Duke, UCSB. This is also not mention the number postdocs who had very nice faculty
offers and chose to stay the labs.
There are also a number of posdocs who when they leave the lab
go on to a second postodc at other high level intuitions such as Harvard, Caltech...ect.
This argument that LLNL, LANL, or Sandia have poor quality postdocs is just complete nonsense is is completely contradicted by
the placement record. If you really worked with postdocs at the labs you know this. You are simply a liar. What exactly is your problem?
Woodrow Wilson.
7:45AM "last I looked #1 was ornl, #2 lbl, #3 LLNL. LANL was low, which was a surprise."
Where did you look? The graphs I've seen thrown around also show LANL leading all labs, and searching all 2013 publications shows 3118 with "Los Alamos" in the address, and 1661 with "Livermore" - including SNL-CA.
blah"
Ah, that is laughable and I'll call BS on you calling BS. Yes, the Lawrence Fellowship at LLNL attracts some good candidates, but that is one job. The mundane fellowships offered to the less celestial attract mostly 3rd-rate candidates, and I cannot think of a really strong post-doc in years. All the resumes I see look reasonable on paper, but when you bring them in for an interview your find they are mostly 3rd-rate. Not sure what isolated planet you live on, but that's the way it is at least in high energy density sciences. Teller would not have hired any of them.
Ah, that is laughable and I'll call BS on you calling BS. Yes, the Lawrence Fellowship at LLNL attracts some good candidates, but that is one job. The mundane fellowships offered to the less celestial attract mostly 3rd-rate candidates, and I cannot think of "a really strong post-doc in years. All the resumes I see look reasonable on paper, but when you bring them in for an interview your find they are mostly 3rd-rate. Not sure what isolated planet you live on, but that's the way it is at least in high energy density sciences. Teller would not have hired any of them.
January 18, 2014 at 5:32 PM"
BS you do not work at at lab or ever did. Judging the all the jobs and quality of jobs the postdocs are getting there are a tremendous amount of very strong postdocs. You keep having you ass handed to you time and time again. By the way you seem to never address the issue about why you are such a bitter POS. Could you please fill us in. Did a someone with a Phd steal you wife or boyfriend? Come on there is more to your story, you have some ax to grind and dam the truth. Let hear it let the blog be you confession point.
Woodrow Wilson."
Dammit ok I will give you that but the war is not over!
I dare say there has never been an astronaut with a Phd.
January 18, 2014 at 5:45 PM"
Wow way to refute the facts that given. Pure logic.
The real problem here is that
POS sees only what he wants to see and does not care about the truth.
Good one - a couple of whom were also former LANL staff members, and one (Phillips) an Oppenheimer Fellow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Pettit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Phillips
The original ranter should have stopped at the pyramids, he was right about that one at least.
January 18, 2014 at 5:51 PM
You are wrong in several instances, as noted by January 18, 2014 at 7:47 PM. You might also want to check out an earlier post and reply:
Anonymous said...
Has a single PhD set foot on the moon?
January 18, 2014 at 6:34 AM
Yes. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, PhD in geology, in 1972. Piloted the lunar module "Challenger." Do some research before you rant.
January 18, 2014 at 8:45 AM
January 19, 2014 at 3:18 AM"
Can you please provide some evidence for this? The statistical data and placement record points to the opposite.
January 19, 2014 at 7:51 AM
You really have no idea how science works. And apparently you don't realize that the Manhattan Project was classified in its entirety until after the war and it was only much later that classified venues for scientists to publish peer-reviewed articles were established. You think Fermi, Feynman, Morrison, Bethe, Bohr, von Neumann, and the rest never published any papers?? Your stupidity is only exceeded by your ignorance.
Signed, Z.
January 18, 2014 at 7:06 AM
Hell, you don't need a PhD to transform into a bad manager. Bret Knapp transformed into a bad manager with just an M.S. degree and from a mediocre school. Yes, Cal Poly and UC Davis are mediocre schools.
I couldn't sleep and I was wondering how the director search was coming so I read through this thread.
When I got to "screw you all", I laughed out loud.
The thread presents like a South Park episode.
I can sleep now. Thanks for the amusement.
and po0r punctuac1ion.
Surely Cartman or Dilbert can tidy up the discussion so far.
Did Theodore Stryleski ever earn his math degree?
Go Bears. Beat Stanford. No really. Beat Stanford.
January 20, 2014 at 6:01 AM
Uh, "cue"? Unless they are standing in line and squirming.
January 20, 2014 at 3:07 AM"
I personally thought that calling BS on calling BS was pretty hilarious.
I call BS on you calling BS on the BS.
January 20, 2014 at 11:48 AM"
Just to clarify, January 18, 2014 at 5:32 PM said:
"Ah, that is laughable and I'll call BS on you calling BS."
I thought that was just hilarious, because I imagined a zebra (referee) getting flagged by the other zebras for making a bad call. It should have happened several times yesterday.
Anonymous Anonymous said..."
This version is more relevant to
the troll at hand.
I understand that you cannot see you own psychosis. You cannot measure mental decay like you can count particles and photons. Even discussing a topic like that requires a rational, non-psychotic frame of reference and human language. The mentally ill are uniquely ill-suited to discussions like that, and many simply don't understand that they are unable to wrap their heads around it. They cannot see it, and fall back on the only language they know, which is irrational rants. Then these people become trolls on blogs attacking people who have Phds or work at national laboratories.
January 19, 2014 at 8:53 PM
Tammy Jernigan and Jeff Wisoff, both Astronauts and Ph.Ds. at LLNL.
There is also at least one Ph.D. Astronaut at Sandia (just can't recall his name).
January 21, 2014 at 2:07 PM
Not quite the "sole" employers. Several units of KAFB, and several colleges and universities also employ MS's and PhD's in NM. Also tech companies such as Intel, Honeywell, CINT, Boeing, Ktech-Raytheon, etc.
January 21, 2014 at 3:11 PM"
Any Ph.d from New Mexico Tech, NMSU or U New Mexico who is not good enough to get a job at Intel, Honeywell, Raytheon or so on has
to get staff positions and Sandia and LANL, so ya mostley third rate. If you say I am wrong it is because you have a Phd and are culturally blind to this kind of thing. My arguments stand to reason and you zealots just refuse to see it. Man I am good.
A Ph.D.
You keep using the phrase "to deliver" as if no professional staff at the labs "deliver." First, who are you to judge? Second, by what criteria, except that staff keep their funding? Are you saying you know the specific deliverables that each staff member is held to? And that you know they are deficient? If you are that knowledgeable and powerful, why not just fire them? Or are you just a bystander in their professional lives, wishing you were there?
Stand to perfect reason as always, expect that people on LDRD work huge numbers of hours and produce lots of work. And as you say everyone is on LDRD at 10% Expect 95% of the lab workforce is not on LDRD.
"You made it to retirement on a good salary having accomplished little in life. "
Yep expect for all those documented accomplished that the people at the labs have.
"White collar welfare is good. Just know that if you stay on it for too long, just pray to god you are never cast off that boat and forced out into a world where you actually have to deliver."
Yep except that this so called white color welfare does not exits at the labs, never existed at the labs, and never will exist at the labs. Oh and all those people who left the labs and leave every year for all those other "real world" jobs don't exist. All these people from academic and industry positions don't exist either. The only thing that is real and true is the voice inside the head "January 22, 2014 at 12:57 PM"
Hey 12:57 PM it is time to face reality baby. You are a bitter crazy loon. Of course you could be some enemy from abroad trying to make the labs look bad but they would use better arguments than you so crazy bitter POS loon is a safer bet. Of course you could give your name as it might give your arguments more weight however I would bet that will not since it will give you away as the "bitter batsh*t crazy guy they should have never hired. Hey I am just saying but prove me wrong and put you real name down. Inquiring minds want to know!
I am who I am, a blog poster, a God in my world.
"Second, by what criteria, except that staff keep their funding? Are you saying you know the specific deliverables that each staff member is held to?"
You are a zealot who refused to see the what is so blatantly obvious. I cannot give and will not give specifics but what I say is true because this is blog and can say whatever I want to. To deny what I say is to verify it. Checkmate.
"And that you know they are deficient? "
Of course they are deficient, they went to college, they have "knowledge", and in some of them have even obtained a Phd. In case you have not been following this thread of posts we have already established that anyone who obtained a Phd is worthless. Are you not paying attention?
"If you are that knowledgeable and powerful, why not just fire them?"
Oh if I could...but you see I was way to smart to work at place like LLNL. If I had I would soon be the Director and fire the lot of you. Life is unfair due to the idiots that do not recognize the Geniuses like me. Of course if you went to college you cannot understand this argument since you are uniquely unqualified understand such things. You must take my word on this you see.
"Or are you just a bystander in their professional lives, wishing you were there?"
OMG, you hit too close to home. Dam you to hell. I would never ever in million years ever ever want to work in a place like LLNL.
No no no...Uh em if by chance I have ever worked at LLNL I assure I was never fired for being incompetent or worthless and I might add you should not believe
a word of what any of my ex coworkers, family members, or any of the people in the called "mental health profession" might say about me.
January 22, 2014 at 9:57 PM
Nope, it's only you. Or else all the other guys who agree with you write "Phd" instead of the correct "Ph.D." just like you do. Pathetic.
January 23, 2014 at 7:49 AM
Never worked on a WFO project, have you?
January 23, 2014 at 8:10 PM
No one is claiming that it will. The claim was that there were no real deliverables for lab scientists. The answer that for WFO, there clearly are, is obviously correct. Maybe NNSA could take a lesson from other agencies.
January 24, 2014 at 7:45 AM
I.e., you are jealous that NNSA programmatic funding is shrinking and more and more uncertain, while other agencies' need for the labs' expertise continues to grow.
The lab should stick to its core: weapons.
The lab should stick to its core: weapons.
"There are plenty of things in national security the private sector doesn't care about.. That fact is the reason why there are national labs..."
Sure, but I think there are two points. One, if the private sector did care about those things, they would smoke the national labs. It can be amazing to learn how much incredibly good work goes on in industry, things you never hear about because it's all proprietary. Two, it's very difficult to judge how well the labs really do on these things, because there's nothing to compare against, except maybe another lab.