Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
Comments
February 16, 2015 at 7:50 PM"
What!?? We can replace every physicist at the labs 10 times over at cheaper costs. We have to fight with the real world market place for good and loyal engineers. A Ph.d in physics is like a Ph.d in Philosophy...besides universities no one cares about them or wants them. It is even worse for physicists, as we have virtually unlimited supply of them from China and Russia. If they want to come to LANL or LLNL they need to play by the rules and STFU. On the other hand a good engineer at Sandia who is treated badly can get a great job in a variety of of industries across the land. It is the people at Sandia who are special and should be treated as such. As for scientists...they are to be kicked to the dirt and if they complain than they can be and should replaced in the blink of an eye. If they are so great than they will get a job at Harvard, if not than the need to submit, suffer and pay the piper.
Adam Rowen a manager at Sandia Livermore does not have a Ph.D. either.
The previous 3 individuals are the first ever Vice Presidents without a Ph.D. in Science or Engineering to lead technical divisions at Sandia.
A quick search on the internet shows that Adam Rowen went to a school in New Mexico.
http://llnlthetruestory.blogspot.com/2013/08/dysfunctional-llnl.html
My name is Kevin Moore and I recently left the Lab after 10.5 years. My new job has shown me just how dysfunctional LLNL is, and revealed the lab's greatest problem: it's inability to fire those who should be.
Repeatedly, I watched failed scientists/engineers not be terminated, but"coaxed" into management. These folks, typically with no managementexperience beyond some two-day LLNL coarse, made horrible managers. Theymoved their way through middle management, arriving to a place where theywere seen as a person who guides science/engineering at the lab. We then had a failed science/engineering with poor management skills trying to
build programs and direct the lab. The result is what we have today: a rudderless monolith with ghastly overhead.LLNL was a truly sad place to be, and the day I got out was one of the most happy periods I had in years.
If I can suggest anything to our government, come into the weapons labs with a team of competent strategists and start slashing useless managers and failed scientist. Use metrics like peer-reviewed publications to gauge a persons quality, not spot awards or other worthless internalrecognitions.
Kevin Moore
Manager, Materials & Corrosion Engineering
Exponent Failure Analysis Associates
149 Commonwealth Drive
Menlo Park, Ca 94025
Are you implying that maybe just maybe we have poor management at the labs? I always thought the problems at the labs was driven by the cowboy culture of the workers. This culture is something that are wonderful, dedicated, hard working, and, brave managers have to deal with. It has to be someones fault so I say blame it on the workforce.
February 18, 2015 at 6:44 AM
Take a look a the turnover in each category and a pretty clear picture emerges. The leadership at LANL has (mostly) turned over twice in the past dozen years; however, the news stories today look a lot like they did then. The workers, for the most part, have had a much lower turnover during that same period. If it is the fault of management, then there are three eras of them that failed.
February 18, 2015 at 7:35 PM"
I would say exactly the opposite. It seems the the workforce has had the most turnover. The mangers that where around was around 15 years ago is still there and most have moved up. It seems like it is the workers who move on. I would love if somebody could quantitatively confirm this but I would guess the turnover rate is much higher for non-management. My point is that one thing that has been constant for the last 15 years is that you have exactly the same mangers. Every time there is a problem the they blame the workers. Maybe what you mean the lab Director has changed however that is only a single person. Also I would add that every time a new Director is selected the lab management has a significant role in the selection processes. Who do you think they are going to push for? Finley I would add that word "culture" gets thrown around all the time. Maybe it is a poor management culture that is the problem, so maybe there has been three eras of management but they all had the same culture. In any case it is an interesting point to investigate.
... maybe laying down pipe for the Keystone. Better than road construction. Not as much fun as building bridges and torqueing rusted bolts past yield...