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
Adam Rowen (no longer manager of the Materials Chemistry department) from Sandia National Laboratories does not have a Ph.D.
How does some unknown manager not having a PhD have any relevance to a VP not having a PhD? There are so many team leads and first level managers at all 3 sites without a PhD, and yet one of them gets singled out for no reason? If you have a beef, take it to HR.
LLNL had a MS director first. How many of the PhDs at LANL come from the finest universities that New Mexico has to offer?
These are indeed the metrics by which great leaders are measured in the DOE.
June 24, 2015 at 1:11 AM
Gotta have a minimum GPA to advance at U.C. Berkeley to the PhD. Very high standards.
June 24, 2015 at 6:42 AM
I believe you had to have a minimum of a 3.5 GPA to advance from your M.S. degree to the PhD while I attended Berkeley in the early 80's.
These are indeed the metrics by which great leaders are measured in the DOE.
June 24, 2015 at 12:22 AM
Don't forget Veteran!
June 24, 2015 at 4:01 PM
Hruby, Hruby, Hruby....
You need to take down this disgusting thread of hate.
The article doesn't begin, "Hruby will be new Sandia director" or "Sandia to focus on WMD's with pick of new director." Something like that would have been the text if Hruby was a man.
But no. The article begins, "New Sandia director will be first woman to lead national security lab." The fact that she is a woman is clearly the most important characteristic of the new director. That's the emphasis. It's not her background. It's not her experience. It's not her name, which isn't even mentioned in the title. What's mentioned is the fact that the new director is a woman. That's number one. It's right there up front. One cannot ignore the obvious.
This is another example of the overwhelming discrimination and hatred that men face in both employment and society. Men (and/or boys) are more likely to be illiterate. More likely to drop out of high school. Less likely to go to college (35% less likely). More likely to have disciplinary problems. More likely to be imprisoned. More likely to receive harsher sentences for similar crimes (e.g., men perpetrators of homicide are 100 times more likely to receive the death penalty than women perpetrators of homicide). More likely to be raped (but prison rape is ignored). More likely to have addiction problems. More likely to die of the 15 leading causes of death. Less likely to have health insurance. More likely to commit suicide (4 times more likely). More likely to be victims of violent crime (4 times more likely, which is why the country has a Violence Against Women Act). More likely to be killed in the workplace (93% of workplace deaths are men). The list goes on and on, and this doesn't even touch on the discrimination men face in family law.
Only men are required to register for the draft. 55,000 American men soldiers died in the Vietnam war, many of them effectively slaves who were plucked from their homes and forced to fight. 8 American women soldiers died. All deaths - men and women - are appropriately listed at the Vietnam War Memorial. But there is also a separate memorial just for women, to recognize the "special contribution" that they made.
Countless articles are featured about women during Women's History Month. Did you know that last week was Men's Health Awareness week. Tell me. How was this observed at SNL, LANL, or LLNL? Was there a single mention in any organization publication?
No. The problems that men face - whether they be health care or discrimination in hiring practices - are completely ignored.
June 25, 2015 at 8:33 AM
Also, men have a prostate and are subject to getting Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and worse, prostate cancer. It's tough being a man.
Blunder Bunnies
June 25, 2015 at 7:30 AM
Only at an institute with low standards, and not rewarding new ideas. Remember, as others have said, MS are those that couldn't hack getting a PhD, and with your argument, would only be an extra 2 years.
And by the way, I assume your health provider dropped out of Med School with only 2 years to go, for what could someone learn in only two years.
Oh come on, some people go to graduate school with no interest or intention of pursuing a PhD.
But no. The article begins, "New Sandia director will be first woman to lead national security lab." The fact that she is a woman is clearly the most important characteristic of the new director.
And of course that headline was written by the Board, and thus is totally representative of their prioritization.
I do agree with the comment that a new director's ability to marshal a successful re-bid behalf of Lock-Mart had to be a consideration. Perhaps she has an excellent reputation in Washington. Perhaps she had an excellent vision of how to lead the organization through that transition.
If there is one thing that LANL and LLNL taught us is that Phds are a liability. Lets be honest do we really need Phds at the national labs? No the technology and science have been developed. We need to maintain it but we do not need to advance upon it.
Look at Facebook, Google, and Twitter, they are dealing with some of the most advanced technology and yet there is probably not a single Phd working at these places. This tells you all you need to know.
June 28, 2015 at 5:51 PM
I guess you don't know that people also *want* to know things. It's called research. If you think LLNL and LANL have no business doing research, you have already given up on US science. Engineers "deal with" advanced technology. Scientists (PhD's) create advanced technology. Google Facebook and Twitter are catering to brainless millenials who spend their parents' money on gadgets. They know how to make a cell phone do things, but have no idea how they actually work. You sir, are a Luddite.
June 28, 2015 at 5:51 PM
...and all started by males.
Look at the recent appointments here at LLNL, it's incredibly gender biased.
We need to have an open discussion of the value of overly promoting women. Maybe there is a benefit to this practice, so young girls can believe they can be good scientist and engineers.
It's unfathomable the last Engineering AD would have "climbed" the ladder if she were a man with the same credentials.
We know the enablers, upper management males around 55 years old.
Face it, there are two career paths here at the lab: one for males and one for females.
You believe the national labs area a meritocracy then, and when compared to the true tested meritocracy of Silicon Valley, the demographics are considerably different by shear accident?
"Jealously"... this is the usual name calling from the left that comes when the facts become uncomfortable.
* how many boards for the National Academy of Sciences they are on
* R&D 100 awards they have won
* university advisory boards they are on
* number of people that they have managed as a director or VP
July 2, 2015 at 6:23 AM
Totally agree. Furthermore, I have never been impressed by her, technically or otherwise. Very disappointing selection.
(not that Mr. "so and so doesn't have a PhD will get it)
Let me guess, you didn't get admitted to your PhD program either with vocabulary and rhetoric skills like that? Really showing your intelligence there. Its amazing how far you can get in New Mexico with a third-rate BS from UNM... Outside of this windy dirt hole nobody will take your trash degree seriously.
Totally agree. The choice is baffling. Ms. Hruby also pales in comparison to a number of her now direct reports. To name a few: Dr. Stephen Rottler who has a PhD from Texas A&M in nuclear engineering and is a Fellow of AAAS and AIAA, Dr. James Peery who has a PhD in nuclear engineering and is a Gordon Bell Award winner, and Dr. Robert Leland who has a PhD from Oxford (Rhodes Scholar) with degrees in EE, applied math and computer science and was a recent White House Fellow. Unlike Ms. Hruby, Dr. Rottler and Dr. Peery actually have a working knowledge of nuclear weapons.
We'll have a chance to see how she plays on a director's stage. Charlie's performance is certainly not one to preemptively shutdown the competition based upon academic credentials.
Goldstein carried a whip at the Physics Picnic about a decade ago.
All this talks of whips and leather is arousing.
July 8, 2015 at 2:44 PM
Duh!