Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Any updates on the alleged federal fraud investigation on-going at LANL?
Well, the FBI needs to start from the top. Rich Marquez had two IT companies and was filtering contracts through Carolyn Zerkle (AD), John Tapia (Deputy Division Leader/Procurement) and Albert Giron, (one of the Division Leaders for IT). Four IT Division are under Carolyn Zerkle. Rich Marquez did not suddenly retire but was forced too! John Tapia is currently under investigation for several federal violations. Time Fraud was one. The other two hopefully are also being investigated.
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John Tapia hired a criminal defense attorney while the investigation continues.
This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA. The opinions stated are personal opinions
The opinions stated are impacted friends of LLNL and anyone expose. This BLOG is LLNL injustice against present waste and past for personal privatization opinions, to express their employees of the Lab LLNS/DOE/NNSA and waste expose taxpayers, wrongdoing and any kind of employees and by the privatization of the Lab.
All I want to know is how I can get my damn order placed. After you get cleared to go into the procurement building, a newish building behind china moon just for procurement that is locked out, it is clearly a ghost town. Desk after empty desk. I am being told I have to provide a six month lead time for my purchase order. Heck, there won't be new nuclear work - no one is around to buy my materials and components.
Procurement has always been a joke at LANL.
Procurement has always been a joke at LANL.
August 13, 2016 at 9:02 AM
I have to disagree with this, when I first came to LANL 15 years ago it was reasonable. I thought that after the contract change it would improve, along with travel paper work, support, and charging etc. Instead it has become orders of magnitude worse, slow and dysfunctional. Any one thing may seem small but when every single thing you have to do gets this bad it really adds up. How is it that the privatization has not only not added a single efficiency but has actually increased inefficiency and waste.
It was not the privatization per se that caused the current status. It was the Bechtel procurement managers who are responsible. Kevin Chalmers came from Bechtel with no clue. He removed the existing procurement managers and group leaders who had the corporate knowledge and replaced them with a bunch of clueless fill in the blank. He penalized the procurement staff who took approved leave of one to two hours on Good Friday for religious purpose and threatened to charge them all with time card fraud. It is still referred to as the Good Friday massacre.
Buyers who lived off the hill and performed extra work at home gratis in order to meet programmatic deadlines had been provided computers and printers for that purpose. He ordered all equipment to be returned. At a division meeting, he stated “I can’t believe how educated you are” to a procurement staff comprised primarily of women and Hispanics, many of whom had worked hard to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees while working at LANL and paid for by LANL. These buyers were understandably upset with his racist and sexist comments.
Kevin had little to do all day as he did not know what to do. He ordered the procurement building to be locked out to other Lab employees, including those with security clearances. He roamed the building and surveilled the employees. He made note if any employees appeared to have a human need to use the restroom above his considered norm. He noted if there was any laughter and joy in the workplace which was deemed inappropriate. He was paranoid if Spanish was spoken because it meant employees were talking about him (probably).
So buyers stopped working during their lunch hours to escape the plantation. They could no longer work from home without equipment. He didn’t allow the buyers to participate in the 2008 retirement incentive.
But more than 100 buyers left the plantation. They found other jobs at the Lab. They found other jobs outside the Lab. They retired anyway.
Currently, there are about 80 buyers at the Lab who actively place orders, down from 200 prior to Bechtel. When you interact with them, they have a dead stare of exhaustion. Of those, about 40 are eligible to retire and will retire when the contract changes. There are long standing procurement vacancies posted on the Lab website with no takers and/or takers who quickly leave. The plantation mentality toward the buyers is well known in the profession.
The congressional delegation has not been briefed on this issue because the current management (Carolyn the circle Zerkle, AD for procurement), does not want Mr. Udall, Mr. Lujan, or NNSA to become alarmed that Bechtel has deliberately created a procurement crisis for the next contractor.
August 14, 2016 at 12:00 PM
That certainly is an interesting story and explains the procurement issues as well as the lines of empty desks. Now the question is if the same issues are the cause for all the other parts of the lab services that have degraded in the last 10 years, travel, time and effort, charging, computer help, and God help you if you have a problem with plumbing, heating, cooling, broken doors ect it will literally never be fixed, ever.
That has to be more to the story than lots of non-technical staff leaving as it seems like ratio of technical to non-technical staff is also going down. Maybe just lots of people are leaving. I have heard that LANS is very confused by the loss of staff and have no idea what is causing it.
One issue I have heard is that Bechtel never intended to work with UC. Bechtel employees will tell you that they where brought in because UC messed up and that UC and LANL employees are the bad guys. They had a sense that the contract change was about punishment so they never had to do good job. They had a bad attitude going in and still do, they completely look down on non-Bechtel people and consider themselves as loyal Bechtel people not LANL people, so the mission or sense of purpose about the lab is completely missing. They also seem to have nothing but contempt for those at the labs that do feel that LANL has a purpose. I heard about conversations where Bechtel higher ups are saying that the LANL failure was due to arrogant scientists not respecting management, if you press them on exactly how that arguments works, they get rather upset and do not want to hear about it.
Michael Anastasio, former LANL Director (arrogant UC employee)was forced to retire due to the fact his prostitute stole LANL's classified computer from his home. Why wasn't he fired?? arrogant scientists not respecting anybody!!!
And the lack of procurement staff explains why people can commit fraud. I remember Nanos (yes, before anyone jumps on that, he was an incredible creep and everyone was disgusted with him)said that any honest person would be tempted with the bags of money laying around. So if there is a lack of procurement staff and a lack of audit oversight, no wonder Marquez and company could pull off what has been alleged.
I had also heard the story that Anastasio's computer with classified information was stolen by a prostitute in Santa Fe and his wife dumped him. Isn't he still working as a scientist somewhere for the government? Does anyone know if this is a fact?
"Michael Anastasio, former LANL Director (arrogant UC employee)was forced to retire due to the fact his prostitute stole LANL's classified computer from his home. Why wasn't he fired?? arrogant scientists not respecting anybody!!!
August 14, 2016 at 6:43 PM"
Are you serious or just a total troll? If you are serious than you are out of your frekin mind, if you are a troll than you just boring.
I had also heard the story that Anastasio's computer with classified information was stolen by a prostitute in Santa Fe and his wife dumped him. Isn't he still working as a scientist somewhere for the government? Does anyone know if this is a fact?
August 14, 2016 at 6:52 PM
No this is not a fact, he is still married and does consulting work. This is not a hard one to figure out is BS. (1) How would a detail like "prostitute" ever get out, it does not make a lot of sense, you would just say the computer was stolen by someone. (2) Why would you have classified information on a laptop lying around your house? (3) Why is he still married. (4) Anastasio did not leave all of sudden to spend time with family, it was known for one year before hand that he was leaving. (5) The only place I heard this was on the blog.
I think what may be happening is that there is some confusion about the people involved after many years. As I recall the lab deputy which was a Bechtel guy that came in with Anastasio did leave very abruptly after a year and it was even stated that he did this to spend more time with his family, (I forgot the guys name. It was rumored on the blogs and elsewhere that it really had something to do with taking a classified computer home and losing it or something like that. I have no idea what the real story was in that case but him leaving overnight after such a short term was sure odd.
I would say the biggest giveaway is that Anastasio did not just suddenly leave the lab.
"And the lack of procurement staff explains why people can commit fraud. I remember Nanos (yes, before anyone jumps on that, he was an incredible creep and everyone was disgusted with him)said that any honest person would be tempted with the bags of money laying around. So if there is a lack of procurement staff and a lack of audit oversight, no wonder Marquez and company could pull off what has been alleged."
I am not disagreeing that the lack of procurement staff can lead to all sorts of problems. The issue is that the LANS for profit management has created a dysfunctional situation where procurement amongest many other things does not work.
Again I must ask can someone please point to one added efficiency, one added cost savings that has come about due to the privatization of the labs? Just one? I and others can point to literally thousands of things that more inefficient, more expensive, less safe, less secure, corrupt and beyond wasteful. And the excuses of it is the cowboy culture is not going to fly.
Privatization or not, the real issue here is the alleged waste and fraud that has been claimed against Marquez and other senior members of the LANL.
Does anyone do any real work at lanl or do they just waste taxpayer money posting to this blog?
Does anyone do any real work at lanl or do they just waste taxpayer money posting to this blog?
August 15, 2016 at 12:04 PM
Lets see, ahem, you post on a Monday Aug 15 (a work day at 12:04 PM). The rest of posters are posting on Sunday Aug 14. So it would seem that if anyone is not doing real work or wasting the taxpayers money it would be you...think about that. You are truly pathetic and lacking all self-awareness. By any chance do you think your life sucks and that everyone else in the world is to blame for that? If so well maybe...just maybe that whole lack of self-awareness thing might be playing a role in that, not all those hard working people doing their best to improve their lives and help others. Just saying, perhaps it is time for you to wake up and take responsibility for you own problems and shortcoming. I don't mean to sound mean but the world does not owe you a dam thing, if you want to make something of your life it is up to you and you alone, blaming all those evil people who work hard and accomplish something with their lives will never justify your own failures.
Does anyone have a copy of the presentation materials for the 3000 "new hires" that LANL touted recently to the media?
My source informed me that the plan is these new hires would be paid at $15 per hour with minimum benefits - i.e., 1 week vacation, a non-matched 401K.
Apparently the plan is to have two tiers of employees - the elite professions and the blue and pink professions - a throwback akin to the south prior to Brown v Board of Education.
August 15, 2016 at 8:30 PM
More retirees than you think on this blog. Just sayin'.
I can post during the day using my smartphone or tablet in the parking lot in my car during work hours any time of the day, even when I am working late. The paranoia of a poster's employment status is .....
I can post during the day using my smartphone or tablet in the parking lot in my car during work hours any time of the day, even when I am working late. The paranoia of a poster's employment status is .....
August 17, 2016 at 11:24 AM
False, the point is that the people posting on Sunday are wasting the taxpayers dollars instead of working and it shows unequivocally how dysfunctional the LANL cowboy scientists are, they do not work they just spend their weekends bashing Bechtel, stealing Mustangs, working two jobs, losing disks, blowing up WIPP and living in their secret colony and hiding the truth. This has nothing to do with Bechtel or privatization it has EVERYTHING to do with UC and LANL people. LANL is filled with renegades who have no respect for authority...need proof just look at Marquez, Montano, Anastasio, and Beth Sellers, all of them UC people, all scientists, all cowboys, and all wasting the taxpayers dollar. The evidence and the facts are irrefutable...IRREFUTABLE, but you still deny the truth and will even go so far as to say that you want "proof" which shows just how utterly blind you are, unbelievable. Unbelievable.
LANL hater returns. Must have found himself enjoying life too much.
The LANL hater is almost certainly a Bechtel manager. He is as transparent as they come. Do not feed the trolls.
One of the 6 or 7 Bechtel Managers? Big bad Bechtel at the lab. 10000 employees and Bechtel is how many?
I heard Carolyn Zerkle, AD is leaving LANL/LANS. Anyone hearing the same?
If true, is Zerkle leaving due to the alleged broad scope on-going criminal investigation?
Wishful thinking
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