LANL: Seeking local talent to replace retiring staff, AA or no degree needed!
Looks like LANL is settings its sights high and introducing an aggressive program to tap the incredible talent pool that is Northern New Mexico. Community college associate degree or no degree needed! No longer recruiting from out of state. Heinrich declares LANL a NM jobs program for those with addiction and no higher education.
With job openings on horizon, LANL looks for ways to prime state’s youth
Los Alamos National Laboratory faces a mass exodus of seasoned employees over the next five years, creating openings for a new generation in its workforce, lab officials said Wednesday.
Human Resource representatives from the lab and New Mexico community college presidents met in Santa Fe with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to discuss how the state’s smaller educational institutions can better prime students for careers at the lab.
The lab estimates 2,425 job vacancies will arise between now and 2020 in a variety of positions, from nuclear defense to operations — a reflection of the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age, rather than an increase in the lab’s budget.
Kathy Keith, a lab spokeswoman, said the lab is looking for cross-disciplinary students, not just scientists with doctorate degrees.
She presented data showing that 33 percent of current LANL employees hold a Ph.D., the same percentage as those who hold no degree.
Representatives from Santa Fe Community College, Highlands University, Los Lunas Community College and The University of New Mexico campuses in Taos, among others, emphasized that science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, programs at their schools help prepare students to enter the workforce.
Many said imbuing students with a love of science from a young age is not being accomplished at the K-12 level in the state. Others said that while their students might be academically qualified, they might be unable to pass a background check and classification requirements of the lab.
Domingo Sánchez, president of Northern New Mexico College, said addiction and behavioral health issues in the state need to be addressed.
Dr. Sam Minner Jr., president of Highlands University, said the STEM “funnel is not big enough” in the first place, and students are being deterred from careers in the sciences long before they reach the college level.
The majority of the lab’s current workforce has come from out of state, with 40 percent from New Mexico.
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Ben Ray Luján, both Democrats, also met with educators and employers in Rio Rancho on Wednesday to address how the state’s labs could try to fill jobs with New Mexico workers. Between Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, there will be an estimated 5,000 vacancies in the state.
The Los Alamos lab has faced budget cuts and instability in recent years as federal inspections identified significant shortcomings in management, operations and safety.
“We are at a transition point because both the Sandia and Los Alamos contracts are going to be bid over the course of the next couple of years,” Heinrich said in an interview with The New Mexican on Wednesday. “… It is an opportunity to hit the reset button and say, ‘Here’s what we expect and how are you going to meet that?’
26 comments:
"Community college associate degree or no degree needed! No longer recruiting from out of state. Heinrich declares LANL a NM jobs program for those with addiction and no higher education."
OK, so if you actually READ the article...you'd find that nobody actually made those statements. What they said was that 33% of staff have a PhD, 33% have no degree. They said there is a problem with jobs in NM. They said addiction and lack of education is a problem in NM. But nobody said they're putting addicts and uneducated people to work at Los Alamos Lab.
This blog is worse than Fox News.
What is wrong with hiring technicians with an AA or no degree?
The Ph.D elitism demonstrated on the blog is incredible. The same people complain that they can't get anything done at the lab.
January 8, 2017 at 2:04 PM
Yes, I can just see the next generation of nuclear weapons being developed by people without degrees. Science is totally overrated, education even more. Look at Donald Trump, how far he got. We will just twitter to the North Koreans and the Chinese and they will all just follow our orders. I completely agree, to twitter you don't need an education.
Yea, Ph.D needed to work in the shops, plow snow, polish parts, etc. This blog has hit bottom.
Yea, Ph.D needed to work in the shops
January 8, 2017 at 6:51 PM
As a grad student and as a post doc, and as a PhD staff member at LANL. I did indeed work in the shops, making my own apparatus and testing designs until it was right for the experiment I wanted. That's what experimentalists do. Not all PhDs are theorists, or even "elitists."
No one could make a credible claim that LANL and SNL are hiring addicts as both labs do drug testing.
Here's what the article said -
Others (at the meeting - referring to other staff and faculty at NM colleges) said that while their students might be academically qualified, they might be unable to pass a background check and classification requirements of the lab.
Note: This is in reference to the discussion regarding drug, alcohol, and crime problems that are rampant in Northern NM, as evidenced by the next statement;
Domingo Sánchez, president of Northern New Mexico College, said addiction and behavioral health issues in the state need to be addressed.
Bottom line? Want a job at LANL or SNL? Can't be an addict and you can't have a disqualifying criminal background. Just as it should be.
It's much more likely to hear an honest message about addiction on Fox than it would be to hear on media run by liberals. NBC recently ran an article about how drug addiction is a disease (it isn't), how addicts are mistreated by the police and the public (NBC didn't say how), and how safe-zone houses need to be set-up so addicts will have a safe and legal place to get new needles and shoot up. Yeah, like that's going to solve the Nation's opioid problem. That's going to reduce drug-related crime. That's going to help addicts get clean. Great job, NBC.
January 8, 2017 at 9:07 PM
You are absolutely correct. I am also feed up with these low-life drug "addicts". I also have no interest in paying taxes to imprison them just to make some private company rich that runs the prison. Cops should do their damn job and kill them on sight!
Thank you for your enlightened wisdom, President Duterte.
Drug and alcohol addiction is rampant in NM, but it is a mental health problem, not a criminal problem. Unless crimes are committed in conjunction with addiction (simply using drugs should not be a crime), the response should be treatment, mandated and confined if necessary, not jail.
mandated and confined if necessary, not jail.
January 9, 2017 at 10:00 AM
Fool, "mandated and confined" is the definition of "jail."
Then you've never been to either jail or to a mental health facility.
And you have? Great. Your moral superiority is overwhelming.
Your wit and intelligence are underwhelming.
10:00 AM can't see what's wrong with treating addiction as a mental health issue? Really? How about the fact that mental health facilities are already challenged trying to treat the high number of people with true mental health issues? THINK OF THAT? Yeah, didn't think so. There are few open beds in ANY overnight mental health facility.
Liberals come up with the stupidest, unworkable "solutions". Sheesh.
Liberals come up with the stupidest, unworkable "solutions". Sheesh.
January 9, 2017 at 10:45 PM
Agreed! I cannot wait for Trump and his powerhouse team to roll over their pathetic, wimpy asses with the much needed change they promised in the campaign!!
Bottom of what?
For a blog administrator, Scooby has no idea how to blog. Asks "bottom of what?" with no clue to the reader what he is referencing. And no clue that it's even necessary. Time to pass this blog along to someone who actually gives a shit about it.
You might read up towards the top, 5:22 pm, it's clear enough to the rest of us.
Most blog users would expect the courtesy of a reference to an earlier (much earlier) post. Scooby doesn't do courtesy. Not his style.
January 10, 2017 at 7:25 PM
January 10, 2017 at 5:22 PM
So, why are you reading the blog? Take your whining somewhere else. Scooby can do whatever he wants, it is HIS blog.
Scooby can do whatever he wants with full knowledge that what he does reveals his character, just as for anyone else. I also can do whatever I want, including complain about Scooby. Get it now?
Got it! You Are an asshole!
Simply because I complain about Scooby? Or is there some other reason for your enmity (aside from your general character)?
Scooby obviously doesn't give a shit, he hasn't taken the spam down from the nuclear reactor interactive post for days.
LANL can afford to bring in these undereducated individuals cause there is no research within the weapons program. Caution, better check to see if they can read. All we do is manufacturing so only monies need to apply. Have an original thought or difference you are labeled a cowboy and hope you can ride the LDRD gravy train. It's the Pantex model managed by Charlie, Bob, Craig and crew.
Corrupt and overgrown bureaucracies work better when the staff and managers have little to no education.
I don't hate to say it: New Mexico isn't the nicest place to live. Combine poor benefits with average salaries, years of 1-2% raises and a lackluster work environment and not many people will stay. You're left hiring the uneducated locals who actually like the state. Same can be said for NTESS and Sandia. Besides crime, drugs, APS and the incessant whining of people about the central construction, Albuquerque has nothing to keep good engineers in New Mexico.
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