UT Regents' Special Session requesting funds for LANL management transition and for a consultant, Willard Robert (Bob) Logan
From Houston Chronicle, 15 May 2018: UT System says it needs up to $7 million for Los Alamos management transition:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/UT-System-says-it-needs-up-to-7-million-for-Los-12916798.php
Link to UT Regents 18 May special meeting ("posted meeting" link contains agenda:
https://www.utsystem.edu/board-of-regents/meetings/board-meeting-2018-05-18
29 comments:
The UT Regents special meeting at 1 PM on May 18th looks interesting.
Suspect they have, indeed, won the contract along with their 5-star engineering partner, Boeing. Time to start painting the LANL security fence orange. Most high level managers at LANL had blinders on and were backing the tired, old UC team so it looks like a lot of upper management positions will soon be opening up. A fresh, new team of professional managers may soon be arriving.
Whats is with the comments?
What is with the comments? Don't understand what you mean.
Scooby -- he may have meant, "Whats up with the comments ?" because they seem to have been culled down.
I am not sure if U-Texas won but it sure looks like UC and Bechtel are out as the high level managers in the admin building look white as ghosts the last week or so, also one of the chiefs of staff was actually crying about the impending change. I don't know why a chief of staff would be so up in arms about any of this since I doubt they would lose their jobs but I am not sure how much of the management would change. I thought it was simply ADs waiting to become PADS, and DL waiting to become ADs that would be upset.
So far everyone seems pretty positive abut the possibility of Texas winning. Most want to get rid of Bechtel, many still sort of like UC but are worried that we would keep the current crop of managers which means even if UC wins little would change from the continued downward spiral. The talk has been that the UC team was heavy with current LANL managers which really turned lots of people off on UC. It is rather shocking how much disdain there is for the high level management at LANL. The only exception and I do mean the only one that people have said anything positive about is Webster.
With U-Texas there is at least a chance we can replace or reduce the number managers we have at LANL.
Not true .I deleted 1 comment that had profanity.
Not true .I deleted 1 comment that had profanity.
I think it has something to do with the blog sever, at least from the outside almost all the comments have vanished.
Seems to be lots of comments deleted on previous posts.
Well if DOE/NNSA decided that both UC and Bechtel equally did not deserve another chance at LANL, then the only option was UT-Boeing.
Wow, I wonder what the UT-Boeing win means for the LLNL contract rebid in a few years. I cannot imagine University of Texas going after LLNL, but if it does then I suspect that UC will go to general quarters all hands on deck battle stations to do any and everything keep a rival top university system from taking over a national lab in California that carries the name of UC's first Nobel Laureate.
If UT did indeed win, and it looks like they did, it puts the lie to the troll who claimed that UT quietly told DOE that UT isn't really interested. As I remember, the troll who claimed this is the guy who writes like a third grader.
May 17, 2018 at 9:45 AM
There was also the troll that said no one would ever bid for LANL since it was so bad and that no university would ever get near LANL ever again. Looks like that was wrong on all counts.
anyone think Perry is throwing UT a bone? I knew a lot of Bechtel types a few years back, even the line employees will be bailing with them, if only to get that 25 year "oyster perpetual". Believe it or not, some people hung with Bechtel, get moved to every armpit in the world every 10 months, for a gold watch. a nice watch, but its just a watch.
seriously that company modifies its employees value system by moving them around all the time, this destroys any community ties, family ties, etc. The employee is left w/o friends, other than fellow BNI types, and after some time they cant function outside of the company.
As long as UC loses, I don't care who wins. UC managers are the most pompous, pseudo intellectuals I have ever met, except for Webster. He's a good dude.
Lest we forget, other UC "good dudes" include Robert Opppenheimer, Norris Bradbury,Harold Agnew, Sig Heckker, and John Browne. As well as the "three Johns" who directed Nuclear Weapon Research through its demise.
Time to start brushing up on the words to "Texas, Our Texas" and the UT Longhorns' fight song, "Texas Fight". Couldn't hurt.
And, y'all need to learn Texan.
Lest we forget, other UC "good dudes" include Robert Opppenheimer, Norris Bradbury,Harold Agnew, Sig Heckker, and John Browne. As well as the "three Johns" who directed Nuclear Weapon Research through its demise.
May 18, 2018 at 3:36 PM
Amen but they left before the money came in....
My only question if UT-Boeing wins is "when did Boeing lose its mind?".
Browne was anything but a "good dude" and Oppenheimer, Bradbury and Agnew all started when it was still war-time, so it didn't matter who operated the place since everyone came from somewhere else to work on the project. Hecker was the only director that was a UC lifer that was competent.
Browne was anything but a "good dude" and Oppenheimer, Bradbury and Agnew all started when it was still war-time, so it didn't matter who operated the place since everyone came from somewhere else to work on the project. Hecker was the only director that was a UC lifer that was competent.
May 20, 2018 at 5:03 AM
More blather from the resident LANL hater. Obviously doesn't work at LANL, and never has.
Flatland was competent?
Flatland was competent?
Hello...hello, yes it was.
Scientifically competent. Managerially, less so. The former is what counts and gets respect from scientists. The latter is a function of who you hire as "deputies," and "associate directors."
His RIF was quite unnecessarily cruel. Many positions were eliminated but the person holding one of them had done nothing wrong. However Hecker sent out a dictum saying that no recommendations for any of the people RIFed could be sent out on lab letterhead just to make it more difficult for them to find new jobs. But hey HE went off to Stanford so all’s well that ends well, right? Do you have to be a bad person to run a National Lab or do they rip out the empathetic part of your brain when you take the job?
May 22, 2018 at 9:17 AM
Sorry, but the RIF was right and just and everyone knows this to be true in the hearts. I know the names of many of these people some came back due to the lawsuits but they also know he decision was correct.
People of high authority must occasionally do things that hurt some people. Just the way it is. If you can't understand that, or think there should have been some weeping "I'm sorry" statement, you are too naive to be called an adult. Anyone who has ever been in a real position of authority knows this. And hated every minute of it, having no alternative.
No alternative? Some pretty bad managers on this blog. Hope you get the same treatment. Good managers are capable of much more, but the good managers went out over the Bechtel years along with the scientists.
"Good managers" are ones whose decisions you agree with, or at least they don't negatively affect you. "Bad managers" are the opposite. Where you stand depends on where you sit. Sometimes a "good" manager has exactly two choices: pissing off his employee or pissing off his boss. Freelancing to try to find an alternative solution will also piss off his boss. If you cant accept that this is routine for middle managers, you aren't being intellectually honest.
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