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A History of Innovation and Dysfunction At Los Alamos National Laboratory (santafenewmexican.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the telling-people-to-invent-harder-doesn't-work dept.

In the past, Los Alamos National Laboratory has done some of the United States' most crucial research and development. Lately, the lab has been dealing with accidents and management problems. Reader DougDot directs us to a report from the Santa Fe New Mexican about the questions surrounding LANL's future. Quoting: Federal officials told Congress in December that they will put the LANL contract up for competitive bid for only the second time since the lab opened in 1943. The current LANS contract ends Sept 30, 2017. Identifying what went wrong, and why the lab has proven so difficult to manage, will play an important role for the Department of Energy as it seeks out new managers to run the lab. Investigators say the problems stem from repeated management weaknesses, the kind that were supposed to get fixed when the Department of Energy turned to private industry in 2006 to oversee the lab.

It was the first time the federal government had put the lab’s management up for bid, with the idea that a for-profit model, operating under an incentives-based contract, would fix the problems that haunted the nonprofit University of California, which had run the lab since World War II. ... experts, watchdog groups and former lab employees point to an array of problems, from a clash of cultures between the regimented and profit-driven Bechtel and the languorous, research-oriented university; to incentives that may have induced contractors to put a premium on meeting deadlines despite safety risks; to a mix of shoddy accountability and micromanagement on the part of the federal government.

85 comments

  1. Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just doesn't work. The teapublicans are just too stupid to understand that.

    1. Re:Private industry... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

      Two people died while I was there (industrial accident) back in the 80's when it was solely a Berkeley contract. IIRC, White Sands was the private operator and LA was the University operated arms.

    2. Re: Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Private industry is good at what it's good at, but if doing something dangerous it needs to be watched carefully because it WILL cheat and cut corners. That will continue until we stop rewarding sociopathic behaviors.

      Private industry is NOT good at other things, and basic research is one of them. Unpredictable timelines, highly educated people who actively dislike being 'managed'--these things are not compatible with a profit motive. Where government and nonprofits tend to foul up is in an extreme focus on process, usually begun for good reasons but sometimes they need redirecting.

      It's almost like no model is good for everything in the world--that you have to pick what's best for a given situation.

      That is something some Tea Partiers and on the other end some extreme liberals have a problem with.

      Being hardcore anti government or hardcore anti capitalist is kind of stupid. Both have stuff to offer, and both are destructive in the extremes.

    3. Re:Private industry... by DougDot · · Score: 1

      Two people died while I was there (industrial accident) back in the 80's when it was solely a Berkeley contract. IIRC, White Sands was the private operator and LA was the University operated arms.

      Um, no. White Sands (?) is a National Monument just south of Alamagordo, NM. The University of California managed the LANL contract from the mid-40's through 2006, when i tlost the contract to the current LLC, LANS.

    4. Re: Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, hard work - managing a research lab - is hard. Film at 11pm.

      Wtf do people expect?

    5. Re: Private industry... by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      Really ?

      Cosmic Background Radiation, Bell Labs
      Band Theory of Semiconductors, Bell Labs
      Information Theory, Bell Labs
      Atomic Force Microscope, IBM
      Josephson Junction Circuitry, IBM
      LASER, Bell Labs
      High Temperature Superconductors, IBM

      That's off the top of my head. I see the Zampolits in the universities have worked their magic on you very well.

    6. Re: Private industry... by DougDot · · Score: 1

      Really ?

      Cosmic Background Radiation, Bell Labs
      Band Theory of Semiconductors, Bell Labs
      Information Theory, Bell Labs
      Atomic Force Microscope, IBM
      Josephson Junction Circuitry, IBM
      LASER, Bell Labs
      High Temperature Superconductors, IBM

      That's off the top of my head. I see the Zampolits in the universities have worked their magic on you very well.

      Yes, well: The big dog in the current LANL contractor LLC is Bechtel. A construction company. Running a National Lab. No wonder everything is screwed up at LANL. A huge paradigm mismatch occurred when Bechtel took over the LANL contract in 2006.

    7. Re:Private industry... by eliphalet · · Score: 1

      Perhaps they meant Sandia National Lab.

    8. Re:Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those of us who aren't proud of our ignorance understand that WSMR is a much larger place than a small monument in the middle of the desert. The White Sands Missile Range goes from El Paso halfway to Albuquerque and is about 3,000 square miles.

    9. Re:Private industry... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Thats what the UK did for its first nuclear component and design work. The UK government quickly worked out the US had taken all its nuclear secrets and was not going to share any of the results with the UK post ww2.
      So a project was set up to pass all the skills to the private sector and then bring the results back into the UK as a production line within budget and on time.
      The UK got its own nuclear systems ready and working via its own staff and skill sets.
      Nations can use their private sectors with great efficiency, get amazing results with shareholders happy and enjoy exports for years.
      The problem with the US is the structure of profit taking, contractors, entitled shareholders, foreign brands wanting their share using paper work US front companies.
      The US is stuck with huge structures to remove cash from gov/mil projects and spread it around for a lot of profit taking. Whats left is for new work, maintenance or upgrades.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    10. Re:Private industry... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      Likely what happened...is the management changed, or at least the control did....

      BUT, they likely retained almost all of the people and middle management from the previous run...so, you basically had the same exact people causing problems before, still there causing the same problems.

      They'd likely need to pretty much "clean house" and start over, however, you'd lose a lot of brain talent that way too...and it often hard to pick out who truly you need and whom you can let go on a contract that large...but clean house is likely the only way to have hope of true reform.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    11. Re: Private industry... by naris · · Score: 1

      Nowadays, private industry also tends towards an extreme focus on process. There are inherent problems attempting to manage large organizations and private industry isn't any better at it than government is. I know this form a lot of experience (and friends' experience) in large, dysfunctional corporations (private industry) such as VW, Ford, GM, utilities (DTE & Consumers Energy), healthcare (Blue Cross, HAP, hospitals), etc...

    12. Re: Private industry... by mbkennel · · Score: 1


      I have heard personally from a former colleague who is intimately involved with LANL, a high-level University researcher with ties to LANL but not a direct employee.

      The current lab management contractors have various metrics for which they manage the lab employees & programs. One metric which is now completely absent? Progress, results, and success in innovative scientific research.

      The UC management might have been lax in other ways---it was very hands-off and let the lab do anything it wanted as long as there was some opportunity for UC professors to also work with LANL.

      But now, the fundamental purpose of much of the lab is not even recognized----and the management fee far, far higher. And previously when the UC was the prime contractor, all the money it got for management it put back in to joint research.

      The national labs can do things that universities cannot---sustained research and in particular development that takes too long and would not be rewarded in a cutthroat academic environment, but the bean-counting compliance-oriented, instead of success-oriented, management philosophy is not appropriate for what is literally, as the name says, a National Laboratory.

      LANL has always been the best, and I believe that some of its excellence has been because it was managed by the University of California primarily, and others were managed by private contractors.

    13. Re:Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find this likely too, its pretty much what every organization does when they are called to fix major in-house issues. Fire the lower deck people, then maybe a few sacrificial lamb managers that are past retirement or on the way out. Re-label existing mangement or shuffle a few people around and call it fixed.

      Its what I like to call deceptive housecleaning, they still keep the same idiots who ran the thing in the ground because 90% of them would be on the chop block.

    14. Re: Private industry... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cosmic Background Radiation, Bell Labs Band Theory of Semiconductors, Bell Labs Information Theory, Bell Labs

      Bell Labs, a privately run lab to soak up profits from a government mandated monopoly. Not sure that makes a case for private for profit management. More like publicly funded research utopia.

      Atomic Force Microscope, IBM Josephson Junction Circuitry, IBM LASER, Bell Labs High Temperature Superconductors, IBM

      IBM's accomplishments were all in the pursuit of making more better cheaper things. Any "basic research" that fell out of these efforts were serendipitous happenstance.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    15. Re:Private industry... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sorry about that. I was never at Sandia, just knew people who worked there. And it was a long time ago.

    16. Re:Private industry... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Sandia, not white sands. It was also the name of a bartender that I knew at Mom and Pops. I wonder if that place is still there.

    17. Re:Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wow 2 people out of 20,000 over 80 years.

    18. Re: Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You left out the 56K modem.
      beee weeebopweebop zzzzzzz weeeebopweeebop

    19. Re: Private industry... by silentcoder · · Score: 3, Informative

      >Bell Labs, a privately run lab to soak up profits from a government mandated monopoly. Not sure that makes a case for private for profit management. More like publicly funded research utopia.

      Not to mention the core diference is that Bell Labs, being created as a profit sponge, was not a profit seeking enterprise. They may have been owned by one, but because they were specifically *expected* to not make profit they didn't operate like one - and instead was allowed to operate like academia and deliver knowledge instead (some of which, at least, would later be profitable to Bell of course).

      The GP correctly pointed out that basic research is a very bad fit for a profit-motive, the only thing Bell Labs prove is that "academia" and charity are not the only ways one could conceivably fund a non-profit research lab. Nobody argued that, that was the case.
      That said - government-funded academia is definitely simpler to accomplish - which is why there are millions of government funded research labs around the world (including major multinational ones like CERN) while examples like Bell Labs are few and far between.
      Where private enterprise have tried to dabble in the "free reign for researchers lab" model in the past, hoping to cash in on ideas, there are far more dismal failures than successes. Xerox PARC was such an attempt - and while they produced world-class research and innocations - Xerox utterly failed to see it's value or capitalize on it (and basically gave the results to Steve Jobs for free). Ultimately that led to the end of PARC.

      Bell Labs didn't survive much past the end of the AT&T monopoly either. It genuinely seems that research labs run by profit-seeking enterprises generally do not work well, and can only succeed when very specific conditions are in place (that are not organically arrived at by market forces).

      I would add to the GP's reasons for this that science requires peer review, which works best when the results are shared as widely as possible. Secret-sauce science is not really science at all - and that too is fundamentally incompatible with the profit motive. Profit demands exclusivity but science demands reproducability - which are flat-out contradictory aims. This means that even when, practically, the process can be made to work - the results are tainted as science. Just look at the many resent scandals due to unreproducible drug tests. Evidence based medicine becomes a lot less trustworthy when we water down the scientific standards for what "evidence based" means (though still a lot better than pseudo-science like homeopathy and anti-vaxxers).

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    20. Re: Private industry... by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Yes, well: The big dog in the current LANL contractor LLC is Bechtel. A construction company. Running a National Lab. No wonder everything is screwed up at LANL. A huge paradigm mismatch occurred when Bechtel took over the LANL contract in 2006.

      A huge paradigm mismatch occurred when the government decided the best way to choose a contractor was by lowest price...the phrase is actually "lowest price, technically acceptable". You get what you pay for, and companies play the game of lowballing, or filling positions with people marginally qualified for the positions, so they can be paid less giving the firm more profit. And, in times of shrinking budgets, there's always pressure to reduce staffing.

      FWIW, a lot of my work is on contracts, figuring out staffing models (manpower availability, calculating required staff using monte carlo), requirements analysis, etc. While we always attempt to provide the best service/product we can, you can't build a Mercedes on a Hyundai budget.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    21. Re:Private industry... by JustBoo · · Score: 1

      just doesn't work. The teapublicans are just too stupid to understand that.

      Earth to Hate-Filled Bigot Luddite: George Bush is gone, it is the Democrats that have presided over the worst Crony-Capitalism in American history, for years now. Wow. (Funny how people can't help but project their own inadequacies... the stupid part being one.)

    22. Re:Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's also White Sands Missile Range which is used for (you guessed it) missile tests. It is also used for radio tests and where the first atomic bomb went off. It's also very close to Holloman AFB.

      Though you're right, Berkeley owned the Sandia National Labs contract. It was formerly AT&T, for the whopping annual fee of $1. Now run by Lockheed Martin Corporation.

    23. Re: Private industry... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      At least link to the sound for the noobs :)

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    24. Re: Private industry... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      You named two organizations, one defunct which was not a profit-making operation anyway. A very few companies will do serious basic research, but that doesn't mean it's a viable model. Most basic research is government-funded.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    25. Re: Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bell Labs was not "run to soak up profits" nor was it a "profit sponge"
      (parenthetically, it is unclear why any company would purposely destroy its own profit)

      The Lab was instituted and grew because Bell saw that only the labs could develop the technology their system needed.

      Bell Labs was not "publicly funded". It was a "research utopia", much as (I predict Verily, Musk AI, GoogleX are/will become).

      The labs were most definitely seen as a "profit centre". The Labs are actually a classic example of why companies exist.
      In economic theory it is unclear why an organisation would in-source something they could outsource, and, taken to its logical conclusion, why anyone would form a company. The answer (which, like Bell's own Transistor and Background radiation breakthroughs won a Noble prize), was that companies exist only when internal economies are more efficient. In this case, only ATT could afford to create and sustain Bell Laboratories.

      Basic research can fit a profit-motive, if the results can be harnessed by the company. The transistor is a good example: ATT needed switches that were more reliable, and more efficient. Shockley and Bardeen were able to deliver.

      Bell Labs couldn't survive past the end of the AT&T monopoly any more than GoogleX could servive if the US government forced Alphabet to divorce from Google Search (or if Harvard was forced to put a Chinese Wall between its research and teaching).

      The science at Bell was studiously peer reviewed both in-house and in publications. This is true for Shannon, C, Unix, S/R, the transistor work, background radiation etc etc..

      It's great if results are shared widely: That's what patents make possible. And what Bell largely did as they improved everything from insulators to Radar.

      Once you start call the results of private research "tainted", I think this just becomes some kind of statist class warfare.
      Was Venter's genome sequencer unreplicable tainted research? Nope. Is google's sonic radar "tainted"?
      Or the tech behind OLEDs or the hundreds of publication worthy scientific contributions produced each day by for-profit private organisations?

    26. Re: Private industry... by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      >(parenthetically, it is unclear why any company would purposely destroy its own profit)

      For exactly the reason Bell Labs existed - so a monopoly could hide how *much* of a monopoly it was and avoid antitrust laws.

      > Bell saw that only the labs could develop the technology their system needed.
      Most of what Bell Labs developed were useless to AT&T and they did some of the most important research in a field Bell was specifically prohibited from entering - they could only do that because there was no intention to profit from that research.

      >Bell Labs was not "publicly funded"
      I didn't say it was - I said that the lack of a profit motive on the research allowed the researchers to operate the same way publicly funded researchers do. Any researchers that have to consider a profit motive are no longer scientists by definition.

      >The transistor is a good example
      No, It is not. It's the exact opposite of basic research. It was intended to build something with a practical purpose - that's decidedly NOT research, that's engineering by definition. Research seeks knowledge, it presumes any knowledge is useful - and there is no such thing as "failure". A failed experiment is just as valuable as a successful one because either way you gained knowledge. You proved or disproved an idea. Engineering only cares about successes. Nobody is interested in a design that cannot work - but an experiment that cannot work has value.
      It's not monetary or practical value however, the value is the knowledge itself - not something you can profit from, you already have all the value RESEARCH can ever have the moment it is done.

      > Harvard was forced to put a Chinese Wall between its research and teaching
      Interesting suggestion - I would counter that I see no such problem but then I never saw teaching as a function of universities at all. To me a university is a research organisation, it exists purely for the production of knowledge for it's own sake. Teaching is a side activity it engages in purely for the purpose of letting the current generation of researchers pass their knowledge on to the next generation and ensuring there will be a next generation. Frankly any field that isn't purely research focussed should never have existed at university level at all. Arts and science should have been the only faculties a university ever had. The rest belong in trade schools.

      >That's what patents make possible.
      No. That's the opposite of what patents do. At least in the short term. However, it is irrelevant since anything you can patent is, by definition, not research but engineering. Research is about discovery, engineering is about building. Discoveries cannot be patented.

      Make no mistake, I am not dissing engineering. Engineering is a noble profession and I'm proud to be second generation engineer. But it's not science, it's not research and it is incredibly intellectually lazy to conflate the two as if they have something in common. Computer science (where Bell Lab's greatest breakthroughs happened) is a bit blurry - some of it is research most of it is engineering, the best things to come out of Bell (like Unix) were the ones more on the research side.

      >I think this just becomes some kind of statist class warfare
      Not at all - private research is tainted by the very concept that *anything* except the knowledge mattered at all - it forever leaves any private research less trustworthy than public research. But that doesn't imply either class or state based loyalties. There are many ways to fund things that involve neither profit motives NOR governments. They haven't been explored much when it comes to research but some examples do exist and I'm sure there could be others that will likely be far better than either of those alternatives (if only because governments also have ulterior motives and sometimes impose those on scientists which again taints the results).
      Science is about knowledge and the most trustworthy science is the science that considered nothing *bu

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    27. Re: Private industry... by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      First you aren't challenging the point, just the limits of effort I was willing to put into making the post.
      Second your second point is wrong.

    28. Re: Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Engineering only cares about successes. Nobody is interested in a design that cannot work - but an experiment that cannot work has value.

      Wrong. Designs that can not work are routinely used in engineering as a starting point towards understanding real systems. For example, take an engineering thermodynamics class. You'll spend lots of time studying designs that cannot work (they're physically impossible). Similarly, there are no linear systems in the real world: the real world is non-linear. But electrical and system engineers spend huge amounts of time studying linear systems, because real systems have modes of operation that are approximately linear.

    29. Re: Private industry... by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      But engineers dont try to build designs that almost certainly wont work. Scientists do experiments they expect to fail routinely - to confirm that they fail and if they dont start figuring out why.
      Engineering applies (usually very simplified) scientiffic theories while assuming those theories are correct. Science assumes tge opposite.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    30. Re: Private industry... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Do you have figures on basic research that is or is not government-funded? There are occasional companies that back researchers in pretty much what they want to do, like IBM or Microsoft, but most companies want to do more short-term and directed research and development and stuff they can incorporate into their products (and MIcrosoft seems particularly bad at that, however much I appreciate their contributions). It's going to be hard to separate out basic research. Coming up with the laser was arguably basic research (the theory had been more or less there before, but confirming basic research is basic research), but using it in audio and video players, or using it as a range-finder for tanks, wasn't. I don't think there's a reliable way to divide research and development to basic research (like the laser) and the definitely not basic research (like the Blu-Ray player). Lots of people in the private sector do non-basic research.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    31. Re: Private industry... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      But engineers dont try to build designs that almost certainly wont work. Scientists do experiments they expect to fail routinely - to confirm that they fail and if they dont start figuring out why. Engineering applies (usually very simplified) scientiffic theories while assuming those theories are correct. Science assumes tge opposite.

      As an engineer I worked at an R&D "lab" that was also charged with producing actual product. To confirm our models, we absolutely created designs that we expected to fail in order to confirm the models were correct so that designs that were supposed to work had a greater degree of confidence in meeting their design goals. I guarantee you I did not work in the only such job, as I strongly suspect companies like Apple work along similar lines, albeit maybe not with quite so many intended failures, as one of our goals was to document some bleeding edge cases.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    32. Re: Private industry... by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      You have a remarkable capacity to miss the point - then you pounce on explanatory statements and try to disprove those as if that would somehow impact the validity of the argument they were meant to explain.

      Let me try this again: engineering does not follow the scientific method, if it did it would *be* science. That is literally the difference between science and non-science.

      Philosophers demarcate systems of thought into three broad categories:
      1) Science - which can be identified by the fact that it follows the scientific method
      2) Pseudo-science - which pretends to be science but does not follow the scientific method and is thus not trustworthy
      3) Non-science - which does not follow the scientific method but also does not claim to and instead follow other methods more appropriate to their goals.

      Engineering falls under non-science. Now a lot of things fall under non-science and the lines can be debated - so for example most religious philosophers would categorize theology as a non-science while strict rationalists would categorize it as pseudo-science. Art is a much more definitive non-science. Nobody pretends Van Gogh is science, but it's clearly valuable nonetheless - while pseudo-science is worthless.
      But there is no significant debate about engineering - engineering is a non-science. It's goals and methodologies are vastly different from science despite occasional minor overlaps.
      These differences are important because what you categorize something as sets the expectations of the field. If you pretend that homeopathy is science - you are trying to get people to trust it's claims like it was real medicine - creating an expectation of the field which isn't supported by how the field operates.

      Now these are not absolute lines of separation - some specific activities cross the lines, many fields have elements from more than one category (engineering depends on scientific advance and in turn builds the tools which is needed to produce advances in science). But they are still recognizably different activities. The same job may entail doing engineering and science at different times of the day - and the job would be categorized by what it consists mostly off, but those activities are each still within one or the other category.

      My and the GP's argument was that the profit motive fundamentally conflicts with the scientific method, and I stand by the belief that "pure research" is a term which should only be applicable to science. The "pure" in "pure research" specifically refers to the LACK of any other goal but knowledge - the distinct lack of a profit motive or a desire to produce a working design or invent something or build something or sell something or even to give something away. It's "pure" research when the only identifiable goal is "to find out what happens" - that absence of any ulterior motive is what makes the research "pure".

      Privately funded research almost always has an ulterior motive, at best it's philanthropy - more commonly it's profit, but in either case this prevents one from sanely categorizing the results as "pure" research. When genuine science comes out of impure research it is, more often than not, accidental discoveries made while trying to achieve something else.
      The Manhattan project employed a lot of physicists, physics is undoubtedly a science - but the Manhatten project's goal was not learning knowledge for it's own sake - it's goal was to produce a weapon, a practical application of knowledge. The Manhatten Project was an engineering project - it only employed scientists because the science this engineering depended on was so cutting edge.
      One could even argue that while Feynman was working on the Manhatten project he was *not* a scientist but an engineer, he was a scientist before and after the project but not during it.

      The scientific method is fundamentally incompatible with a profit motive since it requires you to follow the evidence even if the evidence would lead to greater costs or even the complete destruction of

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    33. Re: Private industry... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      You have a remarkable capacity to miss the point - then you pounce on explanatory statements and try to disprove those as if that would somehow impact the validity of the argument they were meant to explain.

      Not at all. I agreed with the rest of your post except for this absolute statement:

      But engineers dont try to build designs that almost certainly wont work.

      The only potential quibble is as an engineer with an R&D lab are you more scientist or engineer? That would be a philosophical discussion I'd be open to but would likely be long and need to morph depending on the specific task being done (i.e., I'm stating that it is indeterminate in the general case)

      Perhaps I should have prefaced it with a few mollifying terms and not just stated it baldly, as I could see how that might come across as adversarial. As I spent less than 30s on the entire session, I take the blame for not proof reading it prior to hitting the submit button.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    34. Re: Private industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lost to mass manipulated schizophrenia... (but truly, looks like one one agency managed to produce the chip and see what they are doing with it? Less and less people...). Those who have *ears*...

  2. fire the coach by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    when the players are the problem. works every time.

    1. Re:fire the coach by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      There are ingrained issues at the labs. A new management company can't come in a get rid of existing dysfunctional subcontractors. Their employees often have bad attitudes and live in an entitlement culture. The DOE needs to let new companies displace the existing ones completely and just hire the existing people that want to get jobs done.

      With that said, their are sections of the labs that do great work and have talented people. Those are usually in the smaller, more focused programs.

    2. Re:fire the coach by DougDot · · Score: 2

      There are ingrained issues at the labs. A new management company can't come in a get rid of existing dysfunctional subcontractors. Their employees often have bad attitudes and live in an entitlement culture. The DOE needs to let new companies displace the existing ones completely and just hire the existing people that want to get jobs done.

      With that said, their are sections of the labs that do great work and have talented people. Those are usually in the smaller, more focused programs.

      Wow, sounds like the voice of experience from an actual current or past LANL employee. I spent 20 years at LANL. During the last 15 years there my group brought in all of our own funding from external, non-DOE sources for non-weapons work. We had to fight LANL management and the DOE to do this, because they resented us doing work for others.

      We brought in work from other agencies in spite of the fact that due to LANL's exorbitant overhead costs the annual FTE rate (the amount of money we we had to charge outside agencies for one year of a staff person's time) was more than $500,000.

      These days, due to Bechtel/UC's top-heavy management structure, and the general inefficiency with which they run the place, the overhead rates are even higher than they were when I left the lab in 2005. Current FTE rates for staff at LANL now exceeds $600,000 per year.

      The question is: why would anybody want to spend that much money to do scientific research when it could be done elsewhere much more cost effectively?

    3. Re:fire the coach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ~$2,000-$2,500 a day seems like a solid rate. The companies I've worked at charge more for a day of my time as an applications/process engineer. Don't forget you're often depreciating a multimillion dollar workstation/apparatus along with the worker.

    4. Re:fire the coach by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2

      Not an employee, but I've done work with/for the labs on a few occasions, and know people who've managed some pretty big contracts. They go out there with intentions of changing things and making progress, but those attitudes are not rewarded, but rather result in political backlash. They come back disenchanted.

    5. Re:fire the coach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      holy sheet! I think China Lake had a bad FTE but that blows us out of the water.... well desert anyways.

    6. Re:fire the coach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We brought in work from other agencies in spite of the fact...why would anybody want to spend that much money to do scientific research?"

      My guess is that you were in an area with a lot of low six figure PhDs with a median age somewhere in the 40s. Overhead costs are high not just due to the high salary base but also due to all the customer requirements (e.g. security and financial auditing) necessary to do business with them. The management is on good terms with the customer(s) who keep throwing money their way (if they're able to get it) because nobody got fired for supporting the geniuses at LANL. The customer likely has fat budgets with minor incentive to reduce cost since the products are likely a one-off.

    7. Re:fire the coach by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, looks like we have a private industry worshipper.

      If the buck doesn't stop with LANS, then what are they being paid for?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    8. Re:fire the coach by DougDot · · Score: 1

      The first thing Bechtel did when they took over the LANL contract in 2006 was to triple the number to upper-level managers making more than $200K per year from 20 to 60. It did wonders for the overhead rate.

  3. I worked there by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    I worked there for a time. I didn't see the issues, but I am not aware of everything that went on. I am really proud of the Lab and what it was accomplished for the US and the West in general.

    1. Re:I worked there by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Did you work there during UC's reign or LANS? I was there for the switch over. It went quite rapidly down hill. First thing they did was start paying themselves much much more money (duhhh). Then they decided to (a) instigate a hiring freeze and (b) make life shitty so they could lose staff by "attrition". Of course what that does id get rid of the people most able to leave (i.e. good people who can find employment elsewhere).

      Then when ever something bad happened, they seemed determined to do as much damage to the lab as possible. Example: FBI checks on someone to give them a clearance. Person turns out to be a drug dealer. Result: BLAME THE LAB AND BY IMPLICATION ALL THE STUPID SCIENTISTS because yeah we totally do background checks.

      Naturally the response to this was to create MORE MANAGEMENT and send more shit downhill. Oh yes, and shit on foreign nationals a bit more (fun fact: we've not been responsible for a single security incident ever). Naturally there were occasionally good managers who would attempt to protect their minions by pushing back. The majority were not like that. There were so many layers they all had something to do so many liked to invent new extra rules to prove to their bosses they were doing something. Naturally all this did was make it even harder to get work done.

      Oh and no only that but they have no idea what it is the lab actually does. Last time I visited (still got lots of friends there and Pajarito mountain is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet) there was a fucking massive banner stuck up near the annoying road wiggle they put up reading "Let's do it right first time".

      It's fucking science research you morons. If we knew the answers it wouldn't be research.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:I worked there by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Oh yes, and shit on foreign nationals a bit more (fun fact: we've not been responsible for a single security incident ever).

      Oh yeah, foreign nationals never exfiltrate information to their home countries... Perhaps you should take your head out of a book, and maybe read some current events, as yes, they do, and are the largest source of leaks. There is a reason that The Big Bang Theory made a joke out of one of the characters dating a woman who defected to North Korea and was only interested in the rocket fuel formula he was working on. It is quite common for foreign nationals to try to steal trade secrets and export them home to North Korea, China, India, and likely other countries. It is easier to steal research than to pay to do the research, so there is a large incentive.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    3. Re:I worked there by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah, foreign nationals never exfiltrate information to their home countries

      Not at Los Alamos they don't. Because we were very effectively kept away from sensitive information by not having a clearance, and having no access to ITAR stuff.

      Perhaps you should take your head out of a book, and maybe read some current events, as yes, they do, and are the largest source of leaks.

      At Los Alamos? Citation fucking needed, mate. Especially as nice, upstanding Americans have been caught selling nuclear secrets for money and stealing USB keys and selling them (as USB keys---the sensitive data was just a bonus I guess).

      No foreign national employed at the lab ever did that.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  4. Incentive based contract? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well the only thing that is going to get you is someone looking to game the system to best pad their pockets, like cutting corners on research.

    The government is simply a for-profit corporation who is constantly in failure, but to big to actually fail.

  5. What the fuck does "languorous" mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had no idea what the fuck the term "languorous" meant, so I looked it up.

    Apparently it has to do with "languor", another word I had never heard or seen.

    For those who don't know, "languor" refers to a penis that exhibits weakness or a a deficit of energy.

    How that applies in this case, I have no frigging clue.

    1. Re:What the fuck does "languorous" mean? by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      It is popular to think of research University folk as lounging around not doing much, sucking up free grant money. That is what they mean by languorous.

    2. Re:What the fuck does "languorous" mean? by thoromyr · · Score: 1

      Just because you are ignorant of the English language doesn't mean everyone else is. And if you are unable to apply the definitions you look up then that brings into question your grasp of English overall. (And giving a fake definition for a word does not contribute to demonstrating your having a grasp on the language.)

  6. Good times there in the 90's by perlface · · Score: 0
    I did a couple of internships/co-ops there. Fun place. Like a university but without regular classes -- oh and a lot more guns.

    It is a giant government complex rife with waste and bloat no different than many other large government operations.

    I remember when a tech in our lab was tasked to "spend" $250,000 in two-weeks with nothing costing more than $5000. He had fun.

    1. Re:Good times there in the 90's by Billy+the+Mountain · · Score: 1

      "Hey look, Jim, there's a 'Property of D.O.E.' sticker on each rim of this Lambo!

      --
      That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
  7. Bechtel sucks ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In Romania they could not even build a highway ... I don't think they have the skills to run a highly advanced technical lab like Los Alamos.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A3_motorway_%28Romania%29#Bechtel_controversy

    1. Re:Bechtel sucks ... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Who would you recommend over them?

    2. Re:Bechtel sucks ... by RuffMasterD · · Score: 1

      Romania did pay them $1.5 Billion for building 52 km of highway. I think that's a world record $28.8 Million per km. That's got to be a pure gold highway or something.

      --
      Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
    3. Re:Bechtel sucks ... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      To be fair, the highway does terminate in Transylvania, they probably had a hell of a turnover with Dracula eating all their workers.

      In reality though, look at the path the highway takes, it goes across the whole country, which as far as I understand is quite mountainous. The particular section that they worked on is not indicated as to the difficulty though, and the Carpathian mountain section is said to be the most difficult, which apparently they didn't work on.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  8. Incentive based Contracts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unless you've actually spent years working for defense contracting you really don't have a clue about the realities of the Incentive based contracts.
    I CAN tell you the government model for them is outdated for the current generation of management...to the frustration of the entire industry of engineering.
    It your tax money, stop complaining over blogs and write your congressman for Christ's sake.

    1. Re:Incentive based Contracts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you've actually spent years working for defense contracting you really don't have a clue about the realities of the Incentive based contracts.
      I CAN tell you the government model for them is outdated for the current generation of management...to the frustration of the entire industry of engineering.
      It your tax money, stop complaining over blogs and write your congressman for Christ's sake.

      it doesn't take many years. All it takes is seeing the contractors write the proposals and white papers then hand them off to senators for the rubber stamp of approval is is all it takes.

    2. Re:Incentive based Contracts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. When you're embedded you see the waste, bloat, and hiding of the issues. You see the intentional underbidding especially if you had a hand in the design. You also understand how the fixed and cost plus contracts are gamed.
      You're wrong, wrong, wrong.

  9. One major culprit unnamed by gbooker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I grew up in Los Alamos and I worked there during my high school years through some of graduate school. The article completely failed to mention one of the main culprits for a lot of these problems: The Department of Energy. While I do not have knowledge beyond what is in the press for most of the incidents mentioned, the ones where I do mostly include a major role in the problem played by DOE ranging from their screwed up policies to direct involvement. Given this, a new contractor can only do so much.

    --
    You see? It's like I've always said. You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can with just a kind word.
    1. Re:One major culprit unnamed by DougDot · · Score: 2

      I grew up in Los Alamos and I worked there during my high school years through some of graduate school. The article completely failed to mention one of the main culprits for a lot of these problems: The Department of Energy. While I do not have knowledge beyond what is in the press for most of the incidents mentioned, the ones where I do mostly include a major role in the problem played by DOE ranging from their screwed up policies to direct involvement. Given this, a new contractor can only do so much.

      Or only so much less, in the case lf Bechtel-led LANS.

      But I basically agree with you. BTW, I also grew up in Los Alamos, and worked there during some of my undergrad days. Oh, and then spent two decades there as a staff member.

  10. Bigger problem than you think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look folks. This is a problem that spans wider than Los Alamos. You'll probably find similar issues at Lawrence Livermore, Laboratory for Laser Engergetics, or any other DOE funded Research lab. The problem is not so much the lab themselves (although current management structure I'm sure adds to the problem) but with the way the government does contracting. If you want you mind blown go work for a defense contract company, a nd really understand how contracts are awarded. One glaring example is the F35.

    1. Re:Bigger problem than you think by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      You'll probably find similar issues at any large organization. Richard Feynman was noted for saying the triumph of Apollo was not technical but rather managerial.

  11. Exactly what you'd expect by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 2

    Investigators say the problems stem from repeated management weaknesses, the kind that were supposed to get fixed when the Department of Energy turned to private industry in 2006 to oversee the lab.

    If you believe that was ever the goal of turning it over to a private company, I've got a bridge to sell you. It was strictly about giving a valuable contract to a big company, done by an administration that Believed(TM) in the divinity of private industry.

    I don't have inside information about Los Alamos, but I did know someone at a different national lab that got privatized at the same time. I heard a lot of horror stories from him. Their policies had nothing to do with running an effective research organization, and everything to do with squeezing as much money out of it as they could get.

    --
    "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
    1. Re:Exactly what you'd expect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I worked for several years at Bettis Labs in PA in support of the Naval Nuclear program -- it's another DOE-operated site, albeit on a smaller scale than Los Alamos. Some of the policies I saw there, which I know applied at at least a half-dozen other DOE sites were nothing short of immeasurably stupid. As one example, the entire facility is operated under a "manpower" limit as opposed to a budget for personnel...which meant that all other things being equal, the operators would hire a disproportionate number of doctoral level engineers at incredibly high salaries and then leave the place short of lab technicians, crafts-persons, secretarial support, and of particular angst to me, technical writers. But it gets worse -- MANY MANY of the "engineers" were complete misfit nincompoops with associated poor hygiene -- folks who could never get a job in a profit-oriented environment, who had no innovation skills whatsoever. They would often be tasked to spend an entire year writing some kind of report to summarize some kind of situation or planned work, but when the time came to actually DO INNOVATIVE ENGINEERING WORK, that work would be subcontracted outside the facility. NO EXAGGERATION, I was part of a group of 20 "engineers" (using that term loosely) who were in charge of overseeing sub-contract work being performed by, get ready here.....20 engineers. Of the approximately 950 engineers who worked on-site while I was around, at MOST, 50 of those 950 engineers were competent and doing innovative, cutting-edge design work. The other 900 were holding onto coattails doing busywork, reports, etc. I hesitate to say names, but know that pretty much all of the Naval nuclear reactor design innovations that occurred during the time I was there was performed by one BRILLIANT nuclear engineer with the initials R.D. Similarly, the vast majority of the electrical/controls work in support of the reactor designs was spearheaded by one BRILLIANT electrical engineer with the initials J.R. I do not stretch the truth here in saying that 900 of the 950 engineers on that site could have been exorcised with absolutely NO PERCEPTIBLE DROP IN THROUGHPUT. I strongly suggest that this type of situation exists at probably all of the major national research laboratories. A general truth, which was known by recruiters and peers in other parts of Westinghouse (who operated the lab at the time) was that any "engineer" who stayed at Bettis beyond a few years was probably not worth a shit, as all those who had ambition to actually do something bailed pretty quickly upon seeing what really went on.

      Since I reckon that government web watchdogs now have an automated scanning utility to hit on all articles that mention certain keywords, and since I further presume that BETTIS LABS is one of those keywords, please know that although I'm not an authorized classifier, I've made a best effort in this write-up to get up close to the line, but not divulge anything I would reasonably expect to be within the realm of classified. So, please, no need here to come looking for me; I'm not necessarily maladjusted, but to say that I'm happy about the part of my life I WASTED THERE would be inaccurate.

    2. Re:Exactly what you'd expect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > If you believe that was ever the goal of turning it over to a private company, I've got a bridge to sell you.

      Exactly. This obsession with "private" has all the hallmarks of a religion: dazzle the credulous while you get insanely rich off them.

      Old as humankind.

      Or, to put it cynically: replace bastards by greedy bastards (and get a handsome cut in passing).

    3. Re:Exactly what you'd expect by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 2

      Sadly, what you're describing is true of any large organization. The Dilbert Principle in action.

  12. Stick a fork in it. by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

    LANL is officially dead. Last one out, turn off the lights. (It'll keep glowing on its own for quite some time.)

  13. A Case Study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Western Science is riddled with incompetence and dishonesty. For example, Los Alamos.

  14. Bechtel is the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does a privately held company like Bechtel exercise such sway over lucrative contracts in the public sector?
    As a private company, they avoid a lot of potentially embarrassing reporting requirements.
    So who really profits from Bechtel? Not you Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer.
    Until Bechtel goes public, they should not be allowed to handle contracts in the public sector.

    1. Re:Bechtel is the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does a privately held company like Bechtel exercise such sway over lucrative contracts in the public sector?
      As a private company, they avoid a lot of potentially embarrassing reporting requirements.
      So who really profits from Bechtel? Not you Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer.
      Until Bechtel goes public, they should not be allowed to handle contracts in the public sector.

      The old-fashioned way: they purchase Senators and Congressmen. Were you born yesterday?

    2. Re:Bechtel is the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does a privately held company like Bechtel exercise such sway over lucrative contracts in the public sector?
      As a private company, they avoid a lot of potentially embarrassing reporting requirements.
      So who really profits from Bechtel? Not you Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer.
      Until Bechtel goes public, they should not be allowed to handle contracts in the public sector.

      If Bechtel went public, then they would be run by Wall Street and the New York banking community.
      How is that better?

  15. That's bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the FTE at LANL is not that high on average.

  16. Sounds like Honeywell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like the way Honeywell manages the Kansas City Plant (weapons production). Running it into the ground.

  17. Re:+5 Informative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What are your thoughts about H-1B programmers who remove the lid from the top of the tank, sit on the now-open tank with their feet placed on the toilet seat or rim, and deposit their feces into the tank directly? Is this a healthier way to defecate?

    Perhaps that's better than the ones that repeatedly shit in the company shower, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

  18. 500-600k? That's extreme by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jet Propulsion Lab, which is perceived as an "expensive" FFRDC (because it's in Los Angeles, which is an expensive place to live)..

    Senior engineers making $120k/yr bill out at about 300k/yr to the customer. 60k is straight ahead benefits. The remaining 120 is overheads, multiproject support, etc.

    Twice that, in a place with low living expenses, is really high.

  19. Los Alamos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This community, which fulfilled it "purpose" in 1945, and should have been CLOSED as a "National Laboratory" in 1946, is home to the highest concentration of millionaires in the United States. It's taken us SEVENTY YEARS to figure out we are wasting our money there?
    Just how much has the country received in return for the "investment" in keeping this dinosaur going this long?
    Pete7
    Santa FE, NM

  20. Re:+5 Informative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To be fair, if I had only ever seen squat toilets my entire life, then I would probably struggle to decide between shitting in the tank and shitting in the shower too. Reminds me of a time when a company I worked for made everyone redundant, and we found out on the morning news. We still had a few days work left. The next day management called us all in to ask who shat in the shower the day before :-) Some magnificent bastard took his frustrations out the best way he could. The cleaners weren't going to clean it. We certainly weren't going to clean it, the company couldn't fire us. I would have loved to hear the discussion in the board room while they decided who should clean that one up.

  21. Says it all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... operating under an incentives-based contract ...

    Was one of those incentives coming in on-, or under-, budget?

    ... get fixed when the Department of Energy turned to private industry ...

    Private industry (via the capitalist model) provides efficiency of supply, nothing more. US politics has this dream that profit-driven organizations must be cheaper: We've all learnt to spot the flaw in that delusion. If the DoE can't supply its own 'new broom' management, then contractors are an alternative, and hopefully, effective solution. Evidence suggests private industry can't supply a 'new broom' either.

    ... to a mix of shoddy accountability and micromanagement on the part of the federal government.

    Attitude reflects leadership: It's true because a boss chooses underlings who support his policies and his style of leadership. This often degrades into 'Meet the new boss; same as the old boss'.

  22. I retired from LANL a few months before LANS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some of the technical computing people at LANL were world-class, but almost all those I knew have gone to Oak Ridge or Argonne Lab (DOE "science" labs, not a "defense" lab), universities or Silicon Valley companies. Most of the managers who drove off all that talent are still there, however, and they seem to have multiplied.