Update, 11/9. Could someone who attended please post a summary of what was said? Thanks,
-Gus
__________________________________
[An ideal opportunity to ask questions about NNSA's plans to scale up pit production activities at LANL.
Come to think of it, someone might want to ask Marty how many people he thinks LANS should RIF this year in support of NNSA's 'vision for the NWC'.
It would probably be a good idea to be of retirement age if you're thinking of bringing these issues up, however.
-Gus]
From the LANL NewsBulletin
November 5, 2007
Focus on Nuclear Weapons Complex transformation
Marty Schoenbauer, principal assistant deputy administrator for National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Programs, will visit the Laboratory, meet with senior managers, and give an all-employee talk about NNSA's "Vision of the Future Complex and How We Will Get There" at an all-employee meeting at 2:30 p.m., Thursday in the National Security Sciences Building Auditorium.
During the talk, Schoenbauer will discuss issues key to transformation of the Nuclear Weapons Complex, including drivers for NWC transformation, the NNSA's vision of the future NWC, the draft-preferred alternative to achieve NWC transformation, changes to current NWC missions and functions, and impacts to the existing NWC sites. He also will discuss the role the Laboratory will play in transformation and the opportunities likely to develop.
Schoenbauer's talk is unclassified and open to all badge-holders. Standard escorting rules apply for admission to the NSSB Auditorium (uncleared personnel must be escorted). The talk also will be shown on LABNET Channel 9 and on desktop computers using Real Media Stream and IPTV technology.
Marty Schoenbauer, principal assistant deputy administrator for National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Programs, will visit the Laboratory, meet with senior managers, and give an all-employee talk about NNSA's "Vision of the Future Complex and How We Will Get There" at an all-employee meeting at 2:30 p.m., Thursday in the National Security Sciences Building Auditorium.
During the talk, Schoenbauer will discuss issues key to transformation of the Nuclear Weapons Complex, including drivers for NWC transformation, the NNSA's vision of the future NWC, the draft-preferred alternative to achieve NWC transformation, changes to current NWC missions and functions, and impacts to the existing NWC sites. He also will discuss the role the Laboratory will play in transformation and the opportunities likely to develop.
Schoenbauer's talk is unclassified and open to all badge-holders. Standard escorting rules apply for admission to the NSSB Auditorium (uncleared personnel must be escorted). The talk also will be shown on LABNET Channel 9 and on desktop computers using Real Media Stream and IPTV technology.
Questions, news tips: send an e-mail to newsbulletin@lanl.gov
or call (505) 667-6103
31 comments:
"It would probably be a good idea to be of retirement age if you're thinking of bringing these issues up, however."
And to have your papers filed, final employment day signed and sealed, office cleared out, badge ready to hand in.
This ain't the "good old days" of UC any more...
UC represented the "good old days?" What a scary thought.
7:24am - with respect to "at will employee" status, yes.
7:24 am:
A simple metric: Over the years of UC tenure, what was the average fraction of the workforce that was proud and happy to work here?
Now?
10:01,
I presume you are excluding 2004 - 2005 from your simple metric.
-Gus
The sheeple will say nothing.
No hard questions will be asked of Schoenbauer that make him feel the least bit uncomfortable about the ugly reality that is today's LANL.
Let's all practice before Schoenbauer arrives so we'll know how to greet him.
Repeat in unison after me:
"The morale at LANL? Uh, why it's better than ever!"
-- Mikey
Schoenbauer will probably inform his audience that Dan Glenn will return to the LASO in Dec. as Technical Deputy. Word is out Dan is coming back to work on the areas the DNFSB said were bad @ LANL.
I know what question to ask to make Mr. Schoenbauer feel uncomfortable: "When are we going to get subsidized child care?"
Gus (10:08 am):
2004 - 2005 was a period of 1) stupider than usual DOE management, and 2) stupider than usual UC rsponses to it, including Nanos. If you think that negates 60+ years of UC stewardship (and I was hee for over 30 of them) you are wrong.
Keep your traps shut if you want to continue to receive those nice, fat LANL paychecks just a little bit longer.
LANS will be watching and taking down names for our upcoming Holiday 'party'. Believe me, this is one 'party' for which you don't want an invite!
-- Mikey
The complete silence and stalling from LANS and NNSA on supplying meaningful info about the upcoming RIF is telling us something. I'm just not sure what it tells us.
A good bet might be that it tells us that NNSA is not yet fully satisfied with the LANS layoff plan. I'm beginning to suspect that NNSA wants to see less in the way of enticement for the voluntary terminations and much heavier weight on the RIF side of the equation.
Still, we need to all know whether we can buy the kids Christmas gifts this year or whether we'll be taking the family downtown to stand in the soup lines.
Which will it be, NNSA?
It will be interesting to watch and see if Schoenbauer even bothers to take questions after his talk on Thursday afternoon.
I'm betting he makes his talk, maybe takes one or two short questions, and then quickly exits the stage.
As far as his talk goes, he's going to do a soft sell on what the Complex Transformation means to those who work at LANL. It will all be casts in terms of "this is all preliminary, it's not been finalized, Congress has the last say, etc".
Don't expect to hear anything close to the full truth about NNSA's game plan for LANL.
I think the visit is so that NNSA can announce that they have accepted and approved a modified plan and that the plan (whatever it has become) will be implemented effective immediately.
NNSA sent out the original call for plans. NNSA will want to take credit for improving the bottom line numbers and let LANS, LLC management handle the details but not the announcement and launch.
Just a guess.
Maybe no one else noticed but Schoenbauer picture looked enough like Don Cobb that I did a double-take. Deja vu all over again.
OK, so what did this guy have to say? I trust all was revealed.
Any info on what was said by Schoenbauer after the fact?
Well, did everyone enjoy Marty's talk? Now we know where NNSA is planning to cut. And there should be no further doubt that NNSA has picked LANL as the site for their plutonium pit factory.
"And there should be no further doubt that NNSA has picked LANL as the site for their plutonium pit factory."
That comes as no suprise to me whatsoever - time for me to shift gears.
I wonder if viewgraphs of his talk are available out there somewhere? I'm curious to see whether or not this was the same talk given at the NTS a couple of weeks ago, or if more details are now coming out of NNSA.
Any specific mention of the NTS or LLNL w.r.t. programs/projects (or what's left of them) being shifted from one site to another (e.g., HE operations, hydrotest firing sites, material storage, etc.)?
I tried listening on both my computer and the labnet tv connection. The audio didn't work on either. I took this as a sign and gave up!
"A simple metric: Over the years of UC tenure, what was the average fraction of the workforce that was proud and happy to work here?"
A simple metric warrants a simplistic answer. In the minds of the sheeple community, UCRS equated to a contentment. It was that simple for them. And so like real sheep grazing contently before the slaughter, the Lab's sheeple segment was happy just to be fed. As for the thinking few, I'm sure they saw UC for what it really was--a worthless, self-serving absentee landlord that the bare minimum to keep the contract, and could care less about Los Alamos or its worker force. But that's a reality the sheeple in our midst will never be able to recognize, much less accept.
Schoenbauer cited the LANL blog as being one of the most informative sources of information he's found regarding what's going on inside the Lab. With that said, he then expressed NNSA's deep appreciation for the LANS team. He said that LANS was doing such a phenominal job of following in UCs footsteps. Hmmm...do you suppose that UC beng part of the LANS team has anything to do with it? You think? Naah! Couldn't be.
From this morning's "Links":
Marty Schoenbauer's talk on NNSA's "Vision of the Future Complex and How We Will Get There" will be rebroadcast beginning at 7:30 this morning and continuing throughout the day on LABNET Channel 10.
--
From the LABNET page:
LABNET TEN will not be replaying the November 8, 2007 "Vision of the Future Complex" tape by Marty Schoenbauer until it has been properly reviewed.
--
From Anonymous 10:11 AM:
I tried listening on both my computer and the labnet tv connection. The audio didn't work on either.
--
From me:
Only the Best and Brightest at LANL's LABNET A/V department!
"LABNET TEN will not be replaying the November 8, 2007 "Vision of the Future Complex" tape by Marty Schoenbauer until it has been properly reviewed." - 11:23 AM
I was a bit shocked by the presentation. All of Marty's vu-graphs had headers and footers with only the lame statement "Pre-Decisional Work Draft" and nothing else! No "Unclassified", no "Reviewed by..", no "OUO", etc. Try doing that as a LANS employee and see how long you get to keep your job.
As far as LANS needing to review it, who knows? Perhaps Marty slipped in an SRD statement during this unclassified presentation. No matter, NNSA is allowed to make security mistakes with little in the way of repercussions. Anyone remember those missing SRD disk down at the DOE ABQ office a few years ago? Did you notice how that story quickly died out? Only NNSA contractors get the shit kicked out of them for security mishaps.
11:23...
"only the Best and Brightest at LANL's LabNet A/V department."
Yeah, like you're the new definition of perfection. Why don't you call 'em, knee-jerk, and ask what happened before shooting your mouth off.
Schoenbauer's talk only had moderate attendance. This was strange when you consider the fact that he was here to tell us where NNSA is taking the complex in the very near future. You would think this subject would be front and center with the whole LANL staff and that the auditorium would have been so packed that they had to turn people away. The moderate size of the crowd was especially perplexing when you consider that a RIF is coming in the next month or so. The sheeple at LANL apparently continue to silently graze on the last tuffs of summer's grass, oblivious to the big winter storm approaching from the north.
Perhaps it's a sign that most of the staff have grown weary and jaded or maybe it's just further evidence of a welfare mentality which has overtaken most of LANL. I'm not sure which of the two is most true.
I agree with 11/5/07 7:24 PM. Marty plans to mention Dan Glenn is leaving Pantex in Dec. and coming to LASO as a Technical Deputy to help save LANL and it's conduct of Operations issues Nanos and the gang couldn't fix.
Or a sign that the rank and file can't influence the coming events, and so did not see any benefit in going.
> Why don't you call 'em, knee-jerk,
> and ask what happened before
> shooting your mouth off.
Well, what did happen, Mr. Labnet A/V person?
Did a cosmic ray knock out the equipment or something?
You'd think by now that the people LANL pays to do these broadcasts would have it mastered, including the ability to quickly deal with any equipment malfunctions.
Or was the audio blanked out because it wasn't "properly reviewed" yet?
Didn't see the whole thing as there were multiple meetings/talks scheduled at exactly the same time. However, the audio was working on Macs when I tried it.
He seemed proud of how much they are going to shrink the complex. Sounded like some places are facing a virtual shutdown. And the only thing coming our way is production type work. Maybe not even much of that. Maybe I missed the part with the light at the end of the tunnel, but what I saw was all doom and gloom.
Didn't seem to give Schoenbauer any heartburn. If we are "sheeple", then I would say he came across as a shepherd calmly discussing preparations for tomorrow's lamb stew.
Likely, this was meant to be just another CYA talk, so that managers can say that they are communicating with us. Seen a few of those talks lately. They're not well attended, because everyone knows that nothing new is going to be said. Nobody wants to hear their manager say "we know the answer to that question, but we haven't decided yet how much we want people to know". Especially, where that's the answer to almost every question. I have to admit that it's probably an honest answer, but it doesn't exactly inspire trust.
Given the lack of intent for any real communication, it would be deliciously ironic if Schoenbauer accidentally said something substantive.
But of course, now we probably won't even get fake briefings anymore.
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