Excerpted from the conclusion of Hecker's testimony before the 30 April 2008 Senate Committee on Appropriations, Energy and Water Subcommittee hearing. The video quality is poor, but it appears that Senator Domenici was shocked to hear Hecker say this.
When we went the direction of contractorization we made a grievous error pushing the laboratories in a direction that simply isn't right for this country and we've suffered from that. The whole environment at these laboratories has changed.
Secondly, over the last... I would say now sixteen years, the regulatory environment at these laboratories ha become so risk averse that we essentially can't get work done anymore. In 1965 I came to Los Alamos as a young student because it was the best place to go work. Unfortunately, these laboratories today are not the best places to go work anymore. And we need to make them such. And just more money doesn't do the trick. We have to change the working environment to allow people to get their work done. These places nowadays look more like prisons than they do like university campuses or something in between, which is what we tried to make them. Attract the best, protect the most important. We've lost a sense of all that. That's one of the reasons why these laboratories are suffering today.
Mr. Chairman, when you say the system is broken, it's broken in many different ways and we should fix it, I agree.
Right on Sig! Too bad you didn't 'shock' the Senators before it was too late. LANL has collapsed under the corporate greed, DOE bureaucracy, and political correctness. Individuals still do good work in spite of all this but they are near exhaustion and are simply retiring in place or leaving. No staff I know would recommend a LANL career to any student.
ReplyDeleteHecker will now be branded as a "has been" who doesn't understand the new world. Washington won't hear a message they don't like.
ReplyDeleteThe fix is simple, put UC back in charge as a non-profit and let UC hire a token number of the Bechtel phony managers as subcontractors. Unfortunately, the same monkeys would be running the place, but this would immediately return over $170M per year to LANL's operating budget. This funding might help avert the impending LANL collapse. On second thought, we probably should get rid of the monkeys too - Sig, can you come back?
ReplyDeleteCome on Secretary Bodman, come on Mr. D'Agostino, it's well past time for you to admit that the LANS and LLNS experiments are total failures.
If DOE can't admit this grevious mistake, then Congress, it's time for you to step in.
Please. This was heroic on Sig's part. Clearly the twilight hour but, its the best I have heard in a long time. The next time I see Sig I will go out of my way to shake his hand.
ReplyDeleteNo one in Congress ever listened to Sig,when he was Director, why would they listen now? And yes he is a 'has been' and of no account.
ReplyDeleteMy hat is off to Sig....But it is too late to bring LANL back from the DNR mode. The Bush Administration made sure their political cronies got a large slice of the scientific pie. The reality is this contract is costing us about $350M a year so science has suffered. Believe me no politician cares! Just ask them. And get ready to take your Pit 101 class.
ReplyDeleteAlso, remember there is life after LANL. Try it you might like it! Money isn't everything, even a prostitute can tell you that. Oops that would be us......since most of the passion is gone.
6:39 pm: "No one in Congress ever listened to Sig,when he was Director, why would they listen now? And yes he is a 'has been' and of no account."
ReplyDeleteWrong. Sig's service to the country, after being LANL Director, is exemplary. His was the first truly technically accurate and detailed account of NKs plutonium production capability, after his "hands-on" inspection. Having dealt personally with Sig for several years, I can attest that he is honest, forthright, incredibly intelligent, and a complete gentleman in all respects. His desire to serve his country and advance its interests is unparalleled. Congress will ignore his advice and consultation at the country's peril.
8:26 PM - unfortunately, Sig's outspokeness comes AFTER the Wen Ho, the hard drives, Nanos, the "missing" crem, the laser incident, the aqua regia incident, and LANS ... before all this ... where was Sig?
ReplyDeleteSig is right on. Too bad Congress is more consumed with perception at the expense of reality. LANS has been a disaster from the get go. LANL is run like a prison. Science is going elsewhere. National security is suffering badly.
ReplyDelete8:43 pm: "where was Sig?"
ReplyDeleteSig was where any classy person would be as an ex-Director of LANL - biding his time, making his feelings known to close associates, and keeping his mouth closed in public. That latter part is the most confusing to the people who have no class.
Bravo, Sig..... a university campus? those were the days, my friend
ReplyDeleteI remember back around '96 when Sig decided to collapse LANL's bloated upper management structure into a smaller and more responsive group of top managers. For a few years after the '95 RIF the costs at LANL actually went down. Of course, then Director Brown came in and put all the upper level managers back in place (and then some) and LANL's cost began to rise once again.
ReplyDeleteSig talks a lot of truth in this testimony. Alas, as other have remarked, Congress will ignore it and NNSA will continue to define "success" in whatever fashion they deem fit. LANL is a empty shell of its former glory and Sig is right when he says that no good scientist would want to come and work here any longer. He is right, it feels and looks like a drab prison.
We've arrived at the famous "Work Free Safety Zone" at LANL, and even Sig agrees with this slogan. I shudder when I think about what LANL will look like in the next decade under the mismanagement of both NNSA and Tom D'Agostino's hand-picked LLC, LANS.
I don't expect Sig Hecker will be getting any invitations from LANS to come back and visit LANL any time soon after making these public statements. He just doesn't fit in well with our new Bechtel beltway bandit corporate culture.
ReplyDeleteBTW, anyone notice the memo that went out on Thursday stating that KSL is being kicked out and the work will now be done in-house by LANS? Normally, I would think of this as a good thing, but with LANS running the show, it's probably just a ruse to hand over the lab's lucrative facilities work to more incoming Bechtel employees.
Who's this butt-head cowboy, Sig Hecker? Never heard of him. Check out his current LANL work plan for any holes in his project's documentation. Also, see to it that he is assigned lots of mandatory training, gets several vigorously monitored piss-tests, is polygraphed, and then put both the Security Office and Safety Office on his sorry ass. That should help knock this arrogant cowboy down a notch or two.
ReplyDelete- Mikey
Hey, Los Alamos Monitor, I think I know of a good headline story to run in your Sunday issue. I'm sure many people living in Los Alamos would be very interested to hear what Sig had to say at this Senate meeting.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how this blog often does a better job of informing the locals about what's going on than our local rag?
Be careful what you wish for, to have the local rag report on anything LANL-related is taking a big chance, they have a habit of getting most everthing wrong. They do not have a clue as what is going on with thew big picture.
ReplyDelete3:03 pm: "I remember back around '96 when Sig decided to collapse LANL's bloated upper management structure into a smaller and more responsive group of top managers."
ReplyDeleteFor all Sig's successes and virtues, establishing "flatland" wasn't one of them. He virtually did away with levels above Division Leader and was left with something like 25 or so direct reports. If you've ever been a manager, that is way too many: herding cats. The inevitable result was 25 "semi-autonomous" fiefdoms with no common theme, goal, or accountability. It quickly failed, big time. John Browne also had his flaws, but as a leader, he too was exemplary.
I don't agree with 8:24. As a group leader at the time, life was simple - if you needed something beyond the normal, you called up your division leader, who either said "yes" or "no". When flatland went away, the DL had to refer this up the chain, and nothing ever got resolved. This was when total stagnation started.
ReplyDeleteYes, get rid of LANS. Bring back
ReplyDeleteUC management and Hecker or Browne as director.
3,600,000 manhours per year wasted.....
ReplyDeleteWhat Sig didn't say was that because DOE miscalculated the effects of transition they flush about $400M down the toilet each year between LANL and LLNL.
This waste discards the labor of about 2000 quality science and support people, in the about of 3,600,000 manhours per year!!
Instead they flush it in fees, taxes and higher costs of retirement and medical benefits...
Sheer genius
For this waste the taxpayers get nothing.
"For this waste the taxpayers get nothing."
ReplyDeleteYes, but the Director, Dep. Director, PADs, ADs, and the LLC corporate partners all get rich. Doesn't that make the LLC fiasco worthwhile?
And let's not forget about the lucrative VP slots that Bechtel and BWXT will have waiting for retiring NNSA managers like Tom D'Agostino. Former NNSA managers would never be able to find lucrative post-NNSA jobs if UC was still running LANL and LLNL as a non-profit.
Then there is the savings that Bechtel can achieve by dumping some of their managers onto the LANL payroll. No more wasted money on paying salaries and benefits. Just let LANS take care of it using the LANL operating budget.
Finally, let's not forget about those juicy political donations that will be rolling into Congress from the LLC partners. It appears that we have the best government money can buy.
Besides, Mike says that the morale at LANL is better than ever, so the LLC must be doing something right. Of course, Mike is rarely seen doing Q&A with his employees of late, so it's not clear were he picks up his opinions on staff morale.
Let's not forget all those Bechtel folks that are being brought in on the ROSSE agreements to perform HR, accounting, purchasing, with zero qualifications but hey LANS covers Bechtel's overhead for those folks and NNSA doesn't get to know about it. When would NNSA have the time to figure out that these new hires aren't qualified to perform these jobs? It would be an interesting audit?? Bechtel is counting on the fact that there is no funding to conduct such as audit so yes Bechtel will continue to suck the place dry and we are stuck with processes run by folks who don't know how to do their job function BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED!
ReplyDelete12:04 PM - you are correct about "Mike the leader" not meeting with his troops - shit the asshole cancels every all-managers meeting so that the group leaders don't get told anything either or have a chance to ask questions.
ReplyDeleteCheers for Hecker, albeit a bit late. The modus operandi of the Bush/Cheney regime has been to exploit whatever profit potential existed in the Federal government structure for the furtherance of two goals: 1) personal enrichment for cronies, and 2) destruction of the scope of Federal power in society. Whoever opposes this is destroyed or marginalized by any means at hand. When a Lab's home-grown executives in the complex collaborated with that program, that Lab and those individuals were rewarded with programs and personal advancement. Look around the complex and see for yourselves what is going on, don't believe me. Some of the junk that has been passed off as innovation is pathetic. At times, the political involvement of just plain staff has been worthy of (and still is!) a US attorney investigation for violations of lobbying laws. Oh yes, when those pesky US AG's got out of line, they got smacked down. Look at the Alabama case of Siegelman, or the FBI raid on the "whistleblower protector" Bloch's office in DC. The rule of law has meant next to nothing for the last 16 years, Bush and Clinton regimes alike. That is why I call them regimes, they are not administers of the law and upholders of the Constitution, they are privateers and renegades, in my opinion. And please, hold yourself back from the accusations of "liberalism", my voting record is 99% Republican my entire life, and I have never contributed a dime to a Democrat.
ReplyDelete8:24 and 9:45:
ReplyDeleteAnd now we have the worst of both worlds: Group and Division Leaders with little authority to make decisions, PLUS Mikey still has far too many direct reports to effectively manage. Result: total breakdown of management effectiveness at the AD level.
The US public has been sold out and betrayed at almost every level by the carpet-baggers in our midst. They enrich their own pocketbooks while lying to those they have been entrusted to lead. The situation LANL faces with LANS is no different than that which has occurred across America.
ReplyDeleteOur system of finance, business and government has become so utterly corrupt that it is no longer possible to cover the stench. Parallels with the collapse of Rome are appropriate. The barbarians from foreign lands are gathering at the city gates and I don't think they intend to treat us kindly.
Sig sounds like many of the LANL employees who post on this blog. Who would have thunk it?
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the LANL employees can go back to sleep. Nothing here to see. The less you know about what is really going on, the better off you will feel. Keep those eyes, mouth and ears tightly shut.
The reality is public entities/industries, even war, are being slowly privatized. Few, if any, revert. It's just another way to transfer public monies into private hands. Dr. Hecker's statement won't matter one whit.
ReplyDeleteTo 11:12 AM - it might not be so bad if Mikey actually hired good ADs. Instead, he hired a crew of inept and unqualified sloppy seconds that are only out to use their position for self gain. Good work if you can get it I suppose - the AD (and PAD for that matter) job ad should read: no accountability and no need for experience!!
ReplyDelete"
ReplyDeleteOur system of finance, business and government has become so utterly corrupt that it is no longer possible to cover the stench. Parallels with the collapse of Rome are appropriate. The barbarians from foreign lands are gathering at the city gates and I don't think they intend to treat us kindly.
5/11/08 12:57 PM"
History has shown us that all great powers rise and than at some point fall. This is the fate of the United States as well. It is China's turn to be the sole superpower and it will not be that long before it happens.
Contractorization is not the reason for LANL's downward spiral. Privatization is. Sig's comments are too little too late.
ReplyDeleteHe should have asked questions similar to the following of Congress rather than harping on how LANL is broken.
"What future do you see for national laboratories, including LANL, that are managed by for-profit companies?"
"Would you propose changing LANL's mission by bringing more work-for-others (WFO) to LANL knowing that LANL's current overhead cost has almost priced this work out of existence?"
"Do you understand how the cost of doing business at LANL has risen by at least $100,000/staff member since LANS assumed management?"
"Do you understand that much of this rise in the cost of doing business is a function of the bloated management structure at LANL?"
"Do you understand how Congress has now limited LANL's ability to participate in WFO?"
"Do you propose to make all private contractors who use taxpayers' dollars publish how that money is spent?"
He should have pointed out the following which was posted on this blog.
"On the subject of the NNM economy, LANL's impact is diminishing, and not just because of the funding cuts, SSP, and other staff departures. LANS is circumventing the intent of the NNM contracting requirement by using its 'proteges' to conduct much of the work that would otherwise be openly competed (some proteges are direct relationships with LANS; others are carryovers from Bechtel). While the protege businesses have established a physical address in NNM, in reality, these are practically a front. The money passed through to them by LANS is farmed to staff in their out-of-state offices. It's interesting that none of New Mexico's newspapers have taken a closer look at how LANS' procurement actually functions."
He should also have been willing to suggest that Congress investigate ties between NNSA and contractors that might have unduly influenced NNSA in the way the original bid was written.
Finally he should have pointed out that industry has only one loyalty - to its stockholders. So they need to manage entities that have a defined project with defined timelines. Pit production fits that model.
6:46 pm: Someone in Sig's position has only a very few "silver bullets" based on past accomplishments, high positions, reputation, and the resultant good will. Your course would have Sig "shoot" them all with little or no real effect, leaving him unable to do anything that counts. He is smarter than that, and I predict he will find a way to use his influence to greatest effect.
ReplyDeleteDr. Sig Hecker also has a less known film career, genre; Documentary:
ReplyDelete1) Stockpile (2001), Stephen Trombley, director.
2) Secrecy (2008), Peter Galison and Robb Moss, directors.
(I agree in his latest statement to the Senate, April 30, 2008.)
(As of Toward a Nuclear-Free World, by George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, January 15, 2008, Wall Street Journal, Sig Hecker and Ray Juzaitis and other signatories, actually believe in the naive view of a future of zero nuclear weapons in the World, I disagree in this so-called vision of zero nuclear weapons in the World as Hecker et al endorse here, WSJ, January 15, 2008, and also posted at LANL: The Rest of the Story, January 15, 2008, as well.)
(One person wrote on this blog, 1/15/08 8:04 PM:
"***YAWN***
Friggin´Henry Kissinger, for Christ´s sake! Look at the "sponsor" list - quite a few ex-nuclear weapon bosses (including Sig and RayJ) who´ve apparently found Jesus, or somebody. Yep, they´ll change history. Overnight. Just wait, you´ll see. Obama will make it happen.")
(The ill-thought idea of "Reaffirm a U.S. commitment to complete nuclear disarmament." [Garwin], and "Getting to Zero" [Nuclear weapons], of the "Reykjavik Revisited: Steps Toward A World Free Of Nuclear Weapons," October 24-25, 2007, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, that is a highly dangerous and naive path, that eventually could lead to the consequence that U.S. lose its status as a superpower, not a route to embark.)
Sig is just jealous that he didn't make the big bucks or get a free sports car like Director Mikey.
ReplyDeleteWhile the protege businesses have established a physical address in NNM, in reality, these are practically a front. The money passed through to them by LANS is farmed to staff in their out-of-state offices. It's interesting that none of New Mexico's newspapers have taken a closer look at how LANS' procurement actually functions."
ReplyDeleteI too have found it interesting that the NNSA, the IG, Congress, the state, county and municipal stakeholders have not taken an interest, particularly since this is a loss of NMGRT. I also don't understand why there isn't a deluge of complaints from the small business folks regarding the lack of business opportunities when a sizeable amount of procurement dollars are being exported. What do you say, Anna Mueller?
I'd like an audit of this place to see where all the "burden" money goes and what it's used for.
ReplyDeleteSig has no clout, even Sen. Domenici questioned his ability to set the course at LANL. He is not any kind of force, within NNSA or DOE, or even with-in LANL. Sig was told to step down as Director by UC and Sen. Domenici, just before he totally screwed up LANL.
ReplyDeleteWho cares anymore? Most of the employees working at LANL these days don't even know the name Sig Hecker. Besides, LANL has embarked on a path which NNSA has dictated and that can't be stopped.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost over. The only part left is where LANS suddenly announces massive layoffs sometime in the next couple of years. LLNL is already at this point.
Get your gear packed and be ready to move on. Be sure to tell the last person leaving town to shut off the water and turn off the city lights.
"6:46 pm: Someone in Sig's position has only a very few "silver bullets" based on past accomplishments, high positions, reputation, and the resultant good will. Your course would have Sig "shoot" them all with little or no real effect, leaving him unable to do anything that counts. He is smarter than that, and I predict he will find a way to use his influence to greatest effect.
ReplyDelete5/11/08 8:17 PM"
Unfortunately, LANL does not have the time it would take for him to use his influence. Shooting a few well publicized silver bullets at DOE/NNSA might make some in Congress sit up and pay attention since there is no reason for DOE/NNSA to care what Sig says.
Bullet #1 might be asking Congress to investigate the relationship between NNSA and contractors that might have unduly influenced NNSA in the way the original bid was written. The current administration seems to reward its buddies whenever it can.
I just saw this quote in another DOE-related site and thought it was an apt description of today's circumstances at LANL:
ReplyDelete"the fish rots from the head first"
...and also of every organization up the ladder above LANS: NNSA, DOE, Congress, et al...
7:14am
ReplyDeleteAll the burden goes to support indirect personnl and their offices, computers, etc. who are in groups (mandated by DOE/ LANS mgt.) that don't bring in funding. Example: NNSA doesn't send money for HR, editors or LANL managers, per se.
Your burden dollars support Lab functions. It is the responsibility of LANS to see that these functions remain IN BALANCE.
So,
ReplyDeleteAre they IN BALANCE?
37% burden. The accounting doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Too complex and too many ways for people to move money around. Money that the upper level controls to the detriment of those who need funding. I don't buy it.
7:37 pm: Just because you don't have enough information to understand a system, and are not in a position to gain such information, you "don't buy it." Well, who cares whether you buy it? You are irrelevant to the system. If you aren't involved in a significant way, you aren't going to get the information you say you want. Try tilting at a different windmill.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for it this particular statement occurs at 2:09:30.
ReplyDeletePete does look unhappy and you can hear him grousing in the background as well. Sig speaks very well on the issue.
Who cares was Sig has to say on this issue. The sad fact is that no one is listening to him!
ReplyDelete