Dec. 1, 2004

Has anyone noticed how often various studies and reports are requested, and funded, regarding problems related to the operation of the national laboratories, and then after publication are seemingly ignored. A couple of examples are, "Los Alamos National Laboratory Evaluation Report," prepared by the Motorola Applications Consulting Team, published Aug. 26, 1992. The other is a 130-page report prepared by a high level commission and presented to congress, titled "Commission On Maintaining Nuclear Weapons Expertise," published sometime in 1999. Both of these reports are well worth reading to gain some insight into how others have viewed our operations in the past, and how we appear to have spent years discovering what these reports (among others), have been trying to convey. That is, we need to make major changes in the way we do business, and what we need to do to retrain, as well as retain, our expertise in nuclear weapons research and development.

The Motorola report is very interesting in that it brings out many of the business related problems we are currently trying to resolve today by implementing the Enterprise Project, and yet many of these problems were pointed out, and solutions suggested in 1992.

Reading through the Commission report will provide the reader with a view, on the commission's part, of the absolute necessity of retaining what expertise we have, in order to train new personnel coming into the work force in those skills related to nuclear weapons R&D, and the Stockpile Life Extension Program. This report presented some interesting concepts to help resolve the problem. One was to create a reserve, such as the military uses, to retain and provide backup, and training for newly recruited personnel. Interestingly enough, one of the Commission's suggestions was, some of this reserve force would be made up of retirees. Hey, there is an idea. Instead of telling them they can't come back, the Lab offers them the opportunity to join the "Nuclear Weapons Expertise Reserve." It's not my idea, it's the Commission's, and it sounds like a good one.

If we are going to pay people to do studies and prepare reports, the least we can do is read them and not wait for years before we discover what they have been trying to tell us, and then appear to have just discovered the problems.

--Jim Haynes