Livermore lab official stepping down

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jan 18, 2006 | by Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

The departure of a longtime Lawrence Livermore lab executive is prompting a fresh reshuffling at the top of the nuclear-weapons facility since its director headed off to a sister lab in New Mexico.

Deputy lab director Wayne Shotts, a physicist and 31-year Livermore veteran in nuclear weapons design, intelligence and homeland security, says he will step down by Feb. 27 for retirement and a long-promised, round-the-world trip with his wife, Jacki.

With Livermore director Mike Anastasio competing for the Los Alamos contract, Shotts ran the lab as acting director for a third of last year and so far in 2006.

He spoke warmly of the lab and its leadership in notifying the lab's senior management council of his departure and plans for his trip to New Zealand, Australia, Africa and elsewhere.

"A few of you will remember our early days of nuclear design and testing. More of you will recall the challenges and explosive growth of non-proliferation and counterterrorism activities," wrote Shotts, who won a coveted E.O. Lawrence Award from the U.S. Energy Department for contributions to advanced weapons designs and after the Sept. 11 attacks served as the lab's first homeland-security chief.

"LLNL has been a terrific place to grow personally and professionally and to explore new technical and scientific dimensions that improve the security of the nation," he wrote.

The University of California, as manager of the lab, is expected to name an interim lab director before Shotts' retirement, with associate director-at-large George Miller, a former weapons designer, mentioned as a candidate.

But if the post remains vacant until Shotts leaves, acting command of the $1.9 billion-a-year institution would pass to Cherry Murray, a former Bell Labs scientist who is Livermore's deputy director over science and technology.

The university is searching for a permanent lab director who also would head a likely UC/Bechtel-led team in competing to retain management of the lab.

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration opened that competition last week but hasn't laid out its bid specifications or named a panel to review the bids.

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com.