UC beats the odds to retain lab contracts

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 17, 2007

TWO YEARS AGO, it appeared that the University of California's 64 years of management and stewardship of our nation's two major nuclear weapons laboratories at Livermore and Los Alamos, N.M., were over.

A string of safety, security and operational failures had angered federal lawmakers and prompted the Energy Department to open the contracts to competitive bids for the first time. Many felt UC's decades at the helm of the labs would come to an end.

Last week, we found out that wasn't so when the Energy Department selected UC and its partnership with five other private and public entities to manage the $1.6 billion-a-year Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Last year, a slightly smaller UC coaliton was named to operate the New Mexico facility.

This reversal of fortunes is a product of UC's adapting to new realities by playing to its strengths and seeking out private partners that filled the management and operational voids.

That entity now is called Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC and also consists of Bechtel National, BWX Technologies, Washington Group International, Battelle and Texas A&M.

The key was UC's decision to bid for the contracts in spite of its past problems and seeking to do so by forming a coalition with the right private and public vendors. Having produced a world-class reputation for scientific excellence and a stable of Nobel Prize winners, UC's scientific bona fides were never in question. What it needed was the right partners to stop security breaches, eradicate safety lapses and shore up operational shortcomings that have caused it problems.

In the end, these new UC partnerships were able to best such defense giants as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin in the bidding, attesting to how successfully it had addressed its problems.

While critics say it was ridiculous to hire "the same incompetent contractors" to run the labs, that's a shortsighted assessment. No one knows the labs, their history and operations better than UC.

Its monopoly was threatened, but it adapted, and both labs should be better for it. Regent Gerald Parksy called the new coalition "a good example of public-private cooperation. This puts the university in a position where it has its maximum strengths -- namely in science and technology -- but it leaves the management, operations and security in the hands of the private sector."

On the surface, it appears to be an ideal match. We trust the rough edges that may initially accompany such a new venture will be smoothed out and that the partnership will be more productive, safer and secure to a degree that benefits both the labs and the firms that operate them.

If this combined venture meets expectations over the next few years, there is the possibility of extending the contracts another 13 years.