LOS ALAMOS: HELP WANTED

It ain’t easy, run­ning the world’s most impor­tant nuclear lab. There are bil­lions of dol­lars to worry about. Tons of lethally radioac­tive mate­r­ial. And thou­sands of sci­en­tist employ­ees who think they’re smarter than you — and are prob­a­bly right. Worst of all, if recent his­tory is any guide, you’ll be kicked to the curb before your con­tract is up, the vic­tim of the lat­est in a series of seemingly-​​endless scan­dals.
So maybe that’s why Los Alamos is adver­tis­ing for top jobs in the Washington Post’s clas­si­fied sec­tion. Here’s one of the ads, for the Principal Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons Programs.

Responsible for the tech­ni­cal and admin­is­tra­tive super­vi­sion of approx­i­mately 2,500 sci­en­tific and admin­is­tra­tive per­son­nel, and a bud­get of about $1 Billion.
Manages the Laboratory nuclear weapons tech­nol­ogy pro­gram, which includes nuclear weapons design… ensure[s] con­fi­dence in the safety, secu­rity and reli­a­bil­ity of the nations nuclear weapons stock­pile.
Serves as the Laboratory focal point for all nuclear weapons activ­i­ties, includ­ing the assess­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the per­for­mance of the LANL [Los Alamos National Laboratory] designed endur­ing nuclear stock­pile. Activities include sur­veil­lance, main­te­nance, and stock­pile life exten­sion and limited-​​scale fab­ri­ca­tion of a vari­ety of nuclear and non-​​nuclear com­po­nents.
Responsible for the pit man­u­fac­tur­ing func­tion, which includes the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of the capa­bil­ity to fab­ri­cate plu­to­nium pits [the hearts of ther­monu­clear weapons] on all types of pits in the endur­ing nuclear stock­pile…
Must have excep­tional man­age­ment skills on large scale pro­grams approach­ing a 1Billion/​year or more.
Desire a nation­ally rec­og­nized expert in the field of nuclear weapons tech­nol­ogy, with a strong back­ground in nuclear physics and nuclear weapons design and evaluation.

If that posi­tion doesn’t quite match up with your exper­tise, don’t worry. There are oth­ers avail­able, includ­ing the lab’s #2 slot, Deputy Director, and asso­ciate direc­tor­ships for sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy, inter­na­tional secu­rity, and engi­neer­ing and eval­u­a­tions.
(via LANL: The Real Story)

March 10th, 2005 | Los Alamos and Labs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.