Miller outlines investments for healthy future
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Director George Miller
Investing in continuous program growth, facilities and infrastructure, and retaining and recruiting an "outstanding" workforce are among the Laboratory's top priorities, Director George Miller said in an all-hands address Wednesday.
"This year we've grown a little bit," Miller said, adding he would like to see the addition of about 300 full time equivalent employees (FTEs) over the next year to bolster LLNL programs. "This is an opportunity to bring in new blood and apply our talent."
Miller said his "go forward" priorities are to deliver on and sustain current missions; programmatic growth; retain and recruit an outstanding workforce; modernize the Lab's IT infrastructure; ensure infrastructure to support LLNL missions; and focus science, technology and engineering investment on program growth and sustaining key capabilities.
"Programmatic growth will facilitate investment to upgrade the physical infrastructure in the near term," he said, noting this is important because of the decline in internal and external funding for such investments.
Areas Miller cited as ripe for program growth include: third-generation conventional munitions; diode-pumped alkali lasers; Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE); applied energy such as high-performance computing (HPC) and carbon management; nuclear materials detection and recovery; medical countermeasures; industrial applications for HPC; and intelligence programs such as cyber security, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
"Our goal is a workforce of 8,000 and $2 billion a year budget by 2015," Miller said.
Miller highlighted recent programmatic success stories from Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI), Global Security and Science & Technology, notably recent National Ignition Facility (NIF) milestones (see related article). In addition, he provided updates on the Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC), and operational accomplishments. He concluded his presentation with a slide show recognizing Lab award winners and research featured in recent publications.
