NATIONAL SECURITY

• The Board Committee on Nuclear Complex Integration influenced LANL's work with LLNL to speak with one voice, where possible, on major weapons issues and to lead reform of governance and directives.
• Members of the Board's Mission Committee are leaders in shaping nuclear weapons policy at the national level (e.g., the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, Nuclear Posture Review).
• The Mission Committee interacted with federal decision makers at the cabinet level, in particular with DoD about stockpile life extension approaches and with DOE regarding the need for a nuclear weapons budget uplift for stockpile, science, technology, engineering, and infrastructure.
• The new Global Security directorate is focused on achieving LANL's non-nuclear weapons national security goals.
• The combined strengths of LANS and LANL are fostering an energy security focus on energy demand growth impacts, sustainable nuclear energy, and clean energy concepts and materials.
• Capabilities such as high performance computing are being applied to modeling the global impacts caused by increased energy demands.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ENGINEERING

• LANS, through its Science and Technology Committee, continues to support development of LANL's concept for a signature science center—MaRIE (Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes)—that will provide the first comprehensive set of colocated tools to realize transformational advances in materials performance in extreme environments.
• LANL is developing an institutional plutonium science strategy as a first step toward a Plutonium Center of Excellence for the DOE Complex.
• The Science and Technology Committee helped shape Roadrunner open science applications as the initial use of the world's first petaflop computer, demonstrating LANL's role in broad national security issues and as a leader in high performance computing through heterogeneous processors as a path to exascale computing.
• The Board's Mission and Science and Technology committees provided input and advice to help define capability delivery for LANL's mission and program strategy.
• The Laboratory secured $40 million in science and technology American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for projects focused on alternative and renewable energy research.
• Staff from prestigious academic institutions peer review the Laboratory's science and engineering, thereby providing valuable feedback on performance in these two areas.
• Compared with 2008, U.S. patent applications in 2009 increased 9%, and total licensing income rose 11%.

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

• Key managers from LANS parent companies helped complete a record 131 transuranic waste shipments offsite, including all 16 of LANL's remote-handled canisters.
• LANL implemented new operations, recommended by a LANS parent company assessment, which tripled transuranic repackaging operations and completed design, installation, and training for a new transuranic drum processing line.
• The Laboratory secured $212 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for environmental cleanup and monitoring, which is expected to create or save up to 350 jobs.
• LANS resources were assigned to Recovery Act work, including large-scale demolition of 20 unused, Cold War-era Laboratory structures.

SAFETY

• The Laboratory submitted a Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) application to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and was assessed by the DOE in April of 2010. The assessment team indicated a positive recommendation for Merit Status with formal acknowledgment due by the end of June 2010.
• While more progress is needed, LANL's total recordable and days away restricted rates have been reduced since the beginning of the LANS contract in 2006 by 45% and 39% respectively.
• Parent organization experience and support helped validate elements of management actions that were implemented to focus on safety improvements, including establishing Safety Improvement Plans in each directorate; expanding behavior-based safety observation programs at select locations; strengthening the injury and illness case management process to focus on prevention; and more active Worker Safety and Security teams, and expanded employee involvement.
• Parent corporation reach back has been used for functional management assessments (e.g., waste management) and continues to be critical in developing improved safety basis documents for LANL's nuclear sites.

SECURITY

• With guidance from the Board's Safeguards and Security Committee, parent companies helped plan a replacement for the archaic and marginally effective Material Accountability and Safeguards System. The new robust Los Alamos Material Control and Accountability System provides collection, storage, retrieval, and reporting of basic or core information required for all nuclear material accounting and material control program elements.
• The Laboratory achieved an overall satisfactory rating for unclassified and classified IT networks as well as a satisfactory rating by NNSA. We created a sustainable path forward to maintain and build upon achievements under the 2008 Security Compliance Order.
• With strong endorsement from the Safeguards and Security Committee, the Laboratory established a permanent Emergency Operations Center, staffed 24/7, to provide a central point of contact for all internal and external communications.

BUSINESS PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS

• LANL leveraged parent organization resources to build a strong Lean Six Sigma infrastructure, realizing $45 million in efficiencies in FY09 using Lean Six Sigma process improvement projects.
• With support from the Board's Business and Operations Committee, parent company IT systems and technical expertise were used to continue the implementation of a Laboratory-wide electronic document management system, which will meet Laboratory needs and allow for the systematic decommissioning of antiquated legacy systems.
• A team of experts from the parent companies was deployed to assess procurement programmatic training, systems, and tools. The assessment, which engaged NNSA, resulted in recommendations toward establishing a career management program designed to increase the proficiency and productivity of the acquisition workforce through competency-based training.
• Financial managers provided by LANS in 2006 (chief financial officer, controller, and compliance manager) have led the Laboratory's 24% performance improvement on financial management measures.

GOVERNANCE AND OVERSIGHT

• Initiated a joint LANS-LLNS self-assessment that will result in adjustments to the governance model, improve efficiencies, and add more value to oversight activities.
• Combined LANS and LLNS Business and Operations Committees reducing NNSA costs by at least $250,000 per year.
• The Board's committees provided oversight of LANL functional areas by engaging with management on functional scope and strategy; held them accountable for improved performance; and created opportunities for management to engage at customers' senior management levels to assure cognizance of challenges and opportunities.
• Initiated a project to gather information from past three years on parent company functional management reviews in the LANL's Issues and Corrective Action Management system. Data will be shared for more effective oversight activity tracking.
• Obtained assistance from more than 80 parent experts to improve LANL processes and procedures related to nuclear operations, physical and cyber security, project management, and business operations, resulting in substantial savings to NNSA.

OPERATIONS

• In-sourced site support services contractor, saving $15 million annually.
• Risks in nuclear and high hazard operations were reduced through declaration of implementation of all planned Level 1 milestones for Formality of Operations, significant progress toward a qualified workforce, and completion of vital safety system assessments for all credited safety-class and safety-significant systems.
• Highlights of facility construction projects:
  • Completed the Waste Management Risk Mitigation Facility, a significant accomplishment in the Lab's long-term radioactive liquid waste management infrastructure.
  • Substantially completed the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Radiological Laboratory, Utility & Office Building (RLUOB) in September on schedule and under budget.
  • Achieved nuclear facility certification from the NNSA and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) for the nuclear phase of CMRR.
  • Completed critical project review gates and received authorization to proceed on the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) R Project, RLUOB equipment installation, Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Project, and the Sanitary Effluent Reclamation Facility.
  • Completed detonator storage project on time to support a major security commitment made to Congress, resulting in reduced M&O costs.
• Received DOE certification of the Laboratory's Earned Value Management System.
• Removed 1 million square feet of excess facility space to date.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT AND OUTREACH

• To date, LANS has invested $3.5 million in regional companies through the Northern New Mexico Connect program. A survey indicated that the program has yielded 39 new jobs with an average salary of $78,520.
• As part of its Community Commitment Plan, LANS has made available $340,000 since 2006 in special one-time grants to further support area nonprofits already benefiting from the work of LANL employee volunteers.
• LANS ran a highly successful Employee Giving Campaign in which employees gave a record-breaking $1.3 million, matched by LANS for a campaign total of $2.3 million.
• Every year, LANL employees, retirees, and contractors contribute to the Los Alamos Employees' Scholarship Fund, providing scholarships for students attending U.S. colleges and universities. This year LANS matched employee contributions toward an annual goal of $250,000, thus doubling the scholarships' impact.