For the past six years, George has led NMT Division's Actinide Ceramics Group, along with the Laboratory's programs to manufacture heat sources now on their way to Saturn in NASA's Cassini space probe. A metallurgist, George joined the Laboratory in 1983 and was named acting deputy director of NMT Division in April.
"I'm honored that Laboratory management has placed its confidence in me," George said this week.
NMT Division operates Los Alamos' plutonium facility at Technical Area 55, the analytical chemistry facilities at the Chemistry and Metallurgical Research Building at Technical Area 3 and other nuclear material facilities. The division is made up of about 800 full-time University of California employees and about 75 contractors.
"The NMT facilities, people, and programs are truly national treasures," George said, pointing out that TA-55 maintains the nation's only full-capability plutonium operation.
Steve Younger, associate laboratory director for nuclear weapons, said George's performance in managing critical missions such as the Cassini program made him the strongest candidate for the job.
"Tim George is an outstanding individual and a top-notch manager of people and facilities," Younger said. "With Tim at the helm, I'm confident that Los Alamos' nuclear materials work, which is critical to our country's nuclear deterrent, will maintain its tradition of excellence."
George received his bachelor of science in metallurgy from the University of Pittsburgh in 1980 and worked for three years at Kennametal Inc.'s Latrobe Research Laboratory.
He joined Los Alamos' Materials Science and Technology Division as a member of an interdisciplinary team responsible for the performance and safety of Los Alamos-designed radioisotope power systems. George investigated material properties at high strain rates and in complex strain states, modeled crystallographic textures in refractory alloys and worked on development of new refractory alloys.
After graduate work in mechanical engineering at the University of New Mexico, George earned a master's in Management/Human Relations and Organizational Behavior from the University of Phoenix in 1990.
Beginning in 1993, he headed the Actinide Ceramics Group, the Radioisotope Heat Source Program and the Cassini Heat Source Production Project.
The Cassini heat source production effort culminated in the 1997 delivery of three radioisotope thermoelectric generators and 130 Light-Weight Radioisotope Heat Sources to the Cassini launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
In October 1997, George was named project leader for the Nuclear Fuels Demonstrations portion of the Department of Energy's Nuclear Fuels Technologies Project. In this capacity he coordinated efforts to demonstrate the fabrication of mixed-oxide fuels that offer an economic alternative for the disposition of plutonium recovered from nuclear weapons.
George has written more than 70 technical papers and government reports, has received two outstanding achievement awards from DOE for work on the Galileo and Ulysses space missions, and was a 1995 recipient of a James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation award. In 1998, Mr. George was a co-recipient of the Schreiber-Spence Space Achievement award, presented by the Institute For Space and Nuclear Power Studies to the Cassini Mission Power Source Team.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.