Friday, May 2, 1997

Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico wins Lab support services subcontract

Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico has been selected for negotiations to provide facility support services to the Laboratory, a subcontract that should be worth nearly $400 million over five years.

The subcontract, which should be awarded by July 1, includes such services as operation and maintenance of the Laboratory's utility system and infrastructure; custodial services; waste removal; maintenance of roads and grounds; construction support; and engineering services.

Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico is a new company formed specifically to bid on the Los Alamos support services subcontract. The present subcontractor, Johnson Controls World Services Inc. of Cape Canaveral, Fla., holds a majority interest in the new company. Other partners in Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico are Morrison Knudsen Corp. of Boise, Idaho, Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, Calif., and Duke Engineering and Services of Charlotte, N.C.

"Ultimately, after reviewing the recommendations of the source selection team, it's apparent that the team did a very careful and conscientious job of evaluating the bids. I fully concurred with their unanimous recommendation of Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico," said Laboratory Deputy Director Jim Jackson.

The new company has committed to retain nearly all the current subcontractor personnel and to maintain pay and benefits similar to those received by current Johnson Controls workers.

The current subcontract for facility support services to the Laboratory expires on Sept. 30. The new subcontract is worth approximately $77 million a year for five years with an option to renew for an additional five years.

A source selection committee made up of representatives from the Laboratory's Facility Management Council and from the Business Operations; Facility, Security and Safeguards; Environment, Safety and Health; and Nuclear Materials Technology divisions chose Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico over other bidders.

"All the companies submitted good proposals, but the package from Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico's team was the strongest," Jackson said.

The source selection committee examined how each of the bidders proposed to fulfill four key evaluation criteria: technical capability, quality of the management team, environment, safety and health, and regional economic development. Jackson said the panel gave equal weight to the first two criteria and slightly less emphasis to the other two criteria.

"Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico proposed a strong senior management team," Jackson said.

Mike Barr, general manager of the Los Alamos office of Johnson Controls World Services since November 1996, will continue as general manager for the new company. Other key management positions will be filled by executives from Johnson Controls World Services and the other three partners.

Dennis Roybal, the Laboratory's senior contract specialist, said the new company proposed a number of important changes in key areas, including improved safety measures and specific plans for promoting regional economic development.

On safety, Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico promised a total commitment to improved safety, as demonstrated by zero tolerance for accidents, Roybal said.

All five companies in their proposals had to address job creation, investments and diversification of the economy; and to describe how they would ensure that at least a fourth of their procurement activities would go to small businesses and those with minority or woman ownership.

"The source selection committee felt that Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico offered the strongest economic development package," Roybal said.

That package included commitments by the company to

• open a Northern New Mexico Business Center in Española;
• establish a recycling center at Nambe Pueblo and turn it over to the Pueblo;
• enter into a partnership with Northern New Mexico Community College in Española and El Rito;
• within two years, locate a subsidiary of one or more of the four corporate partners in Northern New Mexico; and
• create as many as 600 jobs over the next five years.

The Laboratory issued a formal request for proposals on Nov. 8, 1996, and accepted bids until Jan. 24.

The new subcontract includes an important change in the way the subcontractor is rewarded, Roybal said. Fees paid to Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico will be based on how well the subcontractor meets objective performance measures and milestones. These so-called performance-based fee structures are part of the Department of Energy's recent contract reform initiatives, Roybal said.

--Jim Danneskiold

DOE terminates management contract at Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Department of Energy announced Thursday it is terminating the current management contract with Associated Universities at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. Energy Secretary Federico Peña made the decision following the results of a Brookhaven safety review conducted by the independent oversight arm of DOE's Office of Environment, Safety and Health, according to a DOE news release. The Department of Energy never before has unilaterally terminated a contract under such circumstances.

The oversight review, outlined by Tara O'Toole, assistant secretary for Environment, Safety and Health, found that environment, safety and health programs at Brookhaven require improvement and significant management attention. The assessment found an imbalance between environment, safety and health, and science missions, which has resulted in the perception that funding improvements in worker safety and environmental protection are "trade offs" for dollars that could be spent on research.

The oversight team also found that Brookhaven did not pursue solutions for environment, safety and health problems and that the level of informality was inappropriate to assure environment, safety and health protection. The report found that DOE had to improve its performance in overseeing Brookhaven operations, particularly to clarify roles and responsibilities.

The news release noted that Peña also found unacceptable the disintegration of public trust in management at Brookhaven. Public trust steadily has declined since January, when tritium contamination -- believed to have originated from the spent fuel pool at Brookhaven's High Flux Beam Reactor -- was found in groundwater monitoring wells south of the reactor, according to the release.

DOE will hold a competition to select a successor; the process is expected to take approximately six month to complete.

Highland, Española Valley High win top honors in seventh Los Alamos Supercomputing Challenge

Two sisters from Highland High School in Albuquerque designed a computer program that reveals strain on automobile wheels to capture first place in the Laboratory's New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge.

Second place in the year-long contest went to a trio from Española Valley High who made an environmental computer model of the Mediterranean Sea to learn whether global warming could be reduced by dissolving the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the sea.

And Samuel Morales of Silver High School was named the competition's outstanding individual programmer and received the four-year Amy Beth Boulanger Scholarship, good for $2,500 a year at any four-year New Mexico college or university.

First-place winners were Nguyen Van Anh and Nguyen Anh Thu from Highland High. The sisters, who were advised by Donald Downs and Gale Borkenhagen, finished second last year with a computer program that demonstrated how such mechanisms as light absorption and temperature changes during morphogenesis determine the colors of flower petals.

This year, the pair used a method known as Delaunay triangulation to enclose the wheel, add boundary points and continually form new triangles that create a mesh of points that completely describe the wheel. This two-dimensional mesh then is the basis for calculating which regions of the wheel show the greatest strain. Both sisters received $1,000 savings bonds.

Three Española Valley High scholars, Monica Salazar, J. Ruben Pacheco and Danielle Sanchez, reasoned that the greenhouse effect could be reduced if European industrial cities pumped carbon dioxide emissions from factories and other sources into the Mediterranean Sea, which could transport them into the Altantic Ocean where the gases would be stored and eventually dissolved.

The three-dimensional model developed by the EVHS team, which was counseled by teacher Peter Conrad and advisers Philip Jones, Mathew Maltrud and Nely Padial, showed seven points for inserting the gas into the sea at two different depths. The model simulated pumping a quantity of gas roughly equal to that emitted by industry in four major industrial cities and ran long enough to show accurate results. All three EVHS students received $500 savings bonds.

The winning teams earned Gateway 2000 MMX computers loaded with software for their schools, plus a Liebert universal power source donated by Klein Enterprises.

Nearly 500 students from 50 schools throughout New Mexico participated in the 1997 Supercomputing Challenge, the seventh sponsored by the Laboratory. They spent the last year researching scientific problems and writing programs to analyze them on supercomputers at Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.

The goal of the year-long event is to increase knowledge of science and computing, expose students and teachers to computers and applied mathematics, and instill enthusiasm for science in high school students, their families and communities. Any New Mexico high school student in grades 9-12 is eligible to enter the Challenge.

Besides Highland, Española Valley and Morales, winners at the 1997 Challenge included the following students and high school teams:

• Michael Lejeune, Clayton High School, received the $2,500 Intel Corp. scholarship
• Chris Karr, Des Moines High; and Dorothy Miller and Julie Stewart, both of Silver High, received one-year full scholarships to their choice of University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University or New Mexico Tech.
• One honorable mention award went to Graham Booker of Calvary Christian School in Los Alamos, for his "Navigation of a Terrain." Booker also won the Multi-Media Award.
• Another honorable mention award went to Jonathan Buhacoff, Dustin Byford and Karen Lam from Las Cruces High for "An Analysis of an Alternative Hydrodynamic Method."
• A third honorable mention award went to Joe Alexanian, Brandon Cohen, Kimberly Robinson, Dylan Spaulding and Trent Toulouse from Sandia Preparatory School for "Parallel Finite Difference Approaches to Electrical Breakdown." The team also won the Silicon Graphics Inc./Cray Research High-Performance Computing Award.
• The final honorable mention award went to Alan Weckel, Jonathan Mandeville, Alisha Creel, Matt Marple and Amber Creel from Albuquerque Academy for "The Study of Numbers." The team also was honored for the best written report.
• Chris Karr, K.C. Abshere and Joel Camp of Des Moines High won the award for the best hypertext markup language version of a final report. The Des Moines School District also received a 2511 router donated by CISCO Systems Inc.
• Penelope Lackey, Elizabeth Gillihan, Samuel Parker and Jennifer McNeel from Tularosa High won the Los Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Modeling Award for "Wildfire!" The team also won the Search and Browse Award.
• Samuel Garcia, Stephanie Gomes, Matt Kimble, Oliver Koehler and Jeremy Velardez from Los Lunas High School won the Albuquerque Tribune Lighthouse Award for "Modeling Population Changes in a Simulated Wolf Pack."
• The Las Cruces team also won the Sandia National Laboratories Creativity and Innovation Award.
• George Schmaltz, Mandy Grizzle, Milen Bartnick and Stephen Friedman from Gallup High won the CISCO Systems Inc. Teamwork Award.
• Kevin Schwanfelder from Santa Fe Preparatory School received the Judges' Special Award.

Unlike other computing competitions, the New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge is unique because it offers supercomputer access to students at every level of expertise and stresses student activity over work by teachers and coaches. Nearly 4,000 students have taken part in the Supercomputing Challenge.

The Supercomputing Challenge was conceived in 1990 by Los Alamos Director Sig Hecker and Tom Thornhill, president of New Mexico Technet Inc., a non-profit company that in 1985 set up a computer network to link the state's national laboratories, universities, state government and some private companies. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and John Rollwagen, then chairman and chief executive officer of Cray Research Inc., then added their support.

Challenge coordinators are David Kratzer and Gina Weber of Los Alamo' Computing, Information and Communications Division.

In addition to Los Alamos and Technet, businesses and organizations sponsoring this year's Supercomputing Challenge are Phillips Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Eastern New Mexico University, the Albuquerque Tribune, Silicon Graphics Inc., Council of Higher Education Computing Services Inc., Intel Corp., CISCO Systems Inc. and Gateway 2000.

Contributing businesses and agencies include Anixter Inc., Aquila Technologies, Belew's Office Supply Inc., Digital Equipment Corporation, Four Corners Technology, General Office Supply, HA-LO Enterprises, Kenneth Ingham Consulting, Klein Enterprises, KRQE-TV, New Mexico State General Services, Human Services and Education Departments, Roadrunner Computer Systems, Very Long Baseline Array and White Sands Missile Range.

Contributing schools include New Mexico Academic and Research Libraries, New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico Junior College, New Mexico School for the Visually Handicapped, New Mexico State University at Grants, San Juan College, Santa Fe Community College, University of New Mexico-Gallup and University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.

--Jim Danneskiold

Española Valley High School students Ruben Pacheco, left, Monica Salazar and Danielle Sanchez, used photos to explain their computer program on global warming to John Jenkins, executive director of the Supercomputing Challenge and a challenge judge Thursday at the Study Center.

The students' project was named second place in the year-long contest. The students reasoned that the greenhouse effect could be reduced if European industrial cities pumped carbon dioxide emissions from factories and other sources into the Mediterranean Sea, which could transport them into the Atlantic Ocean, where the gases would be stored and eventually dissolved. Photo by Fred Rick

Cafeteria offers Asian-Pacific food during May

As part of the Laboratory's celebration of Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, the Otowi Cafeteria will feature a special menu offering with an Asian-Pacific theme on Tuesday's starting May 6.

Asian-Pacific Heritage Month activities are sponsored by the Asian American Diversity Working Group.

The special menu entree costs $2.85 and is available in the regular hot food line, according to Jennifer Boyle of ARAMARK Corp., which operates the cafeteria system for the Lab.

The food items to be served on Tuesday's as part of Asian-Pacific Heritage Month are as follows:

May 6 "Thit Nuongcha" -- Vietnamese meatballs; "Khoai Lang Nau" -- sweet potatoes with peanuts and white rice. Dessert, "Banh long chua" -- banana cookies/balls.

May 13 "Pulgogi" -- Korean barbecue beef; "Koch'ujjm" -- Stuffed peppers (pork); and white rice. Dessert, "Mils Sam" -- sesame cookies.

May 20 "Murg Dahi" -- Indian Yogurt/Curry Chicken; "Gajar Nariyal" -- carrots with coconut, mustard; and white rice; "Dal" - chick peas with garlic and onion. Dessert, "Raita" -- banana and yogurt.

May 27 "Ayam Lapis" -- Indonesion barbecue chicken and curried rice. Dessert, "Rempah Pisang Manis" - banana crisp cookies.

--Steve Sandoval

Lab retiree garners Ms. Senior New Mexico crown

Lab retiree Bernice Storm recently was crowned Ms. Senior New Mexico during the second annual Ms. Senior New Mexico Pageant held April 23 at the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque.

Storm (her friends call her Bernie) beat out eight others to win the crown. She now will represent New Mexico in the national competition, the Ms. Senior America Pageant, to be held Sept. 8 through 13 in Biloxi, Miss.

Contestants were judged in three categories: the talent competition (Storm performed a tap dance routine to the music of "Ain't Misbehavin'"); the evening gown competition (during which time contestants' pre-recorded statements of their philosophies of life were broadcast); and their accomplishments in the community, which carried the most points.

"I was so shocked that I had won. I thought for sure the judges were going to pick the lady with the 17 great-grandchildren or someone else," recalled Storm, who first worked for the Lab in 1950, working in Personnel in the Human Resources (HR) Division. She left shortly afterward to raise a family.

She came back to the Lab in 1985 and again worked in Personnel. Storm retired in 1989 soon after her husband and Lab employee Ellery died of Parkinson's Disease.

Storm has been very active in community and senior affairs since her retirement. For example, she helped organize, and currently is vice president of, the Laboratory Retiree Group. "I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the Laboratory," said Storm, "and I do everything I can to make the Lab look good."

She also is a member of the Los Alamos Education Group, which in 1995 was instrumental in getting the Bradbury Science Museum to put up a display opposite that by the Los Alamos Study Group showing a different perspective on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

O