March 17, 2014

FORMER LOCKHEED CEO: RE-COMPETITION OF LAB CONTRACTS NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY

By ExchangeMonitor

The National Nuclear Security Administration has signaled that it will recompete its Sandia National Laboratories management and operating contract, but former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine suggested yesterday that competition isn’t always in the nation’s best interests. Lockheed Martin has held the Sandia M&O contract since 1993, but is one of a handful of companies expected to vie for the contract. “This is a personal opinion. We hear about change and wanting the people who run the labs to bring in fresh ideas or not,” Augustine told NW&M Monitor on the sidelines of NNSA’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development Symposium yesterday. “My answer to that is if people do a good job, for heaven’s sake, keep them. If they’re not doing a good job, for heaven’s sake don’t keep them. I wouldn’t get rid of my dentist just because I’ve had him for 12 years if he’s doing a good job. On the other hand if he wasn’t doing a good job I wouldn’t wait 12 years to get rid of him.”

Augustine was also asked about the impact of Boeing’s departure from the Sandia competition after a brief foray into the Department of Energy market. “The more competent, responsible people and companies there are, the better off you are, but you want to be sure you know how to measure competence and responsibility,” Augustine said. He suggested that university-presence could be more prominent this time around at Sandia, mimicking the approach taken at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. “It seems to me there is great benefit to the national labs to have input form both universities and from industry,” Augustine said. “Universities can bring some of the foremost thinking and fundamental science and industry has some understanding of what the issues are and how you can make it real.”

Comments are closed.