The following is Argonne Director Robert Rosner's “State of the Lab” address to employees, delivered Feb. 28. The text has been edited for length and clarity.

It's a special time in this lab's history. We are celebrating its 60 th birthday this year and we are in the midst of a competition for managing this laboratory. Thus, it is a time for both for celebration and for taking stock of where we are, where we want to go. Therefore, it is a time when we can take advantage of the competition to change the laboratory for the better, to carry out those things that we have always wanted to do.

Now it is the nature of things that I really should start with safety. I want to talk about these issues on a very personal level. Of course, I regret that our safety numbers are not what they could be, and that we missed the Office of Science targets for the past fiscal year, but that is not really what I am worried about. What I do worry about is the observation by our Department of Energy auditors that we have had unremedied safety flaws, and that our grade for safety is just one small notch above “needs improvement” -- which is another word for failure. I take this very, very personally. In the end, after all, the buck does stop at my desk in Building 201, and I don't mean that in a bureaucratic sense. I mean this in the sense that if something serious were to happen to one of you, it would be my failing, either as a result of inaction or ineffective action. I think you have to agree that this is not a very pleasant burden to carry.

So if you ask, do I mean that we will fix the safety issues at the lab and that we are going to become best-in-class in safety, the answer is absolutely yes. That is the reason we have invested in reconstituting our safety team, rebuilding our safety assessment and assurance programs and turning up our efforts to communicate the fundamental message: safety first in all possible ways.

Many of you have gotten to know me. I have visited lots of divisions and some of you have known me since I came to the lab in 2002. I think all of you know that on important issues my door is always open — that I see communications as a two-way street. So if you feel there are worries or concerns about safety that are not being paid attention to, please contact Kelly Mannsfeld, Bob McCook and his team including Audra Karalius and Gary Zeman, or myself. Just don't hesitate.

So now let me turn to some general issues regarding the lab. A good place to start is with the good news. First of all, there have been some really wonderful R&D successes — a huge list, far too many to list individually. What I am going to do is confine myself to those that have really caught my attention.

Our laboratory won four R&D 100 awards last year. I was at the award dinner, and it was a great occasion. No other lab won more than we did. We are also getting recognition for our technology transfer: John Carlisle and Orlando Auciello just won the Federal Laboratory Consortium Award.

The State of Illinois supported construction for the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM); construction will be completed this spring in April. The state has approved funding for building the Advanced Crystallization Facility at Argonne which will actually be located very close to the CNM. We have gotten funding from DOE to build a new Sub-Angstrom Microscopy and Microanalysis facility to be located next to Building 212, right around the corner. Our Structural Biology and Genomics program is thriving — the 1,000 th structure has been delivered to the Protein Data Bank — and the new NIH structural biology center is now a reality. It is a great success for us. Finally, I would like it known that the changed budget climate, literally over the past month, has had some major consequences for three areas of the lab: nuclear energy, computational science and neutron scattering.

I will discuss the first two in a bit. In the case of neutron scattering and the IPNS, I would like to simply reiterate right now something that I told folks in that division earlier this month: Argonne will play an important role in devising the next generation of instrumentation for neutron scattering research, including instrumentation for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge. It is also clear that the IPNS will continue to operate. The details about what will happen in the long-term — and by that, I mean well past the point when the SNS has begun operation — remain to be sorted out. In any case, I think it is fair to say the reports of the death of IPNS have been greatly exaggerated, and I look forward to great continued success.

Now I think all of you probably expect me to say a few words about the competition, and I will. The University of Chicago and Argonne leadership team has been hard at work putting the contract proposal together. I see the university, Jacobs Engineering and BWXT as a very strong partnership, focusing on operations. The same goes for the University of Chicago and our university partners, Northwestern and University of Illinois, on the science and technology side of the house. These strengths are recognized by outsiders, including some of our potential competitors.

One question that comes up all the time is: what is the role of industry partners? This is, of course, a proxy for what I think is the real question: Assuming that we win the new contract, will our industry partners simply bring their own folks to Argonne, displacing our current work force? So just let me be totally clear on this point: There will be no wholesale displacement of our current work force. Period, full stop.

What we will be looking for are best practices that can be brought to our lab based on direct experiences that our partners have in other laboratory and industry settings.

What about the university partnerships, what is that all about? It has been my experience in the past that connections to university partners have been largely a matter of happenstance: overlapping interests that were rarely, if ever, coupled to a strategic plan for the laboratory as a whole.

Over the past two years, we have been developing a science and technology vision for Argonne: our business plan, in the words of the Office of Science. With this strategic plan that we now have in hand, it makes a huge amount of sense to partner with intellectually strong universities whose interests overlap with ours, with the directions that we want to go in. That is exactly what the partnerships with Chicago, Northwestern and Illinois is really all about.

This brings me to the recently announced partnership between URA [Universities Research Association], the contractor for Fermilab, and the University of Chicago to bid for that lab. What is that about and how does it relate to us? As part of our strategic plan for Argonne, we have identified accelerator science as a key strength of our laboratory. This means we want to play a significant role in all the coming generations of accelerators, just have we already played a key role in all of the recent new DOE accelerators, including the SNS at Oak Ridge and the Linac Coherent Light Source at Stanford/SLAC. What this new partnership brings to our lab is a potential for much closer alignment between us and our sister lab, Fermi. It is an alignment that has been long in coming and is much needed. There are real possibilities for Argonne in future projects such as the International Linear Collider.

Now one last comment about competition. As all of you know, this is an extremely sensitive time for our lab's public relations. I only know all to well how easy it is to be misquoted, especially in a public environment in which many folks play the game of "gotcha." For this reason, I would ask that you forward all media calls that you get to our Communication and Public Affairs folks if you are asked to comment by any kind of media, on any subject -- not just the competition. It is always wise to contact our public affairs folks to guide us and provide advice. Now in saying this, I want to be absolutely clear that I am not talking about censorship in any form or matter. That is a matter of fundamental principle for anyone associated with the University of Chicago and this laboratory. What it is about is making sure when someone contacts you from the outside, that you know what they might have in mind when they ask questions.

Now what about the budget? This year's budget has been essentially flat, and I have to confess that given the circumstances that is actually positive. However, as I think all of you know next year's budget proposed by the administration potentially looks really good for us, especially in areas of nuclear energy and computational science.

In nuclear energy, our laboratory has been designated as lead in a number of aspects in the President's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, quite a turnaround from the gloomy prospects that we were facing really only a year ago. I think it is critical to publicly recognize the key roles played by Phil Fink, Yoon Chang, Jim Laidler, Chuck Till and many others at this laboratory in fashioning GNEP. They need to be congratulated!

On the computing front, the Office of Science is planning, as part of the proposed budget scenario for fiscal year 2007 and beyond, to locate a major high-performance computing facility at our laboratory. This brings reality to the dream that many of us have long had. Our push for third-party financing for the Theory and Computational Science Building seems to finally have gotten unstuck in Washington -- but please keep your fingers crossed. I think the efforts of Rick Stevens and his colleagues as well as our colleagues in the local DOE site office must be recognized. They have been just wonderful.

Now, making sure that the lab is in great financial shape is not only a matter of bringing in new activities and the funds that go along with them, but also a matter of doing business here at the lab in a cost-effective way. This has been the mantra of our operation folks for the past three years, Adam Cohen principally among them. I do think they have had some considerable successes to brag about -- for example, the energy-saving program has reduced annual costs by over $300,000. Over 60,000 pounds of metal gas cylinders have been recycled. And while the "paperless office" is probably never going to happen, not in my lifetime certainly, more and more forms and applications are moving online where we all can access them when we need them, independent of where we are. I have personal experience in that, and it has been great for me.

Now what about some of the issues that might be more troubling and certainly more challenging? Let me return to the issue of safety for a moment. I have already talked about the need to be rigorous in our procedures, our documentation, assessments and our assurance programs -- in other words to fix our earlier focus solely on outcomes rather than also taking into account procedures and processes, and to fix our insufficient support for a credible safety assurance program. Simply put: while good outcomes are extremely important, they are just not enough.

One of the challenges for us will be to deal safely with our nuclear legacy; this has been a theme at this laboratory for many, many years. The key, of course, is our nuclear facilities, including the Alpha-Gamma Hot Cell. As all of you probably know, I ordered these hot cells closed for programmatic work and we are now in the midst of planning a consolidation of our nuclear facilities to the extent that this can be done safely. Of course, ultimately the stored legacy nuclear materials from the Argonne site will be removed.

Now doing all this is not cheap, but we can't avoid it. The expenditures have put a lot of pressure on our budgets, and some layoffs have occurred. Meanwhile, there has been an array of heroic measures by the nuclear program staff to refashion their programs for our customers, mostly the NRC. I want to publicly thank our colleagues and the local DOE site office for their critical help in devising a collaborative program, including the funding, to move remotely handled nuclear materials. So this really has been a group effort and I want to thank all of you who have been involved in this in helping this actually happen. It has been extremely important for this lab.

The second troubling issues has to relate to the high competitiveness for new major facilities, even in the context of the President's new proposed budget for next year and for the out-years. The fate of the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) and other major projects is not at all certain. In the case of RIA, the next few months will probably be critical with the publication of National Academy Report on nuclear physics and its views on the scientific importance of RIA. You can be absolutely sure that we will be doing battle on that front. Similarly, we have high hopes for the Advanced Photon Source upgrade, under the APS 2010 plan. Of course, the first of the genomes-to-life projects, called the GTL program facilities, will shortly be competed and we will be doing battle there as well. I think it is fair to say that making sure these plans turn to reality over the next few years will be an absolutely major focus for us.

After talking about achievements, opportunities and challenges for some of our strategic plans, I think it is a very fair question to ask: Are the changes we are talking about real, or are they just cosmetic? I have long argued that the challenges we face in a highly competitive market, as well as the opportunities (for example, the administration's proposed FY 07 budget and beyond) clearly require changes across the lab, changes that will probably define this laboratory in its national role for much the rest of this century.

Let's us start with how we organize ourselves in the coming years. We will need to be a far more lean and far more responsive organization. This means, among other things, that we have to seriously address the divisional stovepiping at the laboratory — not just talk about it. We have to structure ourselves in response to how the world around us has changed. So let me give you some examples of what we have recently set into motion.

Within the Applied Sciences and Technology (AST) ALDship, we are dismantling the Energy Technology division and realigning activities within the remaining divisions. Furthermore, we are separating the R&D and operations of our nuclear facilities. Within the Physical, Biological and Computing Sciences ALDship, we are creating a new ALDship that would be focused on computational sciences and structural biology. On the operational side, we are restructuring our safety organization and completing the reorganization of PFS and project management group into the Project Management and Engineering division.

Finally, we are creating new organizational entities, including the Accelerator Institute which will be housed within the Scientific User Facility ALDship, and a coordinating office for our work with the Office for Naval Research, which will be housed in the Applied Science and Technology ALDship.

Now what about the leadership that goes with this reorganization? We require strong leadership, powerful scientific and technical expertise, commitment to assessment, communication responsibilities and accountability. With these issues in mind, there have been a number of new appointments. A new deputy to the director, Kelly Mannsfeld from Jefferson Lab; a new ALD for Physical Sciences, Al Sattelberger from Los Alamos; a new Office of Performance Assurance director, Bob McCook from Bechtel Nevada; a new Radiological Safety officer, Gary Zeman from Lawrence Berkeley; a new director of Project Management and Engineering, Gail Stine from the Naval Surface Warfare Center. A new head of the Computation Institute, which is a joint effort with the University of Chicago, was just announced yesterday: our own Ian Foster with Jonathan Silverstein from the university as the deputy director; a new director for the Accelerator Institute, our own Kwang-Je Kim, with Rod Gerig, also one of our own from APS, as deputy director. We also have several new appointments in the works, pending concurrence from the Board of Governors and DOE. You will be hearing about them over the next couple of weeks. So a lot is going on, and many changes are coming to the lab. Quite frankly, it is a very exciting time for me. I think you will agree these changes are not exactly cosmetic, and that these new folks, whether new to the lab or new to their positions, are all really very strong appointments and are destined to have a very large impact on our lab in the long term.

Now as I said, having talked about things that are definitely not cosmetic, I thought it might be fun to talk about, well, cosmetics. For far too long, this laboratory has functioned as a confederation of activities -- some people have called us the "Confederated Labs of Argonne." Our surveys have shown -- it's kind of a sobering result -- that many of us think of ourselves first as MCS employees, APS employees or HR employees and only secondarily as Argonne employees. As a result, our "brand," such as it is, is really diluted. Now what does that mean? It means that we are often confused with Fermilab. It means that we find it difficult to differentiate ourselves from the other DOE laboratories. It means that we are not sure as a laboratory what we stand for. I think it is fair to say that in order for us to succeed, we must to present a united front to the world. We are stronger together as citizens of Argonne than we are as members of individual divisions or departments. The name Argonne is a proud name. It gives us the added leverage of our illustrious history, our dynamic present, and our bright future. It helps us attract the best talent. It makes us a desired collaborator from the perspective of other laboratories, federal agencies, academia and industry. That is what brand identity is all about.

So these ideas in mind, we contracted with the renowned experts Millward Brown Optimor to find a unifying theme that will, to paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, "surround us and penetrate us and bind the laboratory together."

Now what Millward Brown did is to interview dozens of stakeholders inside the lab and outside from industry, media, universities and other national laboratories and research institutions. In consultation with us, they came up with both with a new logo and positioning statement to summarize what Argonne is all about: "Argonne is where scientists come together to open up new possibilities for the future."

Now this statement is not a slogan, nor is it a mission, nor is it a vision. It is a position it defines who we are, what we do and the unique place where we do these things. It captures the essence of Argonne. It is the key message and core concept that unites our communications and guides everything that we do. This new logo symbolizes our laboratory and helps transition us to a more modern way of thinking -- agile, brighter, a little edgier, maybe just a little bit more fun. It is also a delta, a symbol for change, but it also reminds us of the old logo, the stylized letter A.

[Editor's note: More information on the branding effort is available on Inside Argonne.]

Over the next few weeks, we expect that all other Argonne logos will disappear -- this includes division logos, group logos and facility logos, as well as all previous versions of the Argonne logo. From the look of our business cards to the way we interact with our stakeholders, the positioning statement that I just read to you should inform everything we do. This logo will symbolize the laboratory and all of its parts. Argonne is a unique place and it holds a special place in the scientific and engineering infrastructure of our country. It is an essential part of making our country and our children and our children's children, as they say, healthy, wealthy and wise. We do things that are difficult to do elsewhere, whether in academia or industry, and we need to make everyone aware of our special nature and our unique contributions. We are special and we should be proud of it.

So what is the state of the lab? Well, I say it is very good indeed and the future is very bright. We have more than recovered from the shock of losing Argonne-West. I think we have sound reasons to predict that 20 years from now, our R&D achievements, our new facilities, and our improvements in safety, infrastructure and processes will completely overshadow the setbacks of the past three years. It is really fun for me to be here during this time and I think all you sense this.

So with that, thank you very much for coming and please be safe in everything that you do, every day.