Episode 3: Collaborating to Support the Office of Science and the National Labs

This episode of the EFCOG Exchange Podcast explores EFCOG’s work with the Office of Science and DOE’s 17 National Laboratories.    

EFCOG Board Member and Battelle Executive Vice President of National Laboratory Management & Operations Juan Alvarez joins Mike Nartker, VP of Communications at Longenecker & Associates: a Geosyntec Company to discuss opportunities for EFCOG to collaborate with other organizations like the National Laboratory Directors' Council (NLDC) to share best practices.  Juan also discusses the exciting work happening at DOE Labs across the complex, including the work being done to support the Genesis Mission.   

Stay tuned for future episodes of the EFCOG Exchange Podcast, where we’ll continue spotlighting innovation, collaboration, and success across the DOE enterprise.

Transcript

Juan describes his current role at Battelle and explains how the national labs apply science and technology to advance DOE’s mission and deliver benefits for the nation.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello, and welcome back to the FCOG Exchange Podcast, your source for fresh conversations on the work the Energy Facilities Contractors Group does for the Department of Energy. I'm Mike Darker. I'm Vice President of Communications for Longenecker Associates, a Geosyntech company, and we're a proud member of FCOG, which is an organization of more than 140 member companies, ranging from large businesses to small businesses that support the important missions of what we dub DOE. I think it's fair to say that if you're familiar with FCOG, you likely know us more for the work we do with the National Nuclear Security Administration, which helps oversee our nuclear arsenal, or the DOE Office of Environmental Management, which manages cleaning up the environmental legacy of past nuclear weapons and nuclear activities and nuclear energy research. What you may not know is FCOG is very active with the DOE Office of Science and the set of national laboratories across the country. This is even more important now given the administration's strong focus on driving American innovation and scientific leadership. To discuss more about how FCOG is supporting DOE in this critical mission for our country, I'm lucky to have with us today Juan Alvarez from the FCOG board. Juan is Executive Vice President for National Laboratory Management and Operations at the Battel Memorial Institute. In that role, he oversees their portfolio of major research laboratories that are either managed or co-managed by Battel. With over 37 years of experience in management and operations with the U.S. Navy and as a contractor to DOE, Juan brings a wealth of expertise and experience to this position. Before joining Battel in 2024, Juan served as Chief Operations Officer and Executive Vice President of Battle Energy Alliance LLC, the management and operating entity for the Idaho National Laboratory. His prior roles include Director of Facility Operations at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Director of Internal Audit Assurance and Quality at Pantex Plant, which is an NMSA site, and manager of laboratory operations with EGG Idaho. So it's very apparent Juan knows his way around the national lab complex. Juan, thank you so much for joining me here today. As I mentioned in my introduction, you serve as executive vice president for National Laboratory Management Operations at the TEL. That portfolio includes seven of DOE's 17 national labs. To start us off, can you briefly describe your role and how DOE's national labs support the department's broader missions?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Well, first of all, let me say thank you. Thank you, Mike, for uh giving me the opportunity to visit with you and uh and have all these discussions that I think will be benefit to uh all of our FCOC members. Uh so as the executive vice president of Patel's lab management and operations, uh really for me has been an incredible honor uh to lead that portfolio of laboratories. Uh if you look at Battel, which is a nonprofit company that was formed in 1929, is when it first opened its doors, uh, actually just weeks before the Great Depression, which is amazing that it survived post uh the Great Depression. Uh, Battel has been dedicated from day one to how do we make society better through science, technology, and education, uh, which lines up very closely with what is it that we do in the national labs, right? It's bring science and technology to the benefit of society, and especially in particular to the benefit of our nation and our nation's national security and economic security and and economic prosperity. Uh, so for me, there's no better way to fulfill this uh mission than by managing the national labs, right? It aligns perfectly with what Patel is all about. So, in my role, uh, you know, I have responsibility for these seven national labs that you mentioned that we either manage or or have a management uh uh responsibility for in some way as a co-manager. Uh, and that entails really, when you look at the portfolio, it's it includes governance, what we're doing with our board of directors and committees, et cetera, that provides the corporate assurance to the Department of Energy or the National Nuclear Security Administration. Uh, it includes really the importance of the executive leadership. You know, a big part of my role is, for example, it's the hiring and firing of lab directors, right? Uh, in some ways. Uh, hopefully just the hiring part. I don't necessarily enjoy the other part. And the board is more involved in the on the other part of uh just the way it works. But also, it's how do we support all the national labs that we're responsible for? How do we bring in corporate reach back uh resources? How do we provide them leadership development programs, things that would add value to how each of those individual limited liability companies that are managing each of those individual labs, uh, how do we bring value to them in a way that uh it advances their mission and supports the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration?

Juan names the seven DOE labs managed or co-managed by Battelle and discusses the DOE programs they support.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

For those who may not be familiar, what are the seven national labs Patel's involved in?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So uh so for the Department of Energy Labs that we're responsible for starts with I'm gonna go from northeast all the way out to the west. Makes it easier for me to go to the top of mine. Uh yeah, we start with Brooke Heaven National Lab, which is a very fundamental science lab, uh, you know, a big accelerator lab, right? So looking at the fundamentals of matter, what is matter composed of? Uh, we start heading south to how we hit the Savannah River National Lab, a very important lab in the support of the Savannah River side production operations, but also a very important lab in the in the support of the environmental management. It's the lead lab for the environmental management program and really bringing solutions that hopefully accelerate cleanup and help us deal with some of the legacy from the the Cold War and the work we did with the nuclear weapons. Uh for Savannah River National Lab, we'll start heading maybe now uh more of West. Uh, we we have Oak Ridge National Lab, a major multi-program national laboratory under the Office of Science sponsorship, and uh very important lab in the Office of Sciences portfolio. And and thus, I mean, they almost do the entire cycle from fundamental science to very, very much applied applied work and both national security and energy, uh, and of course, science work, discovery science. They're big in neutron sciences and high performance computing. So, as you can imagine, they're playing a big role today on artificial intelligence, quantum, and a lot of the uh the efforts that we're going to hear about and hopefully get a chance to talk about in Project Genesis, which is a new initiative that came out of the White House. Uh starting to head further west, uh, we uh run into Los Alamos National Laboratory. Uh, we are a partner there with uh University of California and Texas AM and a couple of other industry partners like Floor and uh and HII to manage as triad, the Los Alamos National Lab. Of course, uh that's a lead laboratory for uh uh for the NNSA, uh, doing uh a lot of very important work. And today it's where we're tasked with producing the plutonium pits for the new modernization of the nuclear arsenal. Uh going further north, you run into the National Lab of the Rockies, used to be called the National Renewable Energy Lab. Uh the National Lab of the Rockies, very important laboratory supporting the critical minerals and uh energy innovation office, used to be the former energy efficiency and renewable energy office, uh, and some other offices because it's kind of a combination of things. But very important laboratory supporting critical minerals research, integrated energy systems, grid security. Uh so we're very proud of managing that laboratory in partnership with MRI Global. We've done it for a number of years. Uh going further north now, northwest, uh you hit the Idaho National Lab, the lead lab for nuclear energy. And again, we're very proud of uh being part of managing that laboratory with Amentum and BWXT and uh some university partners, EPRI, for example, also the Electric Power Research Institute. And then further west, we hit the Pacific Northwest National Lab, uh, which is uh the first lab that Patel got the opportunity to manage. We've been there since 1965. Uh and uh contract has uh never been completed. Uh we're very proud of the laboratory, continues to get the highest scores uh in the Office of Science. It is a multi-program lab supporting national security, a lot of NNSA work, but it's also uh an important lab in Office of Science for the biological and environmental uh remediation type uh work. So uh that's I think the portfolio. I don't think I skipped anyone. I'm pretty sure I'll get a phone call if I did.

Juan shares his personal history working with EFCOG, including his previous service as Vice Chair and recent return to the Board. He also discusses the value EFCOG provides to DOE/NNSA and its member companies.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

That's true. You know, and an amazing coincidence, I am hosting this episode of the FCOG podcast from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside of Chicago. I know it's not one of Patel's labs, but Fermi is also uh is America's premier particle physics lab, one of the one of the great jewels in the lab complex system. Let me ask you, after we've kind of heard something about you, what motivated you to get involved with FCOG and be part of the FCOG board?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah. Well, let me let me start that. You know, I I've had a long association with FCOG. Uh going back even as an individual contributor, right once I first uh finished my service in the Navy and I and I became a contractor, uh I was in an individual contributor role. I got the opportunity to get exposed to FCOG through one of the working groups, right? Where a lot of subject matter expertise, you get an opportunity to network and and work and share best practices and so forth. So a long affiliation with FCOG, but I've actually I served in the FCORP board many years ago and uh and served as the vice chair for a couple of years. Uh, this is back when Sue Steiger uh was the chair. Uh great service. And and then after that, I I kind of uh focused a lot more on the chief operating officer role at the Idaho National Lab. And frankly, that that role was just taking a lot of my time, along with at the time, we were really building out the National Lab Directors Council and the different working groups that are below it. Uh and I was the chair of the National Lab Chief Operating Officers Working Group. So that that took me away from FCOG, and I actually delegated uh uh my position in FCOG that I had uh to Bob Mickless, who hasn't since changed companies, but uh is still heavily uh involved with FCOG. So so I kind of took that time off right from FCOG. I mean, stayed in engaged, but not directly involved in the board. Uh and then uh as I took this new role a year ago, I got the invited uh by Mark Whitley as an opportunity to go rejoin the board and continue to contribute. Fcog is an incredible organization, right? I mean, it represents uh over 140 members, uh companies that that either do direct contracting to the Department of Energy or in some role of subcontractors, etc. Uh, and he and he brings value in so many different ways that that's what I'd see the value of FCG. It's a contractor association. Uh to the working groups, it does a lot of good work to think through standards, practices, uh, solutions to enterprise problems. Uh, so I think the department benefits tremendously from an organization like FCOG. I think the members, if you're actively engaged, benefit tremendously. A lot of times, maybe it's not seen or sensed by the more senior members of our contractor community, but at a minimum, there are a lot of subject matter experts in our organizations that are heavily involved in the working groups that really get a lot of value from FCOG, either from direct personal involvement or just having access to some of the practices and stuff that, you know, the products that the working groups put together. So I think the organization uh uh has a lot value for both the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Juan and Mike discuss the challenges and opportunities of supporting DOE given the breadth of programs and diversity of equities involved in executing its mission.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

I think when you when you look at the mission of FCOG, right, the state of mission is about sharing best practices and lessons learned and knowledge, and especially given, you know, the 17 national labs make up one component of the entire DUE complex when you add in NSA sites, when you add in EM sites. And so many people we've talked to for this podcast and and across FCOG, they cite that, but be able to come together, get those lessons learned, make those connections, especially at the working group levels, uh, and be able to take that back to their activities at whatever site they may be part of. So I that is something we hear consistently is one of the main benefits for why you should be part of FCOG if you're not already. Given your wide experience across the entire DOE complex, you know, you mentioned you've worked at Pantex and NNSA site, all the various labs that have been involved in EM, like Savannah River National Laboratory, or the applied energy areas like Idaho. How does that perspective influence what you see as the opportunities across DOE today and the challenges the department faces today?

Juan and Mike examine the similarities and differences between the National Laboratory Directors’ Council (NLDC) and EFCOG, and explore opportunities for future collaboration.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Well, you know, one of the things that I think uh most of us that have been in this business for a number of years quickly recognize is that DOE is not one department of energy. Right. Uh it uh it really has a lot of different identities because the programs, not only do they get appropriations that are separate from each other, but they they generate their own uh authentic way of doing business and doing different things. So one of the challenges that I found with FCOT, right, which it's is the fact that we deal with equities across the entire department. Very difficult, uh, compared to maybe a singular office focus. Uh yeah, so I think that what FCOT brings is that diversity of contractors that could understand the diversity of those equities and could better represent or adapt or tailor what we're trying to do to the different customer bases that adds value. And again, I really believe that an organization like FCOG is not only there to serve the Department of Energy and making sure that as a contractor community, we're making the DOE of the National Nuclear Security Administration enterprise better, work more effectively, work more efficiently, but it's also by making the members perform better, by providing them tools and ideas, solutions that they're able to help them be better contractors out to the community. Uh I find that there that there's not a lot of competition between us when we're sitting at the FCOG table, right? We're not competing against each other. We're looking at how do we make everybody better? And everybody would take that on their own ways, right? They'll adapt to whatever they hear and apply it to their own operations in their own unique way. So I think FCOG has a lot to offer because of that that diverse uh membership. Uh, they also have a lot of challenges because they got to manage a very diverse set of equities. Uh, and over the years, that's been, frankly, uh, Mike, one of the if if I list when I listen to some of my peers in this in the national lab business, has been a point of criticism, right? Over time, the uh FCOG, and you and you kind of even know when you opened your opening, you talked about how FCOG had that reputation about supporting the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of Environmental Management, but that a lot of people don't know that they also support like the Office of Science Labs and the Applied Energy Labs. Uh the contrary of that is that that there's that perception actually even uh persists around the contractor community very heavily. That what does FCART do for us outside of NNSA an EM? Uh and so what I'm hoping one of the things that I'm hoping to do with this this podcast, too, is an opportunity to say that there's a lot. There's a lot more we could do. Uh and today, the National Lab Directors Council, which is all the lab directors have organized, self-organized themselves, and then they have their own working groups, we know them. And now their working groups are organized along functional areas, like the chief research officers, the chief operating officers, the CIOs, the chief human resource officers, you name it. Every C CX position you could think of. There's a working group today on the National Lab Directors Council, but the National Lab Directors Council is very much focused just on the labs. And everybody inside those working groups works for a member of the National Lab Directors Council. And and then so when they get a task team, they're very focused. They're able to execute very quickly, right? That for for FCOG, it's a lot more difficult, right? Because not every member that's participating in a working group has representation on an FCOG board, per se, right? I mean, it it's not the same people, it's just because it's a bigger organization. You can't do it that way. Uh and and it's it's a lot of volunteer work. While you know the NLDC could just say, I want you to do this, I'm the I'm the boss, right? Go fix it. Uh so that creates a different challenge on how responsive the NLDC can be and how influential with the national lab uh stewards community, the community of national lab stewards. Uh and so I think over time what you've seen is uh that the like the science labs, right, they see the NLDC presence and they see them advocating for what the labs need. And what they see more of FCOG is they're out there advocating for production sites, plants, you know, EM cleanup projects, but not demonstrating a strong voice for the labs. And when they do try to demonstrate a voice, they may not fully appreciate what a lab is and that the lab is different than applying in a site, you know, for example. Uh, and I think that's some of the challenges that we face, right? Uh, it's that it's how do we get uh continue to get better as an organization, FCOG, in understanding that labs are very different than our production site and very different than the NEM project. And again, how do we represent all those equities uh in a way that all of them can see the value that we could bring? Because we're providing tailored products that are easily adaptable to the unique missions, and we're advocating in ways that are beneficial to all of those equities. Uh, because it's very different, right? I mean, you you are Fermi today, uh, you know, Fermi operates very different than the way that you would see a Hanford operating. And they will probably object if you try to bring Hanford ideas to Fermi. Right. So, how do we manage that difference?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

What is interesting, right? The labs, from my limited experience, um, because my background has been more on the environmental management side of DOE, I think one of the things is the labs, their culture of openness and the research culture very different than other parts of the department, which certainly originated out of the secrecy from the Cold War and the Manhattan Project era. And so it is difficult to, or the labs will see it as uh so fundamentally different from those other parts of the department that you cannot transplant things over. But we know, for example, many of the companies involved in either managing the labs for the Department of Energy, like Patel, or that do work at the national labs or in a subcontractor role, they do work at other DOE sites as well. And so, and they're members of FCOG. So I guess my question to you would be given, you know, the the differences between FCOG and the NLDC, in terms, like you said, the the level of involvement in both, the size of both. How do you see kind of FCG being able to bridge, complement, whatever the right term might be, so that it can help and where applicable, bring those lessons learned, uh, that knowledge transfer and sharing that's the core of FCOG's mission into helping the NLDC and the labs.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah. No, great question. I'll tell you, it starts, and I and I give credit to the leadership of the board today, uh, DJ and others, Mark and John Longenecker, who's been our executive director for a very long time. Uh we are they're setting up a meeting of the NLDC leadership with the FCOP leadership because it starts with understanding each other. I I think a lot because not necessarily the leadership of the labs participates directly in FCOP, but rather it tends to be uh a single click or a double click below them, or even maybe deeper in the organization, they may not fully appreciate what FCOC does to them. It's a name, right? It's an association, they know about it, they might be able to articulate what they do, but how much do they really appreciate what FCOC has done and capable of doing uh and overcome some of the uh the biases that we built over time just because of a lack of uh you know that our own personal ignorance of not being involved with the association. Uh, so I think it starts there. And so that meeting actually is scheduled for February, where there's an opportunity for the the two principals to to meet, to the principals to meet, and hopefully compare notes and then figure out how we could help each other. So what I always thought. The strength of the National Lab Directors Council is that the lab directors are, I mean, they're the lead of these major institutions, right? That account for a big chunk of what the department spends every year, right? It's a it's a big way of how the department delivers its mission. And they're perceived to be uh, again, these leaders of this and significant scientific institutions that provide incredible technical advice and direction to support the secretary's uh priorities. And so they get they get pretty good access to the senior leadership because they're steering the scientific know-how of the country when you think about the physical sciences. Uh so by by just that structure alone, the NODC is always going to have a very unique set of access to the leadership, the political leadership that takes over the department, and to the senior federal leadership that's always there. Uh, FCOC has to work a lot harder because they don't have that institutional open door, you know, that automatically does that. To our credit, the our board works very hard to bring in the new administration, to bring in the different federal leaders to build those relationships and rebuild them every four years and so forth, right? As people change. I think FCOG, having the discussion with the NLDC about what we all both do and what our value proposition is, I think the NLDC would see that FCOG is it's really in the implementation side where they succeed. To me, FCOG is more of the rubber meets the road type of organization. Uh, so there are a lot of opportunities to learn from FCOG or to have FCOG work on very specific problems. So, like, for example, one area that I think the NODC may not necessarily be touching on systematically as an enterprise issue, but that FCOG is very good at, and I think that they could do is in the workforce development side. Because FCOG historically has helped train a lot of our subject matter experts in in areas that others don't really uh have the ability to do, like in safety analysis, criticality safety, a lot of the very specialty areas that are unique to the work we do in the Department of Energy. Uh so I think that there's a lot we could do in FCOC to support, okay, you have all these directions that the department wants to go. NLDC is supporting strategically with maybe some of the thought leadership associated with the technical directions. Hey, FCOC could help with some of the mechanics of how we get the workforce, how we get the right practices, the right tools in place that could enable that work to go on. Uh, so I think that there is a a good marriage of the two organizations here that we just got to have the discussions uh and and really get the commitments at the leadership level of the two institutions to really help communicate with each other, be transparent with each other, and figure out our best work together.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Do you think there are things that through FCOG, you know, what the National Lab Directors Council is doing, what the Office of Science and National Labs are doing, that can kind of, in a sense, flow the other direction, right? So from them through FCOG into aiding NNSA operations, aiding EM operations in that vein. So it's so you know what what can FCOG pull from the other side to help to help those other missions?

Mike and Juan shift their focus to the benefits of using digital tools to enhance productivity, along with the barriers to implementing these tools across the complex.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Oh yeah, I I think the there it's this is a two-way street, right? There's a lot of good work. Uh now the National Lab Directors Council and the working groups below them are very focused on the labs. So by that, I mean they they understand that they're serving research institutions with uh there are community researchers that the culture is different than a production culture, etc. However, there's commonalities, right? I mean, at the end of the day, we are all ML contractors, uh, at least the ones that are, you know, those of us who are running the labs. Uh, so there's a lot of commonalities in being an ML contractor, right? How we manage HR issues, how we deal with some of the compensation challenges, how we deal with uh uh just basic logistics and so forth. So I think that there are opportunities where the labs, for example, in AI, that the labs are really doing a lot of working in AI, but not only on the research side, which by the way, they've been doing for years. It's now they're moving to the advent of you know, Gen AI, AI, you know, forward, and all these different tools that are now available to all of us. They're moving a lot of that technology application into the ML side. And you're seeing in a lot of the labs really trying to innovate on how they could use AI to make them more efficient, uh, whether it be to decision making, data analytics, you know, contractor assurance type functions, et cetera, predictive analytics, you know, where they're trying to predict uh what could come out of something, looking at trend analysis, et cetera. I think there's a lot of that that could benefit the members of FCOC. Uh, so part of that, hopefully that communication between the labs, the National Lab Directors Council and FCOC leadership is it's how do we open those two ways so that best practices that are generating in the lab are coming across, not just because a member of FCOC happens to sit in a lab that did it, but because as a matter of an institutional sharing, we're moving them forward. We're not just keeping them in the lab. We're we allow them to be available for others to decide how to best adapt them to their operation.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

You know, that that has certainly been one of the key focus areas of FCOG, at least over the past year, is looking at the use of digital tools, how they can be deployed and developed throughout the DWE complex. And I'm wondering, you know, you've talked about the benefits that those tools can bring. And FCOG has had a series of webinars over the past several months looking at each site, uh, what they're doing in that arena. I'm wondering from your perspective, looking at it kind of more broadly, what are the the challenges you see to the effective implementation of digital tools at at a DOE site, regardless of its mission? It can be a lab, it can be a production site, it can be a cleanup site. But what's what's been the challenges in getting those out there and how how can those be overcome? And how can groups like the NLDC and FCOG help overcome them?

Juan shares ideas for EFCOG and its member companies to support the Genesis Mission, including advocating for the use of AI applications and sharing best practices for successful implementation.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, so I mean, I see a number of challenges, I think, and and getting uh for us to kind of move the needle a lot more uh aggressively than we've done. Partly is infrastructure, frankly. In in many cases, uh you know, institutions are at different uh uh in different points in their progression as far as how modern their infrastructure is and to be able to support some of these tools. Uh they're all working to try to modernize, but it's a matter of funding and and priorities and other things that they're trying to balance. So infrastructure is one. Another one is culture. I mean, look, a lot of the AI tools are now available, but are the other is the workforce using them? Do they have the right uh skills to use them? Are you doing enough training for them? So I think that there's a challenge with uh as we get these tools and make them available, on how do we get the usability up uh and let them recognize the productivity that could be gained by using some of these uh tools. You know, I I just finished a board meeting with Battel Energy Alliance here at the Idaho National Lab, and the lab director was talking about how he says expectations that he expects every single member of his staff, which is now over 6,000 members, to use AI at least once a day. I mean, he wants them to be actively engaged with AI in in whatever capacity supports their their work, right? Their responsibilities. And uh realistically, that may not be realistic, right? Because you may have craftsmen that say, hey, just give me my wrench. I go to this, you know, I'll go to the fold, and that's what I do all day. But look, if you start getting the foremans to get better at like how do they communicate by maybe using AI tools to help them help with their messaging and their writing to be better, they could write, do documentation faster so they could spend more time in the field. Uh, all those things, if they start embracing it, I think we're all gonna get better. Uh again, uh, one of the things I like about if I look at Idaho's policy, for example, on AI, they talk about it's the if you know the human makes the decision and it has the accountability, then they use the AI tools to help them. In other words, decision making is still in the hands of the human, and the accountability is still in the shoulders of the human, but the tools are there. Use the tools to make your productivity or or whatever helps your uh discovery processes better. So I think those are some of the barriers. It's culture, it's the level of skill level that we have in our workforce, and it's our infrastructure in some cases. Uh frankly, I just think that uh we need to all get aggressive about it. I think that the tools are out there and we just need to push.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Well, when you talk about aggressive, I mean, you look at what DOE is doing with its recently announced Genesis mention, as you mentioned at the beginning of our episode. You know, and this is an ambitious uh effort that I've heard described as going to be the premier scientific initiative of this administration to connect the world's best supercomputers, experimental facilities, AI systems, the data sets in the national labs, those decades of data that every lab has gathered and compiled to bring together the labs, private industry, academia to build this system to really double and launch the productivity and impact of American research and innovation within a decade, so within a near-term framework. What do you think FCOG and its members can do to help support that mission?

Juan tells a personal story about his first visit to a DOE site

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah. So Roger Genesis involves a partnership between not only the National Lab uh MLs, but also university partners, industry partners, uh, kind of partners that we sometimes we haven't had in the past, right? The Nvidia's and others that are coming to the table for us to partner with. A lot of those major projects, which right now the proposals are going in to the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation uh to create what they call lighthouse projects, right? The big, the big movers relative to major accomplishments. Uh to give you an idea, just having finished the board meeting here with Idaho, I could kind of share, you know, one of those big projects they're they that they're talking about is can we design and validate the engineering of a new reactor with about 95% of it done without human touching it? In other words, almost totally done with a computer, uh by using AI tools. And then talk about the design, the validation, the safety analysis, the structural, you know, kind of putting it all together, doing it with uh more than 90% uh absent human intervention. You know, it's essentially the system doing it, and then the human is doing the the oversight and the final confirmation. Uh, I mean those kind of very bold thinking ideas, it's what's out there. Uh I would say that FCOG, those kind of initiatives, they're going to be led by the national labs. That's what the national labs were put together. The role of FCOG obviously is to support its members that are members of those national labs that are doing that. Where I think the FCOG really can help, even Project Genesis in an indirect way, is to really advocate for on AI applications in the management and operation side. How do we make project management better? How do we make decision making better? How do we make operations better? Continue to provide examples, best practices that allows the entire community to see what the art of the possible is, and we're borrowing from each other and making each other better in that space. Uh, I think the you mentioned it, the webinars on digital uh applications that we've been doing with FCOG are very valuable, right? Because we bought we've brought in uh uh, for example, I think it was QIT uh construction company, talk about some of the digital tools that they use in the field to accelerate and to better manage construction in the field. Uh for those that are not applying those kind of tools to hear about that would open their eyes to doing that. So I think FCOG, it's it's a valuable connector of bringing those great ideas on the ML side, bring them together, continue to mine what's out there, what's coming out of the national labs that potentially could have ML applications, and then providing the forum for sharing it. Hey, we are, you know, the eBay with all costs, is you know, said be a member, be a member, and you could get access to all these wonderful ideas and uh and then pick and choose and adapt them to your business. I think that that will be very powerful. Uh, because I think uh that's not an area that we're necessarily competing in, right? We it's all about making the department better because the mission is you know, how do we modernize the nuclear weapons complex? How do we deliver on our nuclear deterrence? How do we deliver on our energy dominance? How do we deliver on our scientific discovery? That's the mission. All this other stuff we do is to make that happen. And uh, we need to figure out ways that we could, the more we could make each other better doing that. I think the mission will benefit. The mission benefits are marketplace benefits because we have a byuring marketplace with opportunities because we continue to invest in the the country continues to invest in us, the Department of Energy, to do bigger and better things. Uh so that's the way I kind of look at it.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Well, I could not think of a better way to end what's been a great discussion. So I want to thank you for your time with us today. And we have kind of a traditional now, a tradition, I think we would say for three episodes, but a tradition uh for our last standing question of can you tell our listeners about the first DOE site you ever visited and what was a standout memory or your kind of big takeaway from that?

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So, my first DOE site uh memory, I was actually a naval officer and uh I got uh sent to Idaho for my nuclear prototype training. I'm from South Florida. To Idaho in the winter. So my memory is freezing like you know what off. I'm standing around waiting for the bus to pick us up. Uh, but really, from a technical perspective, that was my first exposure to a national lab. Although I was working at the Naval Reactors facility, it's located inside the Idaho National Lab. And you had to drive by, right? You rode uh the bus past a lot of all these facilities, and you started to ask questions about what they do, and you start learning about wow, they didn't know these kind of things were available. And it's the vastness of what we do. I mean, if you look at the range, the breadth of what the department does, how can you not get excited about working in the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, right? I mean, the mission alone, it's the it's it's so inspiring of the things that we touch. I have the benefit today of managing that portfolio we talked about. So I could, you know, I go to a Brookhaven National Lab and I learn about neons and gluons and corks and all that stuff that well over my head, but incredible to learn about the fundamentals of matter. Today go to, you know, Los Alamos, where they're producing the new plutonium pits for the future arsenal, to Idaho, where they're talking about in July of this year to have maybe three critical reactors, potentially three reactors achieve criticality in July of this year. Something we haven't done in decades. Uh, how can you not be excited about what our complex has to offer? And uh and my first experience was that drive and freezing my you know what off, but uh never forgot because I ended up there, right? After my naval service, I started my career in the in the DOE uh contractor community at Idaho working for EGG Idaho.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

So well, I I think Juan that what you mentioned, that breadth of what the department does, its contributions to our country and the world, I think that's what drives many, if not all, FCOG members, you know, both at an individual level and company level, wanting to be part of those missions, support those missions, and what it means for our country. So again, thank you very much uh for our listeners. If you're interested in learning more about FCOG, please check out our website and uh we'll look forward to another great discussion next time. Thank you. Thank you.