SLAC Today is available online at:
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In this issue:
From the Director—Execute the Plans in Place
Decade of Discovery Explores DOE Science
Word of the Week: Flavor
Around SLAC: Logo Banners

SLAC Today

Friday - January 9, 2009

From the Director: Execute the Plans in Place

(Photo - Persis Drell)

In 2008, we as a laboratory embarked on a major improvement program. In many areas where we had not evolved to modern business practices and standards, we started planning improvements, and in many areas we started to execute those improvements. We have been commended for heading in the right direction. Our focus now has to be: Execute and deliver what we have planned!

Good plans are in place for many areas of the laboratory where improvements are needed. Business planning in the Operations and Engineering and Technical Services directorates is well underway. In addition, all groups are defining R2A2s (Roles, Responsibilities, Authorities and Accountabilities) for every employee and working to set clear expectations for performance. The next step is for all of us to hold ourselves accountable for meeting that performance. There are improvements in financial planning. A new Work Planning and Control program is being rolled out, along with changes in Environment, Safety and Health oversight functions at the lab. We are embarking on a major upgrade in our enterprise systems (business IT) lab-wide and making significant improvements in the procurement process.  Read more...

(Image - Decade of Discovery)

Decade of Discovery Explores DOE Science

The Linac Coherent Light Source is featured in A Decade of Discovery, a print and online book released January 5 by the Department of Energy, showcasing the National Laboratories' most significant accomplishments of the last ten years. Ranking the X-ray laser alongside innovations in treating cancer, developing cleaner fuels and safeguarding nuclear resources, the book highlights the LCLS's ability to probe the details of minute processes that happen on timescales shorter than one trillionth of a second.

"As this book makes clear, collectively the DOE's 17 National Laboratories remain the single greatest scientific enterprise in the world," said Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman in a press release announcing the book. With its two powerful light sources and strong programs in particle physics, astrophysics and more, SLAC will continue to play a crucial role in that enterprise.

Word of the Week: Flavor

"Flavor" is a quantum number associated with elementary particles that relates to their weak interactions, but it is a term with two different uses. It is used independently to characterize the six types of quarks (up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top), as well as the three types of charged leptons and their corresponding neutrinos (electron, muon and tau).

(Photo - hanging up new SLAC banners)

Around SLAC:
Logo Banners

This week, carpenters Mike Hughes and Brent Johnson attached SLAC banners to light poles on Loop Road and around the main green. (Photo by Kelen Tuttle. Click for larger image.)

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