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Hanley Lee Recognized as Federal Project Director of the Year

(Photo)
Hanley Lee, who recently won the DOE's Federal Project Manager of the Year award, in his office at SLAC's DOE site office. (Photo by Julie Karceski.)

Hanley Lee of the SLAC Site Office was named the Department of Energy Federal Project Director of the Year last week in Washington, DC. As the federal project director for construction of the Linac Coherent Light Source, he was honored for its stellar success.

"This is well deserved honor and recognition of Hanley, who has worked tirelessly to make this project a success," said Paul Golan, who oversees the DOE Site Office at SLAC. "Congratulations to Hanley and the entire LCLS team."

Upon arriving in Washington last week for the DOE's annual workshop on project management, Lee had little reason to suspect he was an honoree. He was asked to give a presentation on the execution of the LCLS construction project. The upcoming awards banquet, on the last day of the workshop, was not on Lee's radar.

"I had no idea I was an awardee," Lee said.

That is, not until the workshop's program managers began asking him how long he would be in Washington. Finally, after a bit of dancing around the inevitable, the program managers told Lee he needed to stick around until the end of the workshop. At the awards ceremony, Energy Secretary Steven Chu presented Lee with his award and gave a speech on the importance of project management.

"It was a neat experience," Lee said. "Being able to go and accept an award for the LCLS was amazing."

Lee is the deputy site manager with the DOE's SLAC Site Office. He also serves as the federal project director for several construction projects, including the LCLS, Facilities for Accelerator Science and Experimental Test Beams and the proposed Research Support Building. As a link between projects at SLAC and the DOE's office in Washington, he oversees budgets and timelines, coordinates with project managers and assesses progress.

While this award honored Lee as project manager of the year 2009, Lee's contributions to the LCLS have been nearly a decade in the making. At SLAC since 1990, he started working on the LCLS in 2001. Last spring the LCLS began running, creating laser light on the first attempt and suddenly bringing to light many years of effort and collaboration.

And though this honor is bestowed upon an individual, Lee was quick to point out that the LCLS's success is the culmination of many people's hard work.

"The award was a very nice honor for SLAC and the [LCLS] project," Lee said.

—Julie Karceski
  SLAC Today, March 19, 2010