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Director's Office Makes Organizational Changes

(Photo - Jonathan Dorfan) I wish to bring to your attention several organizational changes in the Director's Office.

In order to assure SLAC has an effective system of oversight for our business, security, and Integrated Safety and Environmental Management (ISEM) Systems, we have established the SLAC Office of Assurance with Robin Wendt as Interim Director. This office will be responsible for seeing that systems designed to assure that we are meeting the commitments in our system descriptions and complying with regulatory and contractual standards are in place and operating effectively. In developing this office, Robin brings with him over 35 years of ES&H management and leadership experience in addition to his ongoing work connected with SLAC's Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS) reviews. Prior to his recent retirement, Robin served as Acting Director of EH&S at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as Head of Environmental Permits and Regulatory Affairs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. During his term as Interim Director, Robin will lead the candidate search for the first Director of this office.

Coincidentally, we are implementing a major restructuring of the administrative support for the Director's Office. The main motivation for these changes is: i) with all the Directorate heads co-located in my office area, additional administrative support is needed and ii) the desire to improve my responsiveness and effectiveness in dealing with the high daily volume of administrative and other requests. Eleanor Kinnebrew has assumed the newly created position of "Chief of Staff to the Director." As such, she is responsible for the central coordination of activities to ensure effective flow of information to and from the Director's Office. Eleanor is further charged with ensuring the timely and efficient implementation of the Director's key objectives within the Directorate, while at the same time anticipating and identifying issues requiring the attention of the Directorate.

As head of administration for my office, Eleanor will be supported directly by an Executive Assistant and a replacement for Thanh Ly, who vacated her position as of March 20 to take on the challenging job of "Event Coordinator" in the SLAC Office of Communications. Thanh is ideally suited for her new position and we wish her great success.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is a major construction project, and during the next three years it will require a smooth and effective interface with virtually every department and function at SLAC. Ensuring the success of the LCLS, while maintaining our usual outstanding performance for all other functions at SLAC, is essential. To make that happen, I have asked Steve Williams to expand his role as my special assistant with the new assignment of "Laboratory Liaison for LCLS." This assignment will last for the duration of the LCLS construction. Steve's task is to work with LCLS and the leaders of the major non-LCLS activities in the Lab, to anticipate and mitigate, as best is possible, the impacts and interferences resulting from the construction. Paramount in this assignment is ensuring that the Lab's ISEM Systems are fully engaged, namely that roles and responsibilities in the interfaces are well defined, that unexpected impacts are minimized and that Lab-wide safety is never compromised. Steve will continue his role as Deputy Director of the Particle and Particle Astrophysics (PPA) Directorate.

I am most grateful to Eleanor, Robin, Steve and Thanh for assuming these new and critical roles. Please give them your full and enthusiastic support.

—Jonathan Dorfan
   SLAC Today, March 31, 2006