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Dorfan Today: Keeping Washington Informed

(Photo - Jonathan Dorfan)Next week Persis Drell, Keith Hodgson and I will be visiting Washington DC. As an institution whose support comes from the taxpayers, it is our duty to provide those in the Administration and Congress with a clear understanding of how we are administering this public trust.

In doing so, we have an opportunity to keep Washington informed of the excitement of the current SLAC program and the importance of the past year's scientific results and technical breakthroughs. In short, we get to showcase your outstanding work. All three branches of our operating program—the B Factory, SPEAR3 and the FFTB advanced accelerator and ultrafast photon science program, are producing world class scientific results at a prodigious rate, a testament to the unstinting effort and dedication of the laboratory staff.

Now is a particularly important time in the history of our great laboratory, given that we are at a crucial turning point in forging our dynamic new future. The LCLS construction is starting in earnest, excellent progress is being made on the International Linear Collider, GLAST will soon be shipped to the Naval Research Laboratory for final testing prior to its Fall 2007 launch and the newly formed scientific centers of excellence, the Kavli Institute (KIPAC) and the Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering center (PULSE), are flourishing. We want to be sure that those in Washington who have endorsed so strongly the new and expanded vision for SLAC can gain a clear understanding of how well the key steps in that evolution are taking shape.

Pat Fulton, who is our Stanford Lobbyist in Washington, has organized a packed agenda of meetings with Congressional offices, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget. All three of us are very much looking forward to this opportunity to thank the government for their support for SLAC and to reinforce the key elements of our exciting future. Thanks to each and every one of you for making that future so exceptionally bright.

—Jonathan Dorfan
   SLAC Today, April 17, 2006