Former Consolidated Nuclear Security manager Linda Bauer will as of Friday be the new deputy director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Among her responsibilities, Bauer will backstop lab Director William Goldstein, acting as the director of the $2-billion-a-year nuclear weapons laboratory in his absence, if necessary. Bauer will replace Tom Gioconda, who is “stepping down” Nov. 1, according to the lab’s press release Wednesday.
Bauer was most recently vice president of mission assurance for Consolidated Nuclear Security: the management and operations contractor for the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly-and-disassembly plant in Amarillo, Texas. There, she focused on day-to-day operations at both the Tennessee uranium processing hub and the Texas servicing center, including nuclear and explosive surety, conduct of operations, and event investigation.
Bauer joins Lawrence Livermore as the lab prepares to knuckle down on the W80-4 program to refurbish the W80 warhead for decades more service in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The warhead is slated to tip the planned Long-Range Standoff Weapon: the Pentagon’s next-generation nuclear-armed cruise missile. The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration plans a first production unit of the W80-4 by fiscal 2025, though the agency’s Office of Cost Estimating and Program Evaluation says it could take longer.
Lawrence Livermore National Security, the lab’s management and operations contractor since 2007, has options on its contract with the NNSA that could keep the team led by the University of California and Bechtel National on the job through Sept. 30, 2026.
Bauer formerly worked for both BWX Technologies and Los Alamos Technical Associates. She has spent time at the Nevada National Security Site, the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, and the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
Bauer has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Memphis in Tennessee, along with a master’s in health physics and a doctorate. in environmental health physics from Purdue University in Indiana.
