Kim Budil started this week in her new job as director of weapons complex and integration at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, making her the point person for the nuclear warhead to be used on a next-generation cruise missile.
Monday was Budil’s first day in her new role, a lab spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. The weapons design lab announced the hire in January.
Budil had not appointed a deputy at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, the lab spokesperson said. Livermore’s previous associate director for weapons complex and integration, Michael Dunning, retired in January after almost 30 years at the lab.
As head of weapons complex and integration, Budil is responsible for the roughly $1.5 billion-a-year lab’s active nuclear weapons programs. These notably include the W80-4 life-extension program, which aims to produce a refurbished nuclear warhead for a next-generation air-launched cruise missile called the Long-Range Standoff Weapon. The Pentagon plans to start fielding the missile in the late 2020s.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to produce the first war-ready W80-4 by 2025 and the last by 2031. It is working on a weapon design and cost report for W80-4, which the agency said in its 2019 budget request will be ready between 2019 and 2022.
Budil was most recently vice president for national laboratories at the University of California: a senior partner on the prime management contractors for both Livermore and its older competitor within the nuclear security enterprise, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Meanwhile, the order of succession at the University of California’s Office of National Laboratories remains murky. Craig Leasure is the associate vice president for national laboratories: the No. 2 spot within the organization. Leasure came to the university in October after a nearly 30-year stint at Los Alamos. There, he was most recently principal associate director for operations and business.
In January, the university said it would appoint an interim labs vice president before starting a national search for a permanent replacement. A university spokesperson on Tuesday declined to comment about whether the system had appointed an interim vice president.
