Dr. Kimberly Budil broke the law and put herself and others in danger by driving under the influence and speeding, but she also did what a leader should do and admitted her mistake to all hands at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Budil, who has been the director at the California lab for about a year-and-a-half, is the first woman to lead the younger of the two nuclear-weapon design laboratories and has given much of her career so far to the nuclear weapons enterprise.
Perhaps that is why the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) quickly jumped to her defense this week, telling the Exchange Monitor that the agency was “confident” Budil could successfully lead the California lab while the government investigates the incident.
Budil has worked her whole life, made powerful friends, put down roots in the national security business and become valuable to industry. No one should say she didn’t earn her shot at the top.
Yet we at the Exchange Monitor wonder who, if anyone, would defend people of lesser stature at Livermore if they made, as Budil called hers, such a “terrible mistake.” What happens to fresh-faced holders of fresh Q clearances who stand to lose a future they mortgaged most of their past to chase because they picked the wrong night to give that rideshare a miss?
If the NNSA and the other stakeholders in Budil’s career deem her still fit for the job after the promised security review, the director should have to demonstrate that she has learned from her mistake and that the incident has not left her vulnerable to coercion by anyone shameless enough to exploit it for either their own personal gain or the proliferation of U.S. nuclear secrets.
Given the battery of recurring evaluations, disclosures and investigations required to grant a security clearance in the first place, we at the Monitor trust that DOE and the NNSA will have no trouble defining the parameters, or assessing the fidelity, of a suitable demonstration.
We are not experts in the field, but it seems to us unlikely that a bad actor could blackmail Budil over her DUI, seeing that she readily and publicly gave away the damning secret.
Meanwhile, there is an opportunity here that is larger than one chapter of one person’s career.
The NNSA has made much in recent years of the difficulties it faces hiring and clearing qualified stewards for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It has also made much of inclusivity.
Perhaps by retaining and supporting Budil — if appropriate — and by demonstrating that such treatment isn’t reserved for senior leadership, the agency could avoid a few hiring difficulties of its own creation and show that it is willing to include in its ranks a category of people that intersects with a great many other categories of people: those who have had a brush with the justice system.
We have all made bad mistakes. Before we judge someone else’s, we should humble ourselves and remember what it’s like when our best qualities and highest achievements are overshadowed by our lowest moments.
