Thomas Mason, former director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will become director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Nov. 1, after Triad National Security takes over management of the storied nuclear-weapon facility in New Mexico.
Mason is Triad’s president and CEO, making him ultimately responsible for Los Alamos’ nuclear stockpile stewardship and weapons modernization missions under a lab management and operations contract worth more than $20 billion over 10 years, including options. The base period alone is worth about $10 billion over five years.
Mason left Oak Ridge in 2017 after 10 years as lab director and president and chief executive officer of Oak Ridge prime contractor UT-Battelle. He returned to the parent company Battelle as senior vice president for laboratory operations. .
The new director will replace Terry Wallace of incumbent lab-manager Los Alamos National Security, which will turn over the keys to Triad after 12 years on the job. Wallace himself has been lab director for less than a year; in January, he replaced Charles McMillan, who retired after six tumultuous years that were marred by safety and management lapses that ultimately led the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to put the lab management contract back on the street nearly a decade earlier than planned.
On Mason’s watch, Los Alamos will upgrade and expand its plutonium processing capabilities, including renovating the Plutonium Facility to annually produce at least 30 fissile nuclear-warhead cores called plutonium pits by 2026.
Los Alamos National Security’s management and operations contract was set to run out Sept. 30, but the NNSA said in a press release announcing the award to Triad that the incumbent would be extended to accommodate a four-month transition period. An NNSA spokesperson in Washington could not confirm this week whether Los Alamos National Security had received its extension.
Triad announced four other senior management appointments at Los Alamos, all of which will be official Nov. 1. These are:
- Robert Webster as deputy director of weapons. Webster, a longtime nuke man with a history at Los Alamos and NNSA headquarters, is already the lab’s principal associate director for the weapons program under Los Alamos National Security.
- John Sarrao as deputy director of science, technology, and engineering. Sarrao took over this year as principal assistant director of the lab’s Science, Technology, and Engineering branch under the incumbent.
- Kelly Beierschmitt as deputy director of operations. Beierschmitt, another Oak Ridge alum, is currently deputy laboratory director for science and technology and chief research officer at the Idaho National Laboratory for Battelle Energy Alliance: the Idaho lab’s prime contractor.
- Frances Chadwick as the lab’s staff director. Chadwick is currently Los Alamos’ program director for weapons infrastructure in the principal associate directorate for the lab’s weapons program.
Of the five senior managers Triad announced Monday, two come from the Battelle side of the business — including director-to-be Mason — while three come from incumbent Los Alamos National Security.
On its website, Triad bills itself as a non-profit organization. That had local elected officials in New Mexico nervous that they would lose tens of millions of dollars in New Mexico gross-receipts tax the current for-profit lab-operator pays.
This week, the local Los Alamos Daily Post reported the Los Alamos county council would travel to Washington to meet with NNSA and discuss Triad’s non-profit status in more detail.
