Several New Mexico lawmakers on Friday highlighted the need to focus on workforce recruitment and retention efforts at the Sandia National Laboratories, just hours after the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced it had awarded a new management and operations contract for the facility to a subsidiary of Honeywell International.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) congratulated National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia (NTESS) for winning the site’s new M&O contract, worth $2.6 billion annually over up to a decade.
“We urge NTESS and NNSA to continue — and strengthen — the lab’s workforce recruitment and retention, as well as its relationship with local small business subcontractors, entrepreneurs, business incubators, and labor organizations,” the lawmakers said in the statement. Recruitment and retention has been an enduring concern for the nuclear weapons complex in recent years, as the retirement of technical experts has sparked concerns over maintaining know-how among the newer generations of hires.
Northrop Grumman and the Universities Research Association consortium — which includes New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico — will support NTESS under the contract. The lawmakers said they are “encouraged” that New Mexico universities will be involved, saying “we look forward to seeing the lab continue to build a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with our state’s top-notch universities.”
The statement also noted that over the next five years, Sandia and the other NNSA laboratory in New Mexico, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, will need to hire up to 5,000 employees. “We want to make sure New Mexicans are prepared to make up as many of those new hires as possible,” they said. “We will be working with NTESS on initiatives to help boost partnerships with New Mexico’s schools and universities to strengthen science, technology, engineering and math education as well as other learning and career opportunities.”
The current contract is held by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sandia Corp. and will expire on April 30, 2017. The new contractor will manage operations at Sandia locations in Albuquerque, N.M., Livermore, Calif., Kauai, Hawaii, and Tonopah, Nev., for work that includes non-nuclear engineering for nuclear weapons, the development of systems that ensure the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and other nonproliferation and treaty verification support.
