The Navy’s drive to recruit submarine builders inspired one National Nuclear Security Administration official, who on Tuesday said the nuclear-weapons agency might consider its own flashy recruitment ad.
“Everyone in my house was riveted to that commercial,” Frank Lowery, associate administrator for management and budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said of the We Build Giants commercial that ran during the Army Navy college football game on Dec. 9. “It’s something that we’re looking at because we have a growing workforce, a growing mission and it’s a very competitive world out there.”
The Army Black Knights won the game, 17-11. Lowery, a Navy submarine veteran, spoke during a virtual gathering of the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance non-government group.
The NNSA is in the middle of a drive to refurbish five types of nuclear weapons in the span of a decade or so while at the same time building new weapons-production facilities at three of its seven major sites.
In the midst of that, the agency is trying to sell everyone from PhDs to non-college-educated craft workers on a career in the nuclear weapons business.
“NNSA is the one place in government where the complimentary missions of nuclear deterrence, arms control and nonproliferation come together to meet our national security needs,” Lowrey said Tuesday. “It doesn’t matter who’s in the majority in the House or who’s in the White House. It doesn’t matter. This mission is so important, it enjoys bipartisan support.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Lowery also advocated for people to make more trips through the industry-to-government revolving door.
“We love it when they come and work at one of our … sites and maybe come over and become a fed and help run a program or maybe stop being a fed and go work at one of our … laboratories,” Lowery said. “That type of transition within our workforce is encouraged. The more I know about what’s happening at the site, or the more the site knows about what’s happening at headquarters, the better off we all can be.”
