ABQjournal: LANL Official Announces Resignation

Saturday, November 9, 2002

LANL Official Announces Resignation

By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer
    The University of California's vice president of laboratory management, responsible for the oversight of operations at Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories, announced his resignation Friday.
    John McTague said his decision to resign had nothing to do with an FBI investigation into at least $50,000 in alleged purchasing fraud at LANL which came to light this week. McTague put in place a team that has been examining lab purchasing practices.
    As vice president of laboratory management, McTague oversees security, safety and accountability at the three national labs.
    The University of California operates the labs under contract for the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
    McTague said he made the decision to leave in February, but had agreed to stay on until new management systems were in place, a process he thought would take as long as three years.
    But, McTague said, with the systems operating by this fall and verified by National Nuclear Security Administration officials in mid-October, "it really was a sensible time to leave."
    The vice president of laboratory management position was created early in 2001 after a pair of embarrassing incidents at LANL. The first was the Wen Ho Lee case, while the second was the lab's subsequent loss of computer discs loaded with classified information. The discs eventually were found behind a copying machine.
    The vice president position was filled in May 2001 by McTague, the first to hold the office.
    "(The position) was created as part of an agreement with University of California and the NNSA for the purpose of strengthening the university's management of the three national labs," said Jeff Garberson, a spokesman for the University of California.
    The University of California first proposed the position and DOE later "insisted" on it, he said.
    Garberson said McTague didn't "micromanage" what went on at the labs, but would "make sure jobs were done well at the labs rather than doing them himself."
    In August, LANL officials announced a lab employee and an employee of a lab contractor were placed on paid "investigative leave" pending an investigation into the misappropriation of about $2,500.
    That discovery led to a broader investigation by external auditors and the FBI.
    On Oct. 31 the FBI filed court documents alleging two employees, Peter Bussolini and Scott Alexander, had illegally used lab "purchase" cards, similar to credit cards, to buy at least $50,000 in unauthorized merchandise from a lab supplier — including GPS units, motorcycle helmets, fancy gas grills, hunting knives and camping equipment.
    "We have been looking at the robustness of our purchase system for some time now at all three of the labs," McTague said. "I put into place an independent external investigation team to look at the whole issue of credit-card use and purchase orders."
    That team is in its second month of investigations, McTague said, and he expected "there will be some adjustments made as we get the fullness of the report in."
    "There are certainly indications that there are best practices, for example at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, that are better than the systems that Los Alamos uses," he said.
    McTague, 63, said he plans to return to the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he is a professor of materials, once a replacement is in place.
    "Then I am not severing my connection," he said. "The president (of UC) asked me to take a role as senior adviser to the president, which I will do."
    McTague's resignation comes a month after the NNSA completed a focused two-year review of the university's contract in five areas: management accountability, safety and security, facilities safety, project management and critical skills.
    Garberson said the university received the highest performance rating possible from the NNSA.
    University of California President Richard Atkinson said McTague's leadership "led to real changes in the day-to-day management of the labs."
    Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said his agency is "indebted" to McTague for his role in improving the management of the three national laboratories.