EG&G's Jeff Cotton to lend Fermilab a helping hand

Jeff Cotton

In the grander scheme of things, Jeff Cotton is the onsite contract manager for a global engineering firm, but up close and personal, the calm, cheery man sees himself as just another helping hand. Cotton is the Fermilab onsite manager for the EG&G division of URS, one of the world's largest engineering design firms. URS provides program management and technical services to the U.S. Government. During the next five years, Cotton will lead EG&G in supporting Fermilab as an "industrial partner," by providing consulting services to suggest process improvements in the lab's operations.

"We will use a combination of subject matter experts and best practices observed at other DOE and industrial facilities to bring new ideas and concepts to Fermilab," Cotton said, emphasizing that change is only necessary if it is meaningful and has a positive influence on operations. "As we face tighter and tighter budgets, we need to seek improvements to maintain the high level of productivity that Fermilab has become famous for."

The first two areas EG&G will address are facilities maintenance and work control. The company will also assist the laboratory in instituting a qualified quality assurance program, a new contractual requirement between DOE and FRA.

"This will be a great collaborative effort," Cotton said. "I am looking forward to helping Fermilab find ways to continually improve laboratory standards and practices."

Cotton, who has a background in nuclear facilities operations, nuclear waste management and risk assessment, also served 11 years in the Navy in submarines and as an instructor in nuclear propulsion operations and management. He was educated in electronics, electrical engineering, operations management, nuclear propulsion and maintenance control systems through the U.S. Navy's nuclear training program. He and his family recently relocated to Oswego from Salt Lake City, Utah. Cotton's office is located on the fourth floor of Wilson Hall in the southwest corner and he can be reached at x2327 or by email.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

Mike Perricone, Fermilab Writer, Retires

Mike Perricone

What do professional hockey, changing diapers, and particle physics have in common?

In what must rank among the more eclectic careers in journalism, Fermilab's Mike Perricone has reported in depth on all three.

For 20 years, first on radio and finally at the Chicago Sun-Times, Mike covered that most macho of American pro sports, professional ice hockey, a phase of his career that took him to some extremely chilly places.

"If you ever long to feel cold, wind-battered, isolated, and depressed," Mike wrote of his years on the hockey circuit, "try Winnipeg in January."

When Mike's daughter, Jenny, arrived in 1989, he and his wife Joan Vanderbeck decided that Mike would be the at-home parent, while Joan pursued her business career. In brief intervals snatched from bringing up baby, Mike chronicled his and Jenny's experiences during the first year of her life. Oprah Winfrey liked Mike's book, "From Deadlines to Diapers: Journal of an At-Home Father," so much, she had Mike on her show. If she'd had a book club back then..

The career path from the ice rink to the changing table then took another remarkable turn-to the particle accelerator.

When Mike arrived at the Fermilab Public Affairs Office in 1997, it is safe to say that he did know the difference between a proton and a hockey puck. Between a quark and lepton-probably not.

Using his seasoned reporting skills and innate ear for language, Mike proceeded to make the subatomic world his beat. In doing so, he helped make that world safe for the millions of his fellow citizens who knew even less about the bosons and the fermions than he did. If Mike could grasp an esoteric particle physics concept, he could bring it to life for his particle-challenged readers-economically, colorfully, and as often as not using a sports analogy. This he did, over and over, for a decade, first in the pages of FermiNews, then for Fermilab Today and symmetry magazine and in countless press releases, video scripts and other projects.

Like the hockey players he covered for so many years, Mike is a pro. Deadlines hold no terrors; they are simply an especially stimulating part of life. He knows a misplaced modifier when he sees one. Legions of science-writing interns have learned from him the basics of constructing a news story-a subject that the current curricula of our nation's journalism schools apparently touch on but lightly. Both Mike and the interns have taken particular joy in watching their writing skills bloom under his mentorship. Dozens of young science writers fanning out across America are writing better stories thanks to a stint under Mike's tutelage at Fermilab, or so one likes to think.

Today is Mike's last day on the particle beat. This afternoon, he officially retires from the Fermilab Office of Public Affairs. Given the trajectory of his journalistic career so far, we can be sure that whatever he does, we will continue to read about it. It might be hard, though, to predict exactly what we'll be reading.