Under pressure: Run coordinators keep their cool
Cons Gattuso, AD run coordinator, works with Mary Convery, deputy run coordinator, in the Main Control Room.
After an interrupted power outage in February, dozens of people crowded into a standing-room only planning meeting. They all wanted access to areas of the collider to do maintenance and repairs.
Cons Gattuso and Mary Convery had to schedule access around the Neutron Therapy Facility cancer treatment schedule while minimizing the amount of beam down time and late hours worked.
“Everyone is looking after their own systems,” Gattuso says. “They have their machines in mind, while we keep an eye on the entire accelerator complex.”
As the Accelerator Division's current run coordinator and deputy run coordinator, Gattuso and Convery balance running the complex's day-to-day operations, regular maintenance and immediate repairs. They also have to mesh the various personalities and interests of hundreds of people working in the AD and detector groups.
“It takes a special personality to make those decisions, to diffuse situations and to make it all work,” says Roger Dixon, AD head.
The pair foster a work atmosphere that strives for continual improvement mixed with a little fun.
Since they began in their respective positions four months ago, the Tevatron has reached record luminosities, including an integrated weekly luminosity of 74 inverse picobarns in December.
As an incentive to operators to boost luminosity, Gattuso promised operators that if the complex achieves 1,700 recorded inverse picobarns by May 3, he will show up to his regularly scheduled Friday morning meeting on May 8 wearing a pink tutu. The goal doubles the number of inverse picobarns recorded at the same time last year. Since the fiscal year began in October, the complex has recorded 1,200 inverse picobarns.
Gattuso says it is all in the name of continually improving collider operations.
“One of my top priorities is to make the job fun,” he adds.
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-- Rhianna Wisniewski |