During a meeting held on Wednesday with Associate and Assistant Directors, and with the heads of divisions and sections, Fermilab Director Pier Oddone announced an organizational restructuring to have Environment, Safety and Health report directly to the Director as a measure of the priority of safety in all aspects of the lab. In addition, a new position of Chief Financial Officer reporting to the Director will be created to consolidate financial functions. Oddone also discussed the next steps in analyzing how to optimize the rest of the organization to carry out the laboratory's program.
The changes, which take effect March 1, eliminate the position of Associate Director for Operations Support, currently held by Jed Brown, and consolidate the responsibilities for operations under Bruce Chrisman, currently Associate Director for Administration, who will become the lab's Chief Operating Officer. Brown, who had previously discussed the changes with Oddone, will remain at Fermilab through May 31 to help with the transition. He joined the lab in December, 2001.
At Wednesday's meeting, Oddone lauded Brown for his significant accomplishments in lab safety, in security and public access, and in site and facilities management, including several important measures for reducing costs.
"We all owe a debt of gratitude to Jed for his devoted service to Fermilab," said Oddone. "He leaves a great team in place in the areas that he has managed and a string of accomplishments we are very proud of. On a personal level, I have valued Jed's help in guiding my understanding of the many issues associated with the laboratory site, the health and safety program, and our relations with the public and surrounding communities. We all wish Jed and his wife, Jean, the very best in their next endeavors."
With safety a constant priority in all lab operations, Brown's tenure was marked by important safety advances. ES&H recently announced a steady seven-year decline in on-the-job injuries, reaching a Total Recordable Case (TRC) rate of only 1.12 cases per year--which tied the lowest annual rate in the lab's history. Even better, with only 0.20 Days Away Restricted or Transferred cases, Fermilab reached the lowest annual DART case rate ever recorded.
"Jed has always been a very strong leader and supporter of ES&H and all the initiatives we have taken over the past four years," said Mary Logue, associate head of ES&H; she spoke in the absence of section head Bill Griffing, who was on travel. "We could not have accomplished as much as we have without his support," Logue concluded.
Joanna Livengood, the Department of Energy's Fermilab Site Manager, strongly endorsed the safety emphasis under Brown's direction. "Fermilab has accomplished some incredible improvements in safety performance, in large part through the leadership that Jed brought to the laboratory," she said. "Jed is a great individual who has always supported his staff, and has been quick to highlight their accomplishments. He really cared about everyone at the lab, and wanted them to take safety home with them. Jed has also been a key promoter for getting external recognition for the work done here on safety. During his tenure the lab received many awards from the National Safety Council and the Office of Science."
Deputy Site Manager Ron Lutha noted Brown's contribution in changing the lab's security restrictions adopted in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. "Jed had the courage to propose a change in the security plan," Lutha said. "He was the first to speak up and say that maybe there's a different way to do this. He was instrumental in creating a security plan that allowed us to reopen the site, yet also provided security for key programmatic areas. Having the public being able to enjoy the site was really the vision of Fermilab's founding director, Bob Wilson."
Under the plan coordinated by Brown, which went into effect on January 24, 2005, a central corridor of public areas enabled the public to visit much of the Fermilab site without the need for visitors' passes, and to enter at either the east or west gate. The public areas included most of the recreational features of the site, along with the Leon Lederman Science Education Center, the ground floor and Atrium of Wilson Hall, and Ramsey Auditorium. The heightened security for program-related facilities was focused on "Property Protection Areas," which required Fermilab ID badges or visitors' passes at all times. These areas included CDF; DZero; the Main Control Room and the associated computing space; parts of Feynman Computing Center; the Central Utility Building; the Central Helium Liquefier; and the Master Substation and the Kautz Road Substation.
Fermilab's 6,800-acre site includes more than 330 buildings with more than 2.2 million square feet of space, plus more than 100 trailers providing more than 90,000 square feet of space--and all the infrastructure required to heat, cool, light and power that space, in addition to addressing the needs of accelerator and detector facilities. With some structures approaching 40 years of age, maintaining the site's physical facilities and infrastructure is a constant effort of major scope and complexity--and costs also represent a major and complex concern. In another critical accomplishment of his tenure, Brown coordinated efforts with a DOE Office of Science program, Excess Facilities Disposition (EFD), which offered dedicated funding to remove excess facilities as encouragement for improvements at Office of Science facilities.
"We never have the money to tear facilities down," Brown said. "We found a source of money that can't be used for anything else." Through the EFD program, Fermilab obtained $55,000 late in FY02, and then approximately $330,000 in FY03. The funds were instrumental in reclaiming areas for the lab's Technical Campus project, and buildings demolished under the program offered the added benefit of "space banking," which allowed the lab to build up credit for requests for future construction. DOE requires the identification of excess space removed before seeking funds for an equivalent amount of new construction. Brown also served as the key liaison on infrastructure issues involving neighboring communities.
"I have enjoyed working with Jed during his tenure here at the lab," said Vic Kuchler, head of Facilities Engineering Services Section. "He has helped the Laboratory and FESS obtain additional funding for both Deferred Maintenance Projects and Obsolete Facility Demolition. He has also improved our relationship with the adjacent communities of Batavia and Warrenville. He has been instrumental in the development of a project that will allow the City of Batavia to connect to the Commonwealth Edison power lines along the east side of the Fermilab site. Jed has also helped foster an active Fermilab Veteran's Association here at Fermilab. I wish Jed the very best in his new endeavors."
A civil engineer with a Master's Degree from the University of Illinois, Brown rose to the rank of General in the Army Corps of Engineers, where his responsibilities included the Army's $2 billion program for environmental oversight and cleanup at installations around the world. He was on the oversight board for the cleanup of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, following the shutdown of the chemical weapons manufacturing facility. He also directed environmental aspects involved with the return of US military bases in Germany, handling negotiations with then-Environmental Minister Joschka Fischer, who later served as Germany's Foreign Minister. Citing a longstanding interest in science and specifically in physics when he joined the lab in 2001, Brown expressed admiration for the working climate he discovered at Fermilab.
"Not only is the science fascinating, but the setting is an absolute delight," he said. "It's like a combination of a public park and a game preserve. It's unlike anything I've experienced in working with the government. Fermilab is a national treasure."
—Mike Perricone
