BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com

Los Alamos County Councilor heard on Tuesday evening during their regular meeting from Mark Davis, Los Alamos National Laboratory Deputy Director For Mission Operations, a new face at Council meetings, but a familiar face at the Lab.

“At LANL our legacy is very important to us. We have over 80 years of science, vital innovation and national security efforts. We focus on research & development and the national security mission,” he said. “When I talk to the employees I tell them the work we do today is as important as it has ever been.”

Davis said last weekend, he was watching the news and in one news cast, they talked about the war between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict in Iran, the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the conflict between India and Pakistan. He noted that all those conflicts have one thing in common.

“They involve nuclear powers. So we have to be on our game every day. What we do is really important and we appreciate the support from the community to execute those missions. The other thing that I tell the employees when I talk to them is that we really do what we do at the pleasure of the federal government, the state of New Mexico and the local communities and so we have to maintain that trust and if we don’t have that trust and confidence, we can’t accomplish the mission,” Davis said.

He addressed a survey conducted by LANL every few years we do a survey with the employees to get their opinions on safety, their understanding and their concerns.

“The feedback we got on this most recent survey is that the biggest safety concern that our employees have during their work day is the commute to and from work. So we’ve put a lot of effort into this area and I appreciate the support from the community in helping us with that,” Davis said.

He noted that all the LANL government vehicles have telematics, which means they can provide the Lab with information on seat belt usage, speeding, etc. This means that when there are infractions, the information is passed on to managers and they have a discussion with the employee involved.

“We have been doing that for a little over a year now and we have had really extraordinary results. The data is going in the right direction and employees are understanding the importance of that,” Davis said.

The Lab currently has van pools, which Davis says are one of the ways to get traffic off the hill. Another is the bus service being provided from Pojoaque and Black Mesa Casino .

“That’s a big benefit to our employees because they can relax on the way to work, have wi-fi available and save on their own gas. We’re looking to expand that to wherever the demand takes us. I’m happy to support that,” Davis said. “The other thing that we do is we have cameras on the Lab that record our speeders, and once again we hold them accountable. We appreciate Los Alamos County supporting us in that and are looking to add cameras throughout the community because I think it makes all of us safer.”

Davis noted that LANL currently has 18,000 employees compared with 12,000 when Triad took over. He said the budget for the last year was $5.2 billion compared with $2.9 billion in FY 2019.

“There’s lots of uncertainty in funding from the federal government but that really doesn’t pertain to LANL We have really stable funding and bipartisan support for the work that we do. Several of our counterpart Labs are looking at budget cuts but we don’t anticipate any of that here,” he said.

LANL hiring is not going to be at the pace it has been for the past few years and that was really planned, Davis said.

“We built up to a certain level; we’re there now, so for this next year, we plan on hiring about 1,200 additional employees. That’s two-fold; to make up for attrition, which we estimate will be in the 800-900 range, and then an additional growth of around 300 employees. So still modest growth but not the growth we have had the last five or six years,” he said.

Davis discussed the plan to spend some $354 million in FY2026 on infrastructure improvements.

“We talked about growth the Lab has experienced with the increase in mission. All of that takes improved and new infrastructure. The Lab has been around for a long time. Many of the buildings are very old. If we want to continue to accomplish the mission, we need to improve on that infrastructure so there’s a lot of work in that area. Our Campus Masterplan calls for 4.7 million square feet in long-term construction and 1.65 million square feet in short-term construction. We have a high demand for skilled trades, so we’re constantly looking for those,” he said.

Davis noted that the number of trades people at LANL is up to about 1,450, which, is about the highest it’s been in several years and where he expects it to be for some time.

“We’re looking to be more efficient and more effective, especially in these construction projects. That’s really our focus for this coming year,” Davis said, adding that the Lab is looking at bringing in commercial construction standards wherever it can.

“Not every building is a nuclear facility that has to be up to nuclear standards. Where we can, parking garages, office buildings, etc., we want to use commercial standards and get those done more efficiently and on budget,” he said.

About 50 percent of the current LANL workforce has 0-5 years of experience at the Lab.

“We consider that a huge opportunity and a bit of a risk as well. We are losing a lot of experience, so a big part of our focus is bring in the skilled workforce that we need and training them to do the missions that we ask them to do. That takes support from the community. We have four college pipelines in place and we support programs at 11+ regional colleges. I would contend that building this workforce supports both LANL and the surrounding communities, so we need to focus on that and look for ways to build more relationships because what we do requires a skilled workforce,” Davis said.

He concluded his presentation by stating the LANL needs to be a “force for good” in the region.

“The overriding message is that as a good neighbor we want to contribute to Northern New Mexico’s quality of life through economic development, through education and through community partnerships,” David said.

Councilor Randall Ryti asked Davis for more information on on-site traffic enforcement and the kind of process is being used to see how it compares with that has been invested in by the County.

“One of the new programs that we’ve started that’s been very effective – and a big part of this part of this is emphasizing accountability with the workforce. They’re a big part of this and they need to help us solve the problem. So we have a path now where if they see problematic behavior and they get a license plate number, they can report that in to us and we will figure out who that employee is that’s doing that dangerous behavior and we’ll provide that information to the manager and the manager will reach out to the employee and talk to them about that,” Davis said. “That’s been very effective and the numbers show it. Our numbers of violations are going down.”

He said there are also speed cameras on the Lab.

“Once again we have guidance out there and it’s kind of a measure and a step up and if someone is a repeat offender, then we’ll take more significant action and discipline and things like that. We want the workforce to know that we care about their wellbeing. We want to make sure everybody gets there safe and can accomplish the mission and then go home in equal to or better shape than when they arrive,” Davis said.

Councilor Ryti said what Council has heard is more about the distracted driving and the aggressive driving, which may not be actually caught.

“I’m assuming there are not speed cameras everywhere, so an employee would have to be able to make a note of the license plate number and report that,” Ryti said.

Davis said recently LANL started holding all-manager meetings, where the Lab director and the three deputy directors talk to the managers about issues of interest.

“We’ve had three of those now and I think we’ve averaged over 1,000 managers at each one – so traffic safety, safety in general is one of the things we talked about. We spend a lot of the time talking about distraction – distracted driving, cell phones, things like that, but there are other distractions out there. We read the papers about other Labs laying people off and things like that. We spend a lot of time talking to (employees) about that and interacting with the workforce and encouraging the managers to get out and talk to their employees about these issues and emphasize the importance and the role that they play in their own safety,” Davis said.

Ryti asked about the use of buses – data on how much the buses are being used and if there aare any groups that are required to use the buses.

“This is a pilot program that has been going for about 18 months. The data changes quite frequently as we talk about it more and ask people to use it and they see the benefit of it – we went above the 50 percent usage rate. We’re not requiring anyone to use it now, it’s completely voluntary but we hope that by word of mouth, – for example the Black Mesa bus saves employees 90 miles a day in driving, which is a huge benefit if you measure that out over the week, that’s a significant savings in gas… we’re looking for the demand to grow organically and that’s really what we’re seeing,” Davis said.

Ryti noted that he is curious about the Omega Bridge, saying that he thought it was on the list for nearby or some other location. He asked if that project is still some years out and Davis replied, “Absolutely. It’s on the list.”

Ryti also asked Davis about the 182 number for economic development projects supported by LANL in one year.

“Are those scattered all around or are how do they roughly go? Is it roughly related to the workforce distribution or is it something else? he asked.

Davis said the projects are really scattered throughout Northern New Mexico.

It’s mainly where there is a need that arises and they reach out to us. We try to support that wherever we can,” he said. Ryti also asked what the process is for funding those and how people apply.

“We have a certain budget that’s dedicated to that and we have an organization that handles those things. The community can reach out to them and talk about projects and we evaluate those and support the ones that have the most impact on the communities.” Davis responded.

Councilor Ryti said he doesn’t believe there has been a change in the space rented in downtown Los Alamos or the White Rock town center since 2018 unless there is maybe one office that was potentially closed. “There’s not been any space added? ” he asked.

Davis said the only one that comes to mind over the last few years is the old Smith’s warehouse in Los Alamos.

“We haven’t occupied that yet. We have taken it over and are doing some improvements on that,” he responded.

Councilor David Reagor asked Davis where is the intent to develop better transportation to the County “on a scale of roads, like a road to Albuquerque that would just go south. – building new highways”.

“We have such a terrible traffic problem. It seems like that would be the highest priority just to solve it permanently, but there aren’t enough roads,” Reagor said.

“The employees would love that, but that’s a lot of money and other challenges. We try to work on the things we can control like the bus service and also remote and hybrid employees. We have employees that don’t need to be on the Lab to do their work and we allow them to work remotely and hybrid. We have several employees that are on the hill two days a week and then work remotely the rest of that time; working off the Lab when we can. We have two different locations in Santa Fe where we have a significant number of people working. We are always looking for opportunities to reduce the number of people that are coming to and going from the Lab every day,” Davis responded.

Reagor noted that there hasn’t been a new highway in a long time.

“There have been some improvements to the old highway and there hasn’t been anything done like rail, and there hasn’t been anything done like more housing. You need another 10,000 people worth of housing in town and building all these facilities out in the middle of nowhere to support stuff should be part of the budget, it shouldn’t be something you have to pull out of operations to cover. It’s part of the capital that’s part of the Lab but funded at a higher level.” Reagor said. He asked if there is “anybody talking at it in the whole DOE structure or the state.”

“You mention housing. Anecdotally I can tell you that for the last severally years, that’s been an issue that we hear from the workforce about almost every day. Recently, in the past six months, not so much. It seems like the housing challenge in Los Alamos has gotten just a bit better. Anecdotally, I don’t hear that in the workforce near as much as I did a year ago.,” Davis said. “In terms of roads, mass transit and things like that, it’s discussed at DOE. I haven’t seen any plans and I think there’s a lot of significant challenges to do that.”

Asked to illuminate what the challenge is, Davis said property, money, but there’s large demands on the budget for infrastructure improvements and other things that he thinks take a higher priority.

Chair Theresa Cull said she is just curious because Davis mentioned the employee safety survey.

“Safety can be how employees feel in the workplace, the old working with your coworkers. Given the recent rollbacks in diversity and inclusivity issues, have you heard about any concerns from employees around comfort in the workforce or how accepted they feel?” Cull asked.

“My biggest concern recently with a lot of the changes is the distractions. They heard about the layoffs at Sandia that got a lot of attention so they asked about that. The Lab director and the deputies have been very good at getting out there and talking to people and having all-hands meetings and we address these issue. I think there are several different avenues of talking to them about it in addition to the all-hands, via email, on our website. It’s kind of a constant strain and I think that hearing that message all the time, kind of comforts them and so specifically what your talking about, I don’t hear concerns about that,” Davis responded.

Chair Cull asked if there are any managers trying to measure any relationship between road safety and safety on the job with individuals.

“That is exactly what I address with the workforce. When I talk about safety, it’s not something that you can turn on or off. You can’t drive erratically on your way to work and go through the turnstile and act safely. When we talk about it, its about a lifestyle; you’re either safe or you’re not. You’re either thinking about that 24 hours a day or you’re not,” Davis said.

When he sees the safety report every morning the majority of the injuries are not on the complex tasks or doing these difficult jobs,” he said. “They’re what I call ‘walking through life injuries’. Perhaps it’s distraction or whatever. Those are the majority of our injuries tripping up or something, going down stairs, falling. We start meetings with a safety item. Talk about these things, the constant taking about them is really what is necessary and we have seen our numbers in a positive direction. For over a year now, the number of injuries, those minor first aid cases and significant injuries are going steadily down. It’s something we can’t take our eyes off, though,” Davis concluded,