University Strengthens Security, Management

The University of California in San Francisco has hired retired US Air Force Col. Raymond "Terry" Owens as manager of safeguards for the US Department of Energy's national laboratories operated by the university. The move followed suspicions that the labs had leaked nuclear weapons secrets and the announcement by Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson that the university will lose part of its performance-based fee because of alleged delays in construction and budget overruns at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The university's senior vice president for business and finance, Wayne Kennedy, presented a plan to comply with Richardson's demand that the school take a stronger role in the oversight of the Livermore facility. Kennedy said that the university will expand its president's council on the labs to ensure permanent and active security management for all the national laboratories. The school will hire a new chairman for the council and recruit managerial candidates for each of the labs.