Erik Stenehjem, the new director of the Industrial Partnerships Office.Photo by Jacqueline McBride
What once was the Lab's Industrial Partnerships and Commercialization (IPAC) office now has a new name and a new director.
Its new name is the Industrial Partnerships Office (IPO). And its new director is Erik Stenehjem (sten-yem).
"The reason for our name change is to place an added emphasis on the importance we see of building work-for-others collaborations with industry," Stenehjem said.
Stenehjem comes to the Laboratory with the experience of working in different capacities for 24 years with Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle.
Most recently, he served for 18 months as the science and technology adviser to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski. He also worked for Battelle in technology commercialization and started new technology-based ventures with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Stenehjem started at the Lab Oct. 1, replacing Karena McKinley, who retired in June. Roger Werne, the former associate director for Engineering who oversaw much of the Laboratory's tech transfer activities in the early 1990s, agreed to be Stenehjem's deputy and assist him in acclimating to LLNL.
"I love working at the Laboratory. We have a great group of people and were coming up with new ways to do technology transfer.
"This may be the best technology commercialization group that no one has ever heard of," Stenehjem said. "I was blown away by the talent we have here. It made an impression on me."
Among IPO's seven business development specialists and Stenehjem's management team, six staffers have Ph.D.s in science or engineering, five are attorneys, three have experience with technology start-up firms and most have industrial experience.
For the future, Stenehjem wants to see significant increases in two particular areas of IPOs efforts the volume of the Laboratory's work with industry and the Laboratory's return on investment in licensing and commercialization.
"Wed like to double our number of licenses and double the amount of our industry-funded research. We would like our work with industry to become a significant component of the Laboratory's research portfolio," he said.
In December, a three-member panel of technology transfer professionals conducted a two-day "functional management review" of the Labs IPO operation.
The panel offered two important recommendations.
First, the Laboratory should better focus its scarce patenting resources on protecting intellectual property that could demonstrably lead to increased LLNL research and development programs and new commercial licenses.
Second, the panel urged that more resources be devoted to the filing and prosecution of Livermore patents.
In the past 2006-07 fiscal year, the activities of the Industrial Partnerships Office produced 20 new licenses, $6.7 million in royalty income, 12 new cooperative research and development agreements, 100 software licenses and 64 U.S. patent applications filed.
21 comments:
So when do we see a list of projects that LLNL is going to be working on and when will ULM ask the ( people / workers ) of LLNL who would be interested in becoming part of these project teams. IPO must remember that keeping the amount of managers on the project as low as possible may actually leave some money to get the job done. If it's business as usual LLNL is dead before they get started.
Just make sure nothing classified falls into the hands of these patents hounds.
I foresee more lawyers and communications monitoring both Internet and phone to come. All we ask is one bug per phone and word recognition software.
So we're going to go from classified society to an intellectual property and proprietary property.
The adventure should be an eye opener for many, but what's more important to me is what does the inventor get out of this for all of his or her efforts.
Before you all get to happy I want all of you to listen, learn and understand what you're up against.
Does LLNL Have A Prayer
That's cool, so again what is LLNL going to work on and how are they going to get any work into the LAB with a Pricers that shows everyone cost 4X to 6X their salary. Can you says, "they're not"..
"Does LLNL Have A Prayer"
The well educated, well connected people will still have jobs.
What will happen though to the well educated, well educated, over 40 crowd? Will they be able to keep their jobs? Get new ones?
Ah. Per^H^H^HProsecute patents. Sounds like patent squatting ala SCO. Not need for real employees, just lawyers. Makes sense given the layoffs.
Dear Mr. Erik Stenehjem,
Before you try to bring any work into LLNL please look at what each employee cost, then ask yourself who in the heck designed this system of taxation to cover cost that are by no means relative to an employees real cost. Then maybe you'll understand why no one is going to bring work to LLNL and China, Taiwan and Indonesia look more inviting to anyone who is looking for a fast, cheap, profit making products. It's a global economy and I see no way for the national labs to compete in that arena.
2:04
"look at what each employee cost, then ask yourself who in the heck designed this system of taxation to cover cost that are by no means relative to an employees real cost."
I see you're back at it on a new thread, without a thoughtful comment in sight.
"I see you're back at it on a new thread, without a thoughtful comment in sight."
February 9, 2008 6:44 PM
In stead of you two numbskulls arguing over who's correct and who's may be wrong why don't February 9, 2008 6:44 PM explain what the logic is behind an employee costing more than his or her wage. Then explain to the people why an employees group or organization should be charged for any other services, services that are most likely facilities and administrative charges. Please justify your obsession with this form of accountability. If LLNS was responsible for this I have little faith of their success in the business world without major financial backing from NNSA.
"why don't February 9, 2008 6:44 PM explain what the logic is behind an employee costing more than his or her wage"
Okay, let's start simple. Why include their retirement benefits in the wage calculation? By your logic, their retirement should be paid for by someone else at that point in time when required. Probably the DOE Office of Retirement. Haven't seen it on the org chart yet. Nor the Office of Electricity costs, etc...
"why don't February 9, 2008 6:44 PM explain what the logic is behind an employee costing more than his or her wage."
Let me help. You are a sole proprietor running a business out of Research Drive. You pay yourself $8K/month, the rent is $3K/month, utilities are $1K/month. You also have medical coverage at $750/month.
A customer walks in with a job that will take a month. He asks what it will cost. Your answer is:
a) My pay and benefits are $8.75K, so that is what it costs. Several months later, you file Chapter 11.
b) My cost is $12.75K, that is the bill.
c) This is a trick question.
If you had a machine shop like 321 with all that capital equipment in it, you would be running a minimum of two shifts if you were in business.
But I agree with the main thrust of your post, and we need to get off of "my cost to the sponsor should be my wage/benefit cost." We need to address overhead charges, and be sure they are as efficient as possible. They will never be zero.
If that be the case then it's not the wages and benefits of the workers that cost to much its all the other services.
It's a real shame when hardware can be made outside LLNL for $80 and hour and when we have it made inside LLNL it cost $230 an hours. This is exactly why places like 321 main bay are going, going, gone as well as any other service that can be outsourced.
Pretty soon most all blue collar labor will come from outside LLNL fence line. All that will be done inside is managing the projects.
I guess when you get your labor rate for the shops down to $80 an hour, people may actually come to LLNL for WFO.
Until then, have a good day.
February 10, 2008 3:50 PM
One thing is for sure. The shop rate at 321 main bay is not any of the machinist fault. It's strictly overhead for those who are milking the system for all its worth. And finally, for you people who think the shops is to expensive. Try getting the same quality work in the same time frame done in any outside shop. They'll laugh your butt out of the shop. They don't need your unreasonable time scales resulting from poor planing on your behalf. You'll go in the que and wait your turn or you'll do without. If that's not good enough, plan, plan , plan. You're not their only paying customer. I know for a fact your unreasonable request have pissed off a lot of very good quality shops. The only reason they are putting up with you is because they can't refuse the money. Once this job is done I wouldn't advise going back to them for any large scale projects.
"February 10, 2008 3:50 PM
One thing is for sure. The shop rate at 321 main bay is not any of the machinist fault."
Agree with you. People talk about going outside, but do not have full up drawings that would not get them laughed out the door. Advantage of our shops is that you can walk in with a placemat drawing and have a Q-cleared professional turn it into a part. Now that is going to cost you, but you cannot have it both ways.
February 10, 2008 5:02 PM
Right on. With some of those redline drawings I've seen sent to the shops to have rush jobs done I'm surprised to see a good part come out of the shops, especially when half way through making the redlined part some goofball comes along and changes his mine, as if we can put the material back on and re-machine the part to specification and tolerance required especially when it's certified materials that take two days to get on site. The same people who complain about shop cost are the very same people who mandated the depletion of our metal rack stock. Get real.
PUBLISHED WITH WARNING: I have blanked out the expletive. I will not do that again; I will delete the entire comment! Scooby.
Comment:
I've seen many machinists, technicians, welders and crafts fix my design errors, sometimes almost miraculously. And procurement, coordinators and contracting folks cover for my poor planning. And if my admin could check this entry, it would be clearer.
Take heart, even among the madness many of your are greatly appreciated by those of us you cover for.
The lab is full of damn fine people, that's one reason it's so hard to watch so many hurt by this transition nonsense.
If we had brought it on ourselves by our own actions, it would be more palatable, but we are **blanked ** by brainless heartless politicians.
With friends like these....
(anonymous because I fear retaliation)
i take my machining jobs outside regularly. There are plenty of shops out there that can produce parts with simple sketches and turn jobs around quickly. My last resort would be lab shops.
The only thing that will be left at the lab will be the NC shop where classified work can still be done. The rest of the facilities are toast. This is not opinion, this is a fact. Look around the lab and count the number of machine shops that have been closed in the last 5 years.
There is no way the shops will ever compete with the real world.
There is no way the shops will ever compete with the real world.
February 11, 2008 7:18 AM
Again I it isn't the machinist fault. It's our accounting system that allows management to abuse the system that's in place. Until the shop rate is at $80.00 an hour, you're correct; the shops are toast and here's where it gets bad for a lot of good people.
It puts very good people out the gate who have done a darn good job for decades and without them we wouldn't have accomplish squat. Some people ask, why do we need the shops. Well here's your answer.
The fact is we need them for quick fixes that originate from rushed designs, no design reviews, parts that were never checked for fit in the models, rushed detailers trying to get prints out for production, nerds changing the final design after the prints have been released to the print room.
I've personally talked to a few fellow machinist who happen to work for the vendors LLNL is using to make these constants changes. I asked them what they thought about all this on the fly rework fiasco. Their response is always the same. "Pretty sad way to run a business isn't it?"
So again I'll say, if it wasn't for the shops most of you could kiss of your wet dream schedules away forever.
Got my ranking and raise today. It's quit evident that I'm on someones, crap list and am there to stay. Then again I'm one to call a spade a spade on a moments notice and without regret. I only wish there were more of me. Maybe the world would be a better place for all and corruption would come to an end.
The whole lab is on the crap list. 2% average pay raise right? How much did you expect to be left with after management got their unfair share?
Post a Comment