Speaker
Description
The US Department of Energy (USDOE) National Labs are typically structured with an Executive Management team consisting of a Lab Director, Deputy Director for Science and a Deputy Director for Operations. The latter serves as the Laboratory’s Chief Operations Officer (COO), overseeing the mission support operations that help enable the science mission of the laboratory. A major responsibility of this role is managing the risks of operation of the laboratory. A significant number of the current COOs at the US national labs have environment and/or safety backgrounds, an indicator that the skills and knowledge acquired in this profession are directly transferable to a broader role in laboratory management. A key element of this is the identification, management and mitigation of risk. This presentation will provide an overview of the Laboratory COO role, and the using principles of risk management to balance achieving the laboratory research mission while appropriately protecting the institution.
