Room for one more

It appears there is yet another bidder for the Los Alamos management contract, which UC has had (with partners in recent years) since the Manhattan Project. The contract is supposed to be awarded in May. There is an obvious political element here since there is no love lost between the Trump administration and California (and UC). UC teamed up with Texas A&M, however, which is Rick Perry's alma mater. We'll find out what that approach buys in a month or so.

Purdue University is among a handful of U.S. universities competing for the next $2 billion contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation’s pre-eminent nuclear weapons lab, Purdue President Mitch Daniels confirmed Friday to the Journal & Courier.

Purdue’s name and interest in the work at the lab in New Mexico had been floated in industry trade publications recently. But Friday was the first confirmation of the fact from Daniels.

Daniels confirmed that Purdue’s bid is a partnership with Bechtel National, a firm that has been part of a private consortium that includes the University of California that has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2006.

“We’ve submitted a bid. And that’s all I know and really all I can say,” Daniels said Friday, when asked during a break in a Purdue Trustees meeting held at the Purdue Northwest campus in Westville.

“We’re proud to compete for things like this,” Daniels said. “I do believe this is the sort of level Purdue should be playing at, let me put it that way.”

Source: https://www.jconline.com/story/news/2018/04/06/purdue-bidding-run-los-alamos-nuclear-labs-mitch-daniels-confirms/493711002/