Major Changes...

I promised a string of articles written by yours truley to appear on SLAC Today this week. I lied. Well, I didn't really lie, I just spoke too soon.

It was announced this past Monday that SLAC's Director of nearly a decade has stepped down and been replaced by a temporary director until a permenant replacement is found. Although the lab knew this was coming at some point, nobody knew exactly when. So, as you can imagine, SLAC Today has been completely dedicated to announcements about the old director, new director, changes being made at the lab, and announcements for events to commemorate the now ex-director.

And wow has it been busy here in the communications office.

People have been scurrying to make sure everything that's happening is being communicated clearly and promptly to the entire site. The subject is touchy to say the least, so everything is being carefully crafted and edited several times before being published. It's been an interesting few days.

And to make matters worse, it was announced a couple of weeks ago that the head of the communications office is leaving SLAC at the end of the year to do the same job for a European fusion project based in France. He has become a steadying influence and face at SLAC and his departure at this critical time of changing directors has added to the general unease permeating the air.

But the lab continues, life goes on, and great science is still being done at SLAC. And they're keeping me very busy in my final few days. I've got about 10 stories or so in some form of the writing process. I'm sure they're happy I'm leaving them with a large number of stories to run while the next intern goes through the arrival process that takes a few days...