University, companies discuss Sandia Labs contract
Associated Press
Mar 27, 2013 1:39 PM (ET)
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20130327/DA59ITQ81.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The University of New Mexico is talking to
several private companies about the possibility of collaborating on a
bid to manage the $2.4 billion Sandia National Laboratories.
UNM president Bob Frank told Albuquerque Journal on Tuesday that a
number of private companies have expressed interest in partnering with
the university, and the school has met with all of them.
"If the contract is rebid, we'd like to see ourselves as a significant
collaborator with the contractor that wins the award," Frank said.
The contract for longtime manager Lockheed Martin expires in September
with a potential six-month extension. Meanwhile, the National Nuclear
Security Administration has said it plans to put a new contract to bid.
Lockheed Martin has managed Sandia since 1993 and said it wants to
continue doing so.
Frank said a management partnership including UNM could result in a more
integrated relationship, with a greater number of university faculty and
students working in the labs. More important, it could lead to the
commercialization of technologies developed at the lab.
For example, the university's nonprofit, Science and Technology Corp.,
or STC.UNM, could help commercialize Sandia inventions that otherwise
would go unsold. It fosters university research and inventions by
helping its creators found startups. The organization founded seven in
2012, according to its website.
What's more, school officials said UNM would provide faculty advisement
and graduate students to work on Sandia projects. In turn, the
partnership would help UNM "give some of our students not only a Ph.D.,
but some experience with a startup," said engineering professor Joe
Cecchi, who is spearheading the initiative. It could also help attract
more faculty members to the university, he said.
Officials said they would like the UNM partnership to be modeled after
one at the University of Tennessee where the school partnered with a
private contractor and formed a limited liability company. Last year,
UNM officials took a three-day tour of Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
which is managed by a limited liability partnership between the
University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute, a private
nonprofit headquartered in Ohio.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which has a $1.65 billion budget and
employs more than 4,400 full-time employees and 841 students, conducts
energy, science and national security research.
Battelle also manages six other U.S. Department of Energy labs,
including Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Idaho National
Laboratory in Idaho Falls.
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