September 12, 2007

Staff Reflects on Successful Year at Light Source Directorate Barbeque

With sunny skies and tables full of food, employees gathered around BNL’s picnic area on September 12, 2007 for the Light Sources Directorate Annual Awards Barbeque. NSLS Chair Chi-Chang Kao and Steve Dierker, Associate Laboratory Director for Light Sources, hosted the end-of-year celebration to honor NSLS and NSLS-II employees for another year of smooth and productive operation.

NSLS and NSLS-II Staff

Service Awards

Bill Bambina, Rich Michta, Marc Pfeffer, Vivian Stojanoff, and Zhong Zhong were honored for 10 years of service at Brookhaven Lab. John Aloi, Lonny Berman, Angela Bowden, Brian Boyle, Tony Caracappa, Bob Chmiel, Barrett Clay, Dave Harder, Kathy Loverro, George Rakowsky, and Mike Schwarz received 20-year awards. In the 25-year category were Al Borrelli, Randy Church, George Jahnes, Tony Kuczewski, and Li-Hua Yu. Peter DeToll, Bob Kiss, and Wayne Rambo were recognized for 30 years of service, and Charlie Nielson received an extra special round of applause for his 40 years of work at the Lab.

Spotlight Awards

The Spotlight awards are tributes to NSLS staff members who have shown exceptional dedication to their jobs during the year. This year, the winners were:

Ron Beauman: Thanks in large part to Beauman, Utilities group technicians no longer have to stand in front of high-power motor starter panels to activate and deactivate the 480-volt motors. Beauman proposed and implemented a plan to install remote starters for the Utilities group motor control stations, improving the safe operation of these pumps. The remote starters are operated by a new PC-based control system – the Advanced Process Automation and Control System (APACS) – which allows personnel to monitor, control, and diagnose cooling systems from a safe distance. APACS will prevent the likelihood for injury should an arc flash occur internally.

Al Borrelli, Madeline Hughes, Charles Nielson, Jorge Oliva, Marc Pfeffer, Tom Seda, and John Vaughn: This team won a Spotlight Award for accomplishing the goals of the interlock corrective action accurately and on time. The correction action was to equip all X-ray power supplies with a new interlock interface, which required an enclosure with a circuit board to be installed in each power supply and interlock system. Eighteen interface boxes were designed, both mechanically and electrically, in a course of two weeks. They then were quickly assembled and tested before installation during the November shutdown. In addition, the power supplies needed to have their control racks re-arranged and the interfaces needed to be integrated into the interlock main control rack. The corrective action was completed with little time to spare and wouldn’t have been successful without the efforts of this team.

Shu Cheung, Richard Greene, Steve LaMarra, and Dennis Poshka: This Spotlight award recognized the group’s effort in rebuilding beamline X25 surrounding and during the December 2006 shutdown. Cheung and Greene oversaw the mechanical preparations and actual installation of the new beamline components, including testing. LaMarra played a key role in the coordination and planning of these activities, especially with regard to the cryogenic system, which suffered problems due to the vendor. Poshka undertook the wiring of the monochromator motors as well as the introduction of new protective interlocks, having to internally wire the motors and limit switches that go with them because of problems introduced by the vendor. All of these activities were completed under a severe time pressure due to the constraints of the shutdown and the push to get the new beamline running as quickly as possible.

Dave Harder: The Source Development Lab’s (SDL) Near Infrared Scalable Undulator System (NISUS) undulator gap control system is crucial for the success of the Free Electron Laser (FEL) amplifier tampering experiment. This system hasn’t been restored in more than 10 years, but Harder single-handedly took on the task, tackling both hardware and software issues complicated by the fact that the original system was poorly documented. Motors were replaced, new software was written, and Harder improved the system by adding a sophisticated gap measurement mechanism and a user-friendly system interface. With minor help from others, Harder finished the project in just several months, during which he also addressed higher priority jobs for the Magnet Measurement Lab.

Lydia Rogers: The first NSLS-II User Workshop was held in July, featuring 18 breakout sessions and attracting more than 450 participants and 30 invited speakers. Unprecedented in scale and complexity at Brookhaven, the workshop needed to be organized in just two months, and Rogers took on much of that responsibility. Rogers handled the registration, email announcements, and flyers; interacted with the Information Technology Department in regard to the website; arranged for the breaks, banquet dinner, and breakout sessions; handled speaker travel, accommodation and reimbursement; purchased the giveaways; booked the seminar rooms; arranged for administrative coverage for each of the sessions; dealt with registration packages; and ran the registration desk during the course of the meeting. Meanwhile, her regular duties for the Experimental Division continued during this period. Without her dedication to this effort, this workshop would not have been possible.

Anthony Santiago: Santiago led the corrective action effort to equip all X-ray power supplies with a new interlock interface. First, 18 interface boxes were designed, both mechanically and electrically, in two weeks. The designed materials arrived one week before the November shutdown, which was the only window of time to install them, and needed to be assembled and tested. In addition, the power supplies also needed to have their control racks re-arranged and the interfaces needed to be integrated into the interlock main control rack. Santiago effectively delegated and tracked all of these tasks performed by his team in addition to having responsibility for his own tasks. There was little time to spare in this project, and, if not for the dedication of Santiago and his team, it would not have been completed.

Boyzie Singh: In May 2007, a ceiling motor in the SDL’s clean room overheated and caught a foam filter on fire. The clean room was exposed to a significant amount of smoke and it was unclear when regular operations could resume due to possible optics damage and the potential for a lengthy fire committee investigation. Singh not only ensured that all sensitive optics were covered and intact during restoration work, but he also came up with an initiative to get an updated sample HRPA filter to the SDL before the official investigation even launched. The foam baffle, which fueled the fire, is now replaced with a metal one in the updated filter. Other improvements include better over-current protection for the fan motor and a safer location of the capacitor. The fire investigation committee later required these safety features, and because Singh addressed the issues in advance, the SDL facility was back online by the end of the month.

RELATED LINKS: Additional Photos

ARTICLE BY: Kendra Snyder