Pantex Blog
Paws on patrol
Pantex is home to a large, well-trained team of security police officers, otherwise known as the ProForce. But there are five members of this dedicated team that stick out from the rest. They don’t swipe badges or carry radios, but they do love a good treat. With noses trained sharper than any sensor and loyalty that can’t be taught, these team members are a powerful reminder that sometimes the best security comes with a fur coat and a wagging tail. Enter the good boys and girls of Pantex: Chief, Hazel, Alo, Stryker, and Hunter.
Canine units offer unique capabilities that greatly augment human efforts in various missions. Their senses are significantly more sensitive than those of people, enabling them to detect subtle scents associated with a variety of substances, even in challenging conditions or when items are concealed. Much like people, the dogs all have their strengths and bring different skills to the table.
“Some dogs might struggle with low hides, deep hides, or high hides,” K-9 Handler Wesley Wood said. “It’s very important that we spend time getting to know them so we can encourage their strengths.”
Their specialized sensory input allows for rapid and precise detection that is unattainable through human observation or technological means alone. They possess super agility, endurance, and a natural ability to navigate complex terrains, making them incredibly valuable to rescue operations, tracking, and perimeter security.
“The dogs are an incredible asset to Pantex and our protection strategy,” K-9 Operation Manager Captain Bobby Ovalle said. “They work in tandem with our current protective posture and make for excellent partners to our security police officers.”
These officers exhibit a great sense of pride in their work and every handler is quick to say how much their dogs “love their job.”
“Hunter loves to work. He loves doing a good job and you can always tell that he walks like he owns the place when he finds an odor or does a good job,” K-9 Handler Cali Bernard said.
But just like people, the dogs like to decompress. They love a variety of activities like hiking, swimming, going to Home Depot or Lowe’s, and, in Chief’s case, napping on the couch.
Canine units are a powerful reminder of the benefits of collaboration. Their presence provides a psychological deterrent and their behavioral traits allow for them to contribute to mission success in ways that complement and enhance our physical security requirements. When it comes to protecting the site, they really have a nose for it.
Burgers, bombs, and bravery: The dauntless life of Pete Lopez
Pete Lopez doesn’t mince words.
“I knew what I was signing up for. It’s a risk-reward job. Of course there are risks involved, but there is so much reward knowing what we contribute to and what that means.”
Lopez has gained and employed a wealth of knowledge and experience in his 54 years serving the Pantex mission. He carries himself well, tells a story like an old friend, and has an infectious smile that reminds you nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Maybe that’s because Lopez himself truly knows that nothing really is ever as bad as it seems.
“I grew up in a little town called Munday, Texas. I was number 9 out of 10 kids. I got a scholarship to North Texas State for drama out of high school, but we were very poor so it just didn’t feel like a real option.”
Perhaps it was this moment where Lopez first learned the delicate balance between risk and reward.
The risk:
“I had a friend who had gotten drafted to fight over in Vietnam. I knew I was going to get drafted too, so instead of college I just went and signed up. It was good for me, though. It made me grow up fast.”
The reward:
“I used to think we had it really bad being so poor when I was growing up, but … when I got to Vietnam and saw people eating scraps wherever they could find them, it started to change my mind. I met a kid down there who was about my size. I wrote my mom and told her to send me all of my clothes to give to him. It was just a different world.”
After Vietnam, Lopez found himself at a crossroads. The year was 1972, and at 22 years old the young man who had to grow up much faster than most found himself on the road that led to Pantex.
“I was in a conversation with somebody and they asked me ‘have you ever thought about going to work out at that bomb plant?’ I said, ‘bomb plant? What’re you talking about?’ I’d never heard of any bomb plant.”
A short time later, Lopez found himself at the old bomb plant, just not where you would expect.
“I started out in the kitchen,” he remembered as he cracks a smile that quickly gives way to a chuckle. “Eventually they put in a new grill and I was the hamburger cooker.”
While he enjoyed this role, the calling to something greater presented itself. There again he met his old friends, Risk and Reward.
The risk:
“I bid out and became what was then called an assembly operator. (We call them PTs now.) This was back in the ‘70s. The Cold War was still going on, and we knew it was an important job. We knew what we were building and how important it was. It was a different world back then. It’s serious now, but it really felt serious then.”
The reward:
“I enjoyed what we were doing. I couldn’t wait to get to work every day. I still enjoy it to this day. The standard was to take every day very seriously. I remember saying ‘we got boys on the other side of that water, and if we have to use these things, the ones with my name on them, those better work. I took pride in my work. That was important to me.”
Over a half-century later, Lopez is now settling into the twilight of his career. His life lessons don’t stop once he leaves the site. At home, having raised two sons, and watching as his three grandchildren will soon face the crossroads he did decades ago, he does his best to teach them the value of each day.
Currently, Lopez serves as a quality assurance technician in Satellite Operations where he relishes the role of passing on his immense knowledge and experience to the ones who will follow.
“I do my best to train all of the new people the way they need to be trained. You can’t overemphasize the importance of the job we do. You gotta make sure you do it right. You gotta take pride in your work.”
When all is said and done, Lopez can look back on his life knowing that each time he weighed the risk, and the reward, the risk was never as significant as the infinite growth that would come his way.
The reward:
“When I started out, I was just so blessed and put with really good people, people who did everything the right way. Everybody supported you; you could reach out to anyone for guidance. That’s what I try to do for those new ones that come to me.”
If Lopez has proven anything, whether it be to himself or those who get to know him. It’s that the only real risk in life is never taking a risk at all.
For Storage Optimization Team, it’s all about the fit
Members of the Storage Optimization stand in one of their recently reorganized facilities, providing much-needed space for current and upcoming projects. Photo by Michael Schumacher.
Frenzied panic ensues as various cube-shaped blocks descend from some ethereal plane with no rhyme or reason. As the misshapen objects fall one by one faster and faster, stacks piling higher and higher, the player must identify how to move, orient, and ultimately sacrifice space with the hope that new space will be freed.
For most people, they know this as the game Tetris. For Production Stores Managers Robert Spence, Sam Russell, and their team, it’s just another day at the office.
In charge of all receiving, staging, storing, and delivering weapon components to line operations for assembly into nuclear weapons, Spence and Russell have found themselves at the center or, in keeping with the metaphor, the ceiling of their storage capacity for the past several years.
“There was simply not enough space to meet current and future needs,” Spence said. “Not only insufficient space by square footage but also by the type of space needed for the hazards involved and inability to get rid of material no longer needed. In some instances, surplus and/or obsolete inventory was being retained beyond program needs.”
Pantex is scheduled to begin work on several more projects over the next few years, and there will be need for even more storage space in the near future to prepare. With such limited space and time to work with, accepting defeat and the proverbial “game over” were simply not options.
“Along with Program Management, an optimization project was initiated to look at capacity and all the challenges, to ensure future space would be available,” Spence said. “Schedules and metrics were established to set priorities and monitor progress.”
With the team working together to evaluate needs and formulate a plan, they took steps to acquire materials and better utilize the currently provided storage space to meet the required standards of production and scheduling.
“By reducing the overall amount of inventory onsite, focusing tactically on certain types of material, and optimizing the current space, we are able to take all the new incoming material to meet mission needs well into the future,” Spence said.
The new space will continue to provide Pantex with sufficient storage capability for the foreseeable future.
Another part of the plan was to increase the already available storage space to prevent the potential for a similar situation to present itself in the future.
“Strategically, we have worked hard to look at what our future needs are versus the space we currently occupy and project the needs out at least five to ten years,” Spence said. “As we continue work to reduce, optimize, and right-size the storage space, we should be in great shape moving forward. This will include the addition of two new facilities.”
Much like a game of Tetris, when the walls seem to be closing in and fewer and fewer useful pieces make themselves available, the panic and frustration can begin to grow. In these cases, there really is only one thing to be done.
“As with most organizations, there are many challenges – all different and unique,” Spence said. “The first step was to identify the problem/need, then work with the groups that could help us move toward the end goals with the support of management. To date, it has worked out very well and should continue to be a bright spot for Pantex.”
Dr. Bob Wester visits Pantex as inaugural President’s Colloquium speaker
Dr. Bob Webster speaking to Pantexans at the first President’s Colloquium. Photo by Michael Schumacher.
According to Merriam-Webster, the word colloquium is defined as an academic meeting in which specialists deliver an address on a topic and then answer questions from the audience.
The idea of having these colloquiums is to enable experts from the Nuclear Security Enterprise (NSE) and key stakeholders to share important information and insight with Pantexans,” said Kelly Beierschmitt, Pantex president and general manager.
Earlier this month, the first President's Colloquium was held at Pantex with Dr. Bob Webster from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as the distinguished speaker. Webster is the Deputy Laboratory Director for Weapons at LANL and has three decades of experience in the weapons industry.
“The President’s colloquium is an important forum to engage directly with the workforce, share perspectives, and reinforce how each site contributes to the broader mission,” said Webster.
Webster, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that featured cows, welcomed the full auditorium of Pantexans. He introduced his topic by highlighting his shirt and detailing how it is a historical nod to a time at LANL when Hawaiian shirts and jeans were the traditional Friday look. Webster stressed the importance of understanding the history of the mission to continue to move forward.
Both Beierschmitt and Webster spoke on the importance of the laboratories and sites in the NSE communicating and working together to benefit the mission of maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
“No one site executes the mission alone,” Webster said. “Our work is deeply interconnected, and understanding each other’s challenges, capabilities, and priorities makes us more effective as a whole.”
The classified briefing focused on Webster’s experience and different projects he’s worked on while also highlighting how Pantexans contribute to his work.
“It was enlightening and refreshing to hear the perspective of another site,” said Scott Beckett, with Pantex’s IT Service Management division.
Another Pantexan, who is new to the site, also enjoyed the discussion.
I found the topics discussed very engaging and informative,” Hannah Felker, Pantex program specialist said. “Attending events like this are valuable because they help expand our understanding of the work we do in support of our mission.”
Webster closed his discussion focusing on how important the mission is in today’s time. “When we take the time to engage across sites, we build trust, improve coordination, and ultimately strengthen the safety, security, and credibility of the mission we all support.”
Drones taking Pantex into the future in more ways than one
Reliability Master Data Engineer Nate Orwig holds a drone being used to construct 3D models and other tasks around Pantex.
As Pantex continues to develop its drone aviation program, the site’s fleet is being employed in new, exciting ways.
“With our current drones, we are doing 3D modeling,” explained Infrastructure and Projects Director Ryan George. “The first is of the water tower, with a goal of providing Projects Engineering a complete 3D model. There’s a project to improve the ladder and access. Using the drones to complete that model means people don’t have to climb up there — it’s a safety issue.”
George makes a crucial point about the drones’ safety benefit, yet that alone isn’t the driving force behind them.
“Drone inspections started out as a Plant-Directed Research and Development project I proposed,” said Reliability Programs Performance Analyst Tony Burks. “We have a lot of aging infrastructure and they’re starting to get damaged — cracks and so forth. It’s getting hard to track all that damage.”
So, how do the drones compile data on aging infrastructure?
“We use the drones’ 3D rendering software,” Burks said. “Using AI, it will go take all the images, and we put that into a software … that lets us calculate distances to within centimeters. Over time, we can look and see if there’s any damage, discolorations, or rust that’s formed and is starting to grow.”
The longer-term idea, as Burks described it, is to create three-dimensional models of Pantex buildings. The use of these models varies from helping Infrastructure to Safeguards and Security and beyond.
“If you do a 3D model of facilities once a year, basically, you can provide indications of settling or structural issues,” George said.
The more use cases that crop up for drones, the more varied, too, is the hardware employed. After all, not all drones operate in the skies above.
“Our domestic water tanks — any of your freshwater tanks — have a five-year inspection environment,” George said. “So, we either have to put a human being in dive gear or we have to drain the tank completely; do the inspection, the cleanup, and refill the tank; or, if we have an inspection drone, we can just put it in the tank.”
It seems when it comes to drones, the sky isn’t the limit — the imagination is.