UC pays salary of ex-lab chief in Virginia job (pact lets Nanos qualify for retirement plan)

SFGate.com ^ | 4.23.06 | Tanya Schevitz

[NormsRevenge]

When the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory resigned last year, the University of California, which runs the lab, agreed to keep him on the payroll in a new job for up to 28 months so he would qualify for the university's retirement plan, according to a copy of the director's separation agreement obtained by The Chronicle.

The university is paying the annual $235,000 salary of G. Peter Nanos -- at a likely total cost of about $548,333. He is now at a job with the Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency in Virginia, which is trying to develop new techniques to fight weapons of mass destruction. In September 2007, when the former lab director will have accrued the five years of employment required to vest in UC's retirement plan, "Director Nanos' employment with the University will end," according to the agreement.

The terms of Nanos' departure were negotiated last spring, while UC was preparing to bid for a new contract with the Department of Energy to continue running the atomic weapons complex it has run since World War II. UC's control of the lab was in jeopardy because of years of security lapses and allegations of fraud and mismanagement at Los Alamos.

As part of the agreement, Nanos -- an outspoken former Navy admiral who was appointed director in January 2003 and promptly vowed to "drain the swamp" at the lab -- agreed not to say anything disparaging about the university or the lab. Indeed, the agreement calls Nanos' silence "a fundamental and substantial part of this agreement."

Nanos also agreed not to comment on UC's bid for a new contract.

[Jack Black]

Pathetic. California corruption. The Gov. should step in and fire everyone involved in this, then fire the General! Enough!!!