Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

March 12, 2004

Iowa State to be in open bid for Ames Lab contract

by Karen Bolluyt
For the first time in more than 50 years, Iowa State will participate in an open bid to maintain the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory on campus. Congress called for an open competition to manage the DOE labs after employee purchasing fraud and financial mismanagement scandals were disclosed at DOE weapons laboratories managed by the University of California in Los Alamos, N.M., and Livermore, Calif.

Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance, said the U.S. Department of Energy has been pleased with the university as a partner and it is difficult to imagine that the arrangement will change.

"Still, we face some unknowns and we don't intend to take anything for granted," he said.

The unknowns include costs involved in competing for the contract, compared with the cost of past negotiations for contract renewal.

The ISU campus has been home to a DOE laboratory since 1947.

In February, the DOE announced some contract extensions, including Iowa State's for the Ames Lab. Formerly scheduled to expire in December, the current contract now will run through December 2006. It authorizes an annual $30 million payment from the DOE for the operation of the laboratory. The payment covers salaries, operation of the research program and facility costs.

Tom Barton, lab director, noted that 38 Ames Lab faculty members hold joint appointments with the university. He, for example, is a professor of chemistry. And, ISU graduate students account for approximately 20 percent of the staff.

The Ames Laboratory is the only DOE laboratory with buildings on a university campus.

Barton said that graduate students are attracted from around the world because of the added opportunities provided by Ames Lab facilities.

Undergraduates benefit, too. Bruce Harmon, who heads the lab's Condensed Matter Physics Group, used lab facilities to demonstrate the usefulness of quantum mechanics to his physics undergrads.

All in all, Barton said, it is difficult to imagine another institution matching what Iowa State can offer.