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SPEAR3 Project Wins DOE Award
for Excellence
By Keith Hodgson and Nina Stolar
On August 13, Secretary of Energy Spencer
Abraham presented the Secretary’s Excellence in Acquisition Award to the
SPEAR3 Management team in a ceremony at the DOE headquarters in
Washington, DC. The Fourth Annual DOE Project Management Awards pay
tribute to those teams or individuals who have achieved outstanding
results through resourceful, innovative thinking and implementation.
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The SPEAR3 Management Team
and Hanley Lee (DOE Stanford Site Office) received the
Secretary’s Excellence in Acquisition Award. Shown (l to r):
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, Hanley Lee, Richard Boyce,
Bob He�el (ASD), Tom Elioff and Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle
McSlarrow. (Photo by Keith Hodgson) |
The $58M, 3-GeV SPEAR3 accelerator—jointly
funded by DOE and the National Institutes of Health (NIT)—is now
providing 3rd generation light source capability for the SSRL user
community.
Completed in November 2003, the SPEAR3
Upgrade Project replaced the original 30-year-old SPEAR storage ring
with an entirely new low-emittance, high-current ring.
Following an intense 7-month shutdown
period, the first electron beams circulated in the new SPEAR3 ring in
mid-December 2003 and the first experiments began in mid-March. At the
end of the first user run (July 31), the new accelerator had exceeded
all expectations in performance—delivering 97.1 percent of the scheduled
beam to users.
Tom Elioff, SPEAR3 Project Director,
reflected on the evolution of the project and its aggressive
installation schedule. He noted that at the beginning of the project,
the SPEAR2 users and the SSRL Users’ Organization Executive Committee
welcomed the possibility of the enhanced SPEAR3 performance but were not
enthusiastic about a major interruption in their research programs.
Richard M. Boyce (ASD), responsible for
acquisition and installation of the magnets and supports, said, “The
entire SPEAR3 project team deserves credit for the successful
culmination of four years of intense effort and dedication which
resulted in the remarkable accomplishment of meeting the extremely tight
installation schedule and exceeding our first beam-to-users goal.”
“SPEAR3 is a remarkable resource that will
enable state-of-the-art science in numerous fields,” said SSRL Director
Keith Hodgson. “The $58 million project was completed on time and on
budget. I thank the people whose extraordinary teamwork made the project
successful. In a remarkable accomplishment, the old accelerator was
dismantled, a new tunnel floor poured, SPEAR3 installed and
commissioned, and users back on-line—all within a mere 11 months.”
SPEAR3 incorporates the latest
technology—much of it pioneered at SSRL and SLAC—to make it competitive
with the best synchrotron sources in the world.
In late January Secretary Abraham
observed, “This is the first time the Department of Energy and the
National Institutes of Health have joined in funding an accelerator
research facility. I expect this to be a long and productive
collaboration whose impact will be truly far-reaching, generating new
knowledge and benefits to humanity.”
For more information on the SPEAR3 award
and the Upgrade Project, see:
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/acquisitionaward.html
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