April 14, 2008 — Gilbert G. Weigand of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate has received the inaugural James R. Schlesinger Award from Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman.
The Secretary lauded Weigand for his "passion for excellence along with his ability to foster and implement the practices and values that are necessary for the protection of our nation."
Weigand is credited with conceiving and implementing DOE's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI), which pooled government programs and national laboratories to build the world's best high-performance supercomputers. High-performance computing and simulation at the ASCI level now pervade all areas of science and engineering.
Schlesinger, who was present for the award ceremony, was the first Secretary of Energy. The Schlesinger Award is the highest award in the newly established Secretarial Honor Awards Program and the highest non-monetary award bestowed by the agency.
Another team from ORNL was honored by Secretary Bodman for their support of the Department of Energy's national security mission.
Dave Felde and Ron Miskell of the Nuclear Science and Technology Division; Jon Kreykes, Jim Sumner and Duane Starr of the Global Initiatives Directorate; and Alan Parker of the Legal Directorate were selected by the Secretary to receive the Secretary's Achievement Award, which recognizes significant achievements on behalf of the department.
The Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence team was recognized for their work in DOE's nuclear nonproliferation programs "to mitigate the risk of nuclear proliferation and international terrorism."
ORNL is managed for UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.