- We're competing with private sectors, such as Google and Amazon, Microsoft. Those companies all need STEM talent. But what we found out really quickly, even though we can't compete with them financially 'cause we're not a jobs program. This is an education program. Most of the individuals in this next generation of STEM talent aren't chasing the buck. They're not chasing the dollar, they're chasing experiences and the ability to learn from a mentor, a PhD mentor at a national lab who's doing incredible research. - [Narrator] This is the ORISE Featurecast, a special edition of Further Together, the ORAU podcast. Join Michael Holtz for conversations with ORISE experts on STEM workforce development, scientific and technical reviews, and the evaluation of radiation exposure and environmental contamination. You'll also hear from ORISE research program participants and their mentors as they talk about their experiences and how they are helping shape the future of science. Welcome to the ORISE Featurecast. - Happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of the ORISE Featurecast. I'm your host, Michael Holtz, and as you can see, and for those of us who are listening, you can't see this, but we are starting a new adventure today with the podcast. We are adding a video element. And here to be a test subject for our very first episode of the podcast in video is Jim Vosburg, director of ORISE. Jim, welcome back to the ORISE Featurecast. - Good morning, I appreciate being the first one up on this, Michael. It's a great idea. Good morning. - Well, I have to give credit to you because a while ago, actually a couple years ago, you came to us and said, hey, what about this? And it only took us two years to figure out that it might actually be worthwhile to do. And we wanted to make some enhancements since this is our fourth, if you can believe it, fourth season of the podcast. And so here we are adding video and really excited about that and really excited to have the opportunity to see our guests sort of face to face. And I'm sorry, I have a face for radio, and I'm sorry you have to look at this, but it is what it is. So, there you go. Jim, you are the director of ORISE, so how did you get to have this amazing job? - Yeah, it's a very short story. I was working on the federal side of the House with the National Nuclear Security Administration. And through a couple of former employees here, they called me and said would you be interested in coming to talk to our boss? The CEO at the time, Mr. Andy Page. And I said, about what? And they told me what was going on, that there was a recompete for the ORISE contract. And one thing led to another, and I came and talked to Andy and some of the executives at the time up in his boardroom. And within probably a month, I had turned in my resignation with the federal government and ended up with ORAU. That was a summer of 2015 while we were in the deep throws of writing our proposals. So that's how it ended up. So it was kind of a hope and a prayer sort of thing. We didn't know we were gonna win the competition, but Andy was taking a chance on me and vice versa. I was taking a chance on moving, but that's it, kind of how I ended up here. And fortunately, we won the competition and the rest is history at this point. - That's awesome, and speaking of history, ORISE is officially, we'll put that in quotes, 30 years old this year. But a lot of what we do under the ORISE contract are capabilities we've been doing for a lot longer. And we've certainly had a relationship with the Department of Energy much longer than that since our founding. But talk a little bit about what it means for ORISE to have reached its 30th anniversary. - Well, this is a very unique program. We always stress that it is a Department of Energy asset, so it's their program. We're just managing it for them. But what some people don't know, we spent a lot of the last couple years trying to do the history. It does date back, Michael, as you mentioned, post World War II back to an organization called ORINS, which was the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies. And that was developed post World War to kind of do the same things we're doing right now for piece time purposes, and basically we've been doing that since the 40s. Now, you mentioned 30 years. In 1992, the Department of Energy realized that they had to rename this entity because Oak Ridge associated universities was running the program. So they wanted a company, and they wanted the name of a laboratory. In our case, we're not a national laboratory, but they wanted us similar to the others. So that's how it came about in '92, they officially named the program ORISE. Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, and ORAU's been managing it since '92 successfully. And that's kind of the history, but this is a 30 year anniversary for us, as you said. Pretty exciting things are going on with that. And we're very proud of it. So that's sort of the history. It goes back to the 40s, but the name change happened in 1992. - And are there exciting ways to mark the anniversary that are in the works? Talk about some of that, if you will. - Much of what we're working on right now is still in the works, but we did do a kickoff in our quarterly newsletter in a special section talking about the ORISE 30th anniversary. We are promoting the event on social media. As you know, Michael, we have many social media areas such as Facebook and so on that we promote those on. We are talking about some recognition for K through 12 teachers. Not really sure on exactly what that's gonna be at this point, but they are an integral part of our program and have been for a number of years. We're also looking at possibly doing something for postdocs within the ORISE program also. So at this point, we don't know exactly, but we are working on things. So, more to come. Stay tuned for what those specifics are in the future. - Watch social media and pay attention to the website is the takeaway for that for everybody. So ORISE has five performance work statement areas, right? Talk about what those are and kinda what they mean to our organization, but also to DOE and potentially other agencies. But I know primarily DOE, obviously. - Yeah, we call them PWS areas, but I usually just compress that to performance areas. We've got five performance areas that DOE ask us to do. The largest of those performance areas is STEM workforce development programs. So, what does that mean? DOE asks to go out worldwide and recruit STEM talent and bring them to the US to national laboratories and place them with mentors. So in other words, you think back to when you were in college, you might have had an internship. This is similar, but it's way better than an internship where they get to be placed at a lab, they learn from a PhD mentor for a period of time, whether it's three months, six months, a year or a couple years. And we've got over 9,000 of those participants nationwide right now, not only with the Department of Energy, but with 24 other federal agencies. So that's our big one. We call it the elephant in the room. That's the main focus for DOE. The other four areas are just as important. The second one is scientific peer review. So that is basically we run peer review, scientific peer review activities to match up federal funding with people that are looking for funding to do research. There has to be a neutral party somewhere involved to run a formal process peer review for the government to make decisions on who will get funding for that. We do that very successfully in one of our performance areas. The third one is our Radiation Emergency Assistance Center and Training Site, or REACTS, as we call it. This is a unique, one of a kind capability and facility. They do 24/7 response to any radiation emergency nationwide or worldwide. And by response, I mean medical response. They give medical advice to a radiation incident. They also do training for medical personnel, emergency personnel, such as fire departments and so on, both here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and worldwide. Nationwide, worldwide. That team goes overseas and helps a lot of foreign countries, their military units deal with radiation emergencies. So that's a third area. The fourth of the performance areas is what we call health studies. We keep databases of workers, mostly Department of Energy workers nationwide that may have been exposed to radiation or beryllium or other sources, so we keep those databases for research purposes and for politicians that might get foyer requests for data and family exposure and so on. In that program, we also run what's called the Beryllium Laboratory. They do testing for Berylliosis. There's only two of those nationwide, the one here under ORISE in Oak Ridge, and then there's the National Jewish Laboratory, which is our partner in some ways. So we do that Beryllium testing, which is very unique and very important to the Department of Energy. And the third one, a smaller program, but very important is our Independent Verification Program. That is we go out to clean up sites, environmental management sites and test the soil or test facilities, or in the Navy's cases, test ships that are being decommissioned to make sure that they meet releasable standards. So in other words, they can be released to the public or released to some private entities. So as far as we know, we're the only organization that truly says we are independent in this work 'cause we don't do any cleanup work. So those are the five performance areas. STEM workforce development is our biggest and our main focus, but the other ones are just important. And it is, as DOE says, an integrated contract where we get benefits from each one of the performance areas to help the others. - It really is some amazing work. And I know I've talked about and written a lot about workforce STEM, workforce development and had a lot of fun with a K-12 group doing some of their work, which is always fun and interesting. But one of my favorite days of the year is when I get to play a member of the media for REACTS when they do one of their drills. And it's just a blast to try to charge through someone who's playing the role of the PI for the hospital that they're working for and trying to trip them up. So get to have a lot of, get to put some of my skills to use for ORISE in various capacities, which is a blast. - It's a good point, Michael, and it's one of the things I forgot to mention about REACTS is they deploy and they participate in exercises, emergency exercises, as you know, 'cause you've been involved in them, and they have to deal with media. They have to deal with looky loos. People that are coming on site to figure out what's going on. So a lot of training with both military and state and federal agencies. So you've been involved in that, but they are truly unique and kind of the crown jewel of this contract in a way that they are the only radiation emergency response capability in the nation to this extent. So I appreciate you being involved in that. - It's a good group, as you know, and while that it's a lot of fun, it's also very serious in that we're helping medical professionals learn how to deal with all of those things and get trained up for that. And our REACTS team has to be ready to deploy at almost a moment's notice if, God forbid something happens, so. Not that I wanna spend the whole time talking about REACTS, 'cause again, workforce development is the biggest part of the contract, which is also really interesting and I've heard Craig talk about, Craig Layman talk about the importance of recruiting and our role in the economic development, not just of our region, but of the nation as a whole 'cause we're everywhere. - Yeah, and one of the challenges with STEM WD is when you find STEM talent, we're competing with private sectors, such as Google and Amazon, Microsoft, those companies all need STEM talent. But what we found out really quickly, even though we can't compete with them financially, 'cause we're not a jobs program, this is an education program, most of the individuals in this next generation of STEM talent aren't chasing the buck. They're not chasing the dollar, they're chasing experiences and the ability to learn from a mentor, a PhD mentor to national lab who's doing incredible research. Whether it's in fossil fuels or alternative fuels and accelerator programs and those type of things. So they would never get that experience if they just went into the job force right away. They're well aware they're marketable and they can get jobs, but we're finding that they want that transition step from their college experience to working, and this gives them to that transition step. - And the, I don't know that it's the most important thing, but one of the important things is, when they come through an ORISE WD program, they're staying in STEM fields. They're staying in the sciences, whether it's for the agency that they're having their research participation experience with or somewhere else, but we know from our own research that 85 to 95% of these people are staying. - Yeah, it's a key point. So when I first came to ORAU for this position, I asked those questions, how are we tracking that? And we had just started looking at assessment and evaluation on longitudinal studies. And Craig has really raised the bar on that program. And he's got great data that we show the leadership in Washington and even congressional appropriators that compare the national resources of STEM talent to what we have. And you're right, it is up around the 80 and the 80% above where the national average is down around 30. So there's a great return on investment that the department's getting, the taxpayers are getting. And the more we have that data, the happier our customer is, the Department of Energy, 'cause they can show their appropriators and congressional folks that there's major impact to this program. Not to mention the betterment of the country, being able to get our STEM talent to hopefully stay with the Department of Energy or stay within the government. But even if they don't, they're staying in the STEM field somewhere. Private sector or not for profit organization. So it's something we've put a lot of focus on as far as collecting that data and be able to show that to people that ask. Primarily, a lot of our congressional folks ask for that data. - And they're, for the folks who may be listening who are possibly interested in STEM WD and our research participation programs, I mean, they're doing work that makes a difference. They're doing something that, I mean, it's truly bench side research with a mentor, but it's in issues like climate change and advanced manufacturing and fossil fuels and new energy and all of those things that you're not gonna be able to do necessarily, no offense to big tech, but you're not gonna be making that kind a difference. - Absolutely. - Behind the desk at big tech. ORISE also has an important group of folks that you all lean into is the Distinguished Scientist Advisory Board. Talk a little bit about that group and what it means to ORISE to have that group of scientists kind of available to advise the organization. - Yeah, we never had this under previous contracts, but the National Laboratories for DOE have what they call a Laboratories Scientific Advisory Board, LSABs. So we thought, okay, why don't we mimic that and establish yet another group of people that can inform our decision making as leaders of this program? And we named it the DSAB, Distinguished Scientist Advisory Board. And have a great board right now. It's probably the best one we've had in the six years we've had them in place. We have three individuals on the board that are at national laboratories for the Department of Energy, so there's that. We have the Chairman of the group is the former President of the University of Memphis, Dr. Shirley Raines. And then we have other individuals that have areas of expertise similar to the ORISE missions that are from part of our university consortium and from nationally recognized universities. So it's just a great dynamic group of people that informs my office and the ORISE leadership team on some suggestions. So in other words, we didn't wanna blinders on. We needed some objective people to come in and assess what we were doing. And in many cases, give us some information on things we didn't know that may be going on out there at the labs or within the university setting research that was being done and so on. So that group has been kind of an integral part of informing our strategy each year. And the benefit of it is, when we pitched this to DOE they said a couple things. They said, first of all, fantastic idea. It's similar to what the labs are doing, but they also said we don't want to have any influence over that group in any way. So we have a wall between our customer and the DSAB. So it's like a safe zone for these experts to come back and give us suggestions which inform our strategic planning each year. So on our website, on the ORISE website, you can see who the DSAB members are, and it's pretty impressive. It's always been impressive for six years, but I think this group we have right now is probably the best we've ever had. So, important group of people, and I appreciate asking that question because they have really helped us to kind of take a breath and just say, oh yeah, we didn't think about that. Maybe that might be something that can help DOE and the nation. - Awesome, thank you, sir. And personal shout to my friend Scott Schwann who is on the DSAB. - He is, yes. - Jim, one of the important issues of late, not just for DOE, but really for all federal agencies and our organizations as well is the need for increased diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. From ORISE's perspective, what are we doing in these areas, and how are we helping our agency customers as well? - Well, it's a topic that comes up in almost every meeting I have with our customers, especially from Washington. And we've always been pretty good at this, especially in the STEM WD fields. We've been able to reach out to HBCUs and minority serving institutions, historically, even before my day. Our challenge was from the office of science was you guys are really good at recruiting from those type of universities, but there was a drop off between our initial connection with them and placing them at national laboratories. So they challenged us to kind of bridge that gap to find out what was going on, why we were losing people from the initial contact to placement. So that was our first effort a couple years ago. And what we did was we implemented a lot more communication with the potential applicants, reminding them about timelines, reminding them about documentation that they need to submit, checking back one on one with them. A lot of Dr. Layman's staff does a lot of phone communication with them. So that raised numbers of actual placements going forward. But that was just a first step. Right now, I can give an example. I wanna get the acronym right. We manage some programs for what's called the Economic Impact and Diversity Office, or we just call it the ED office. And they are programs that basically give more engagement to MSI students through virtual career fairs, through virtual connections. I guess in one way, COVID has kind of helped raise a bar for us on this. And that was, you know, we didn't have to do things in person face to face. So I think that program with that office has been very successful for us. There's a lot more engagement using the ORISE app, which is called ORISE Go. I think you've heard about that, Michael. You guys helped us a little bit about that, but it seemed like a simple thing, having an app, which every company in the world does, but our organization didn't have one. So we developed something called ORISE Go. Again, it's explained on our website. But that allowed anybody with a smartphone, doesn't matter your economic status, where you are in the country, where you are in the world, to do everything on their smartphone from applying for the positions to getting status on their applications, to getting information about new opportunities and so on. So no one needed a computer, basically. They can do everything off of their smartphone. So that has really expanded the outreach to HBCUs, MSIs, and other entities that we just weren't touching before. So a lot of stuff going on in those areas. Craig builds it into every program he has, as do the other performance directors. One other quick example in our peer review program, our director over there is working with our High Energy Physics Office to strengthen the outreach to peer reviewers. In the past, we had gotten almost the same type of people doing peer reviews all the time. So he's working with the HUP folks in Washington to try to expand that to get more diversity in our peer review set. So a lot of stuff going on in there. It's almost normal for us to be talking about that in every one of our programs, but DOE is really focused on that, and I think we're doing a great job with outreach engagement in that area. - Excellent. Thank for sharing that, and I do know that just in conversation with Dr. Layman and other folks that it's something that they really baked into the work that they're doing. So it's always top of mind in recruiting and in programming. And I do also know from the peer review perspective, it's not just diversity of people, it's diversity of thought. But it's not-- - Absolutely. - You know, you don't get a peer review with a bunch of people who all sort of think the same way. You you try to mix it up so that there is disagreement or there are different ideas so it's, you know, not just anticipated that they're gonna rubber stamp, necessarily, a project that they're reviewing. - And I'll give credit to Dr. Alan Stone in High Energy Physics. He was the one that reached out to us to see if he could be the pilot for this. And he's over Argon National Laboratory and some other programs, but he's been a real partner in this to help to Dr. Kaggle and the staff over in peer review set it up, so good things to come in that area also, but I'd say our STEM WD program is way out ahead of most organizations with this. - Awesome. Thank you, sir. So as the director of ORISE, what is the thing right now that you are most proud of? - Well, the standard answer to that would be our outstanding performance we've had for six years under the contract, which kind of goes without saying, but we've had challenges during those years, and we've kind of risen above those. But I gotta say, the staff, the leadership, my direct team with the office of the ORISE director, I'm probably most proud of the individuals. When we started this contract, when we bid on it, the leadership team looked a lot different than it does right now. We've had a lot of replacements. People have retired, other people have stepped up and become the directors of some pretty significant programs for DOE, which is always a concern for government agencies. They don't like a lot of change. They like continuity. But every one of the directors, everybody on my staff has kind of risen to the occasion. I know my staff hears me talk about the terms adjust and adapt all the time, and that's exactly what they've had to do. People have had to step into these leadership positions, be part of our ORISE Executive Committee, become leaders and basically get a relationship built up with the Contract Oversight Leadership Team and the people on Washington. And it's not an easy thing to do, especially when you're coming in behind somebody that's been around for a long time that is well known to the leadership of DOE. And every one of the people have basically risen to the occasion. So I guess I'm most proud of my direct staff and the directors that run the PWS areas, how they've adapted. And most importantly, how they've formed really strong bonds and relationships with our customer, both here locally and in Washington. So I guess that's probably the biggest one in addition to our performance. - Awesome. Speaking of challenges, the last couple of years have posed their own difficulties with rising to the challenge of the pandemic. But I also am aware that your team has certainly risen to the occasion and made things work that and had to, as you say, adjust and adapt and make things work. Talk a little bit about that, if you can. How that challenge has been met by your team. - So I'm kind of going back almost two years right now. Can you believe we're talking about that? - I know. - It's almost two years. And I remember telling my boss that this thing's only gonna last about eight weeks weeks, right? I was sure of it. Of course, that wasn't true. It turned out to be a bit longer than that, but while we were getting through the perceived eight weeks of chaos, I got the directors together and said, okay, look it, I don't know how long this is gonna last, but it gives us an opportunity here to really look at alternative delivery methods. And whether that be virtual recruitment fairs in the STEM WD area. Our peer review group had to go a hundred percent virtual. They normally do everything in person, which is the best way to do it, but they had to go completely virtual. We went through some downsizing at the time, as you know, which impacted everybody. The people that were still left had to double up and triple up their workload. So there were a great deal of challenges in all the areas, but with the help of our IT folks and technology, and again, people adjusting and adapting, I think it made us stronger in a way that we accelerated a timeline for implementing another skill set, and that is to be able to do things virtually. It's not perfect. I always say we're very good functionally. We may not be as efficient as we are face to face it, but it made us accelerate that timeline. So I think that challenge to the directors, and I basically got out of their way. I said, find ways of doing this. Find ways of not interrupting service to anybody that's asking. And also keep in mind that at some point in the future, the floodgate is going to open up again and they're gonna ask you to come in and hurry up and get back to normal at some point, which, Michael, is happening right now. I think a lot of programs are opening up quite a bit right now, especially in the STEM WD area, but all of them. Independent Verification and REACTS and others, and they were ready. They knew it was gonna happen. They knew it was gonna pick up, and they're back to hiring people again, bringing folks back to the workplace, bringing on new staff, and rising to the occasion. While at the same time, we have built up a really strong capability of doing things virtually in addition to doing things in person. So it's not unlike any other agency, any other company in the world that had to adjust to this, but we definitely had the challenges of COVID. And I think, getting back to my point before, I'm probably most proud of the directors and my staff that rose to the occasion and just kind of adjust and adapted to that. So it made us better, I think, in the long run. - Awesome, and in addition to your great team, your performance didn't suffer, obviously, right? I mean, the feedback from DOE has been great, so. - It has, and I think they they were good about recognizing the fact that we had to adjust and gave us some credit for that, so I very much appreciate them doing that. Recognizing the fact that we had challenges, we had some downsizing, we had technology challenges and so on. But for the most part, it was pretty amazing how this team stepped up and supported the main mission of all five performance areas. - Jim, is there anything I haven't asked you that wanna make sure that we cover before we wrap up our conversation today? - I think the main focus, getting back to your initial question, is this ORISE program, which is DOE's, is integrated. And we've seen, I've got a laundry list of things where each one of the performance areas has shared capabilities and resources with the others, but ultimately, the mission of this program is to make our nation stronger in different areas, and we never lose sight of that. We're always talking about how do we make things better? How do we get more capabilities? Bring on people with expertise in areas that we didn't have before? And again, I got a handful of those people that we've brought on over the last couple years, but it's about the nation's competitiveness. And DOE, the Office of Science, is a huge resource for the nation. They're an important part of the Department of Energy right now, and this program is so unique, Michael, that we not only support the Department of Energy, but we're allowed in the contract to support other federal agencies with the same capabilities, so it's a win-win. And we tell that to congressional folks, appropriators, congressional representatives and so on that the Secretary of Energy can go to the White House and say, we've got this jewel of a contract that not only support the Department of Energy, but they're using the skills to support all your cabinet agencies and sub agencies. So I think last count, we're up about 26 federal agencies that we've support through this contract in addition to DOE. So, I've been in the government quite a while, and I've never seen anything with this much breadth and depth within the government. I think that's what we're most proud of. So, very important. And it's very important in the Department of Energy, and we don't take it lightly. We take it very seriously, everything we do each day. - Thank you for that. Last question. Jim Vosburg, what brings you joy? - A loaded question from Michael Holtz. Thank you. Oh, I gotta say December 1st of this past year, our first grandson was born. So that's probably gotta be the biggest joy right now. If I'm having a crappy day, which I rarely do, but if I am and my grandson's picture pops up on my phone, I just get a smile on my face. So it's like, okay, that's kind of the important thing right there. This other stuff will pass and so on. So probably that. They always say that if you could skip having kids and get right to the grandkids part of it, it would be a lot easier, but I guess years of the pain of raising children pays off when you have grandkids. 'Cause if he gets upset when I'm holding him, I just hand him to my son, just say he all yours. Feed him, take him. - I love that. - Yeah, so that's probably the biggest one right now, I think. - I'm hearing a lot of spoilage come in. - Hell yeah. Yeah, I'm already sizing up life jackets for our boat so he can go out on the boat with us. - Excellent. All right, well, thank you so much, Dr. Jim Vosburg, for spending your time with us. And I look forward to talking to you again in the future. - All right, Michael, thank you. Appreciate it. - Have a good day, everyone. - [Narrator] Thank you for listening to the ORISE Featurecast. To learn more about the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, visit orise.orau.gov or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @ORISEconnect.