Lockheed-Led Team Wins Lab Contract

A team led by Lockheed Corp. won a $5-billion contract from the Department of Energy on Wednesday to take over management of the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, a nuclear research center outside Idaho Falls.

Lockheed hailed the five-year award as a major step in the Calabasas-based aerospace giant’s effort to pare its reliance on defense spending. The contract is also a victory for Parsons Corp., a Pasadena-based engineering firm on the Lockheed team.

The team’s selection also marks one of the initial attempts by the Energy Department to overhaul its contract award system. The agency had announced last month that it would open bidding on contracts covering its labs and production centers--awards totaling $31 billion over the next five years--to promote efficiency and reduce the sites’ operating costs.

The Lockheed award, which replaces five separate contracts that were needed to operate the sprawling Idaho lab, “represents a major milestone in DOE’s efforts to change the way we do business,” Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary said in a statement.

The lab currently has 8,200 workers and is among Idaho’s largest employers. The 890-square-mile lab was founded in 1949 and has been a major site for nuclear energy research, having operated more than 50 nuclear reactors and related facilities at various times.

Among other things, the lab helped develop nuclear-based propulsion systems for Navy ships and submarines and specializes in studying the treatment and storage of nuclear wastes. Indeed, the Lockheed team’s job will include the environmental cleanup at the Idaho lab.

Lockheed and the Energy Department also hope to transfer more of the lab’s expertise to commercial ventures. The lab has been studying some products with commercial potential, such as how police chasing a car could use a microwave device to turn off the car’s engine from a distance.