The two are looking to hire someone to solely focus on tightening their relationship.
New Mexcio University and Sandia National Labs have announced their intention to hire a new member of staff whose sole focus will be strengthening the partnership between the two institutions. The news come from Paul Hommert, director of Sandia National Labs and president of Sandia Corporation, who made the announcement at the Economic Forum of Albuquerque.
The university and the laboratories have so far worked on 200 joint technologies, and want to increase that drive to develop and commercialise many more. At the same time, Sandia are also committed to working with the city to develop the new Innovation District, expecting that all these efforts will allow them to recruit and retain more qualified engineers on top of the 3,000 it has hired over the past five years.
The partnership should give the company more financial security. Managed and operated by Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the Sandia National Labs are two US Department of Energy research and development national laboratories. Their primary mission is to develop, engineer, and test the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons, but this comes with a host of political and budgetary issues. During the US government shutdown in October 2013, Sandia was facing the danger of having to shut its doors.
Paul Hommert said: “The dominant conversation we have is about the community, health care, schools. They’re fundamental to us continuing our mission. This is an area that we can improve, and that work always continues.”
