• Number 390  |
• June 10, 2013

LANL's Eric Larson has a commitment to safety based in tragedy

LANL's Eric Larson has a commitment to safety based in tragedy

When it comes to safety committees, many have come and gone, or "burn a bright glow only to dim and fade out ... and be replaced with something new and better," said Eric Larson of the Lujan Center (LANSCE-LC) at DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, a veteran of several safety committees in his 34 years at the Laboratory. He has reason to be a tough assessor of safety programs though, as personal tragedy has marked his past.

"I've had a long standing desire to do things safely," said Larson, a mechanical designer at LANSCE. In a new "Why I'm Safe" video, Larson describes his involvement in Worker Safety and Security Teams and how an event more than 40 years ago affected him personally.

Larson eventually joined the LANSCE Worker Safety and Security Team, rising to chair the LANSCE WSST team — and serves now as vice chair of the Institutional Worker Safety and Security Team.

Larson is a mechanical designer 5 at the neutron-scattering facility, where he notes “I design a wide range of complex sample-environment and handling equipment,” going from the back-of-a-napkin sketches of the scientists as they envision a future sample-testing environment for neutron bombardment, and transitioning it to safe, useful reality.

He makes 3-D models, checks their design against physical parameters, and ensures essential engineering constraints are met. When the design is ready, he creates fabrication drawings, and then sends the drawings off to be created and finally installed in the multimillion-dollar facility. “I enjoy what I’m doing, it’s something different all the time, it’s always new. We are constantly pushing the envelope of new technology for neutron scattering — The scientists dream the dreams and I make it happen.”

Born at the Los Alamos Medical Center (as were all three of his daughters), Larson is a true native of the area and he has lived in the nearby Jemez Mountains for the last 20 years.

Tragedy strikes

Larson described a May 1972 plane flight from Albuquerque to Los Alamos that took the lives of nine men, eight of them Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory employees, including his father.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigation determined that a forward cargo door wasn't properly latched. A safety interrupt switch system designed to prevent the plane's left engine from starting if the forward cargo door wasn't properly latched had been over-ridden. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff.

So for Larson safety is far more than just checking a box.

“That plane didn’t have to wreck, but because somebody over-jumpered the door switch and bypassed the safety system, that set everything in motion for the wreck,” he said.

“That drives me -- none of us are perfect, but I’ve taken the tragedy and turned it into a driving force for positive. Our past is our past, and we can’t change things that have happened, but we can allow them to change the future. That’s what I’m doing with my designs.” So now, he notes, whether we’re looking at hand rails or something that’s going to run 8 kbar (116,000 PSI), we pay close attention to the details.

Recalling the fateful plane flight, Larson said the details really do matter, and on so many levels: “I was one of 28 children whose daddy did not make it home that spring day in 1972.”

Submitted by DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory