News from the Council of University of California Retiree Associations (CUCRA)
2024 Events:
January 9, 2024
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LPFD Chief Joe Testa: Chief Testa gave a cheery and fast moving talk on operations of LPFD. At the same time, it was a very honest and informative talk about LPFD including how changing regional situations affect the call volume, the types of calls, and response times. As he spoke one could feel his deep dedication and care for the LPFD and the residents he serves.
February 13, 2024
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LLRA Member, Mark Bowers: Mark stepped in when our scheduled speaker was unable to come out. Mark spoke to the retirees about his personal experiences with living organ donor donations. Mark donated a kidney in 2023 and will be donating a portion of his liver this year. Remarkably, Mark found great differences, and challenges, in the donation approval process for different organs.
Mark's talk was very informative, well received, and greatly appreciated.
March 12, 2024
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Kim Budil, the Laboratory's 13th director and first woman to lead the organization, spoke to a very full luncheon crowd about her experiences since becoming director in March 2021. She said the organization has had to deal with a number of remarkable if not unprecedented HR and infrastructural challenges since then. At a time of intense hiring, the pandemic forced many workers to stay home, so turnover rates rose as worker loyalty -- a traditional Lab strength -- declined. Heavy workload from warhead life extension programs put heavy strains on facilities and led to backed up construction schedules. Finding space for the many hundreds of new staff who had to be hired became increasingly difficult. Nevertheless she said hard working managers made progress against these challenges and the Laboratory is well positioned going forward to provide the technology that DOE and NNSA demand.
April 9, 2024
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Our speakers were Mark and Sharon Bowers, Liz Johnston from Early Alerts Canines, and Pat Wheeler. They took turns describing the surprising capabilities of their dogs- some as the result of training and some innate capabilities their dogs displayed on their own.
The talk was very engaging and well received.
May 14, 2024
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Joe Wong gave a very entertaining and talk about his trips to Antarctica and Patagonia.
His photo journal of the trips was captivating and his observations of the history and locales visited were very informative.
June 11, 2024
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Dr B Jayathilake gave a very interesting talk on the technologies being used to optimize a process for using excess electricity to produce methane
The methane would then be used to produce electricity at a time when demand exceeds production.
September 10, 2024
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Our speaker Jerry Brown gave an overview of the Sites Project, which is a 1.5 million acre-foot, offstream surface storage reservoir. It is in the Sacramento Valley, west of the town of Maxwell. He talked about financial details, support for the project, environmental studies, land acquirement, design details, and water
flow details. Construction would begin in 2026 and become operational in 2031.
October 8, 2024
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Dr Zach Davis gave a very spirited talk on the impact of new and also evolving technologies, on security at the national and international level and, on the concept of deterrence. He wrote his latest book to assist intelligence and defense agencies to understand this complex situation and to help them reflect on how their operations may need to evolve.
November 12, 2024
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Dr Monya Lane, CEO and Board Chair of Quest, gave a very inspiring and engaging talk about Quest, it's objectives, and future plans. Monya also showed statistics on the numbers of young people and families engaging in Quest activities. .
