Felberg, Fred H., 1920-. JPL Institutional Management Committee Collection, 1977-1991.
Title:
JPL Institutional Management Committee Collection, 1977-1991.
The collection consists of meeting minutes, agendas, interoffice memoranda, guidelines, hand-written notes, charts, graphs and reports involving the Institutional Management Committee (IMC), originally called the Institutional Executive Committee (IEC). The collection has been divided into three series, IEC/IMC Meetings, Burden Budgets and Manpower Reviews. The files were originally collected by Fred Felberg, John Heie, Lynn Patterson and Clarence R. Gates. The Manpower Overviews date back to 1978, although the bulk of the collection is between 1980 to 1991. IEC/IMC Meetings (folders 1-153 and 203-232; boxes 1-17 and 24-26). This series has been retained largely in its original chronological order, with some slight shifting from reverse chronological to forward chronological order, with duplicate material removed. A second set of meeting materials previously thought missing has been added (folders 203 - 232; boxes 24 - 26) and placed at the end of the collection just before the JPL Discreet box. It was determined that this second set contained information that warranted its inclusion. The folders are listed on the File Folder List as they should appear if they had been included in the original processed collection. The meeting records include an agenda, summary meeting minutes, presentation materials, handouts, correspondence, and handwritten notes. A preliminary draft of the charter for the IEC, dated August 18, 1980, is included in the collection. Even before the IEC charter was worked out, the IEC was already deep into the preparation of the FY1981 burden budget. The issue of most importance to the IEC was preparing the burden budget and was usually an ongoing matter, with some discussion about it at each meeting. Represented in the collection are memoranda and reports covering the preparation of the burden budget of each fiscal year from 1981 to 1991. Of secondary interest to the IEC was facilities. The construction of facilities was tracked, as well as on-Lab space needs for such projects as the Army contract All Sources Analysis System. The December 4, 1980 meeting discussed alternative scenarios involving the 25-foot space simulator. The various options discussed were a complete mothball, semi-mothball, and simulator operational maintenance base. The option taken would be on the basis of optimizing institutional costs, burden costs, and costs of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). No simulator tests were planned until March 1982, with IRAS. Represented in the collection are versions of a study on the funding optimization of the 25-foot space simulator, dated December 2 and revised December 4, 1980, written by Tom Gindorf and J. Harrell. IEC meeting minutes, dated December 3, 1980, also summarized the discussion of the issue, as well as a memo from the committee to JPL Director Bruce Murray. Layoff procedures were discussed beginning in March 1981. Persons scheduled for layoff were to be given notice by their immediate supervisor and told the effective date. The employee had the option to administratively transfer to the Outplacement Services Section (090), where the employee would remain on the JPL payroll until the layoff notice had been reached or until the employee reported for work on a new job. Outplacement services, which included the preparation of resumes, job search strategies, office space, secretarial and reproduction services, as well as counseling services would be provided. Layoff procedures were discussed at both the March 17 and 24, 1981 IEC meetings. Facilities planning was also a key issue for the IEC. The April 7, 1981 meeting focused on the modification project for Building 230, the Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF). The building was budgeted to receive upgrades in communications equipment and operational support activities to aid in flight project operations over the next five years. The discussion of the modification of the SFOF continued for several months. In Bruce Murray's April 1981 "State-of-the-Lab" address, he established top management's commitment to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. The IEC was charged with formulating ways of doing this. In June 1981, a review of all Standard Practice Instructions (SPIs) and Policy Statements was made. Director's Letters were distributed to all personnel to publicize the efforts at reducing bureaucracy in July 1981 and again in November 1981. Efforts were made to simplify procedures for processing procurement requisitions and to increase signature authority thresholds for procurement requisitions and service requests to give more authority to the group supervisor. The increased Department of Defense (DOD) work by JPL was also addressed by the IEC. In August 1981, NASA Deputy Administrator Hans Mark sent Bruce Murray a letter advising him to raise the limitation for non-NASA work stipulated in the 1978 NASA/Caltech Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to 25%, and to confine all non-NASA work to DOD space program activities. Murray requested that the IEC write a response draft for him to send to Mark. The draft reply had Murray express caution to formally confine non-NASA work to DOD space program activities. Murray expressed concerns in the semantics of such a request, and whether such an explicit constraint was necessary. This material was discussed in the August 26, 1981 IEC meeting. The threat of potential layoffs remained at JPL throughout 1981 and beyond. A draft report, "Task Termination Process," dated October 12, 1981, is a part of the collection. The report sketched out the basic framework for handling an employee termination at JPL, setting out the critical actions that had to be taken and the timeframe for accomplishment. JPL's extended activity with Defense work in 1982 spurred the Executive Council to ask Fred Felberg to develop a proposed plan for handling the formal relationship documents between Caltech/JPL and NASA. An interoffice memorandum dated March 2, 1982 from Felberg to Murray documents that Felberg felt that the existing MOU between Caltech and NASA was fully satisfactory and should not have to be renegotiated. Felberg also noted that JPL should take steps to encourage high-level NASA personnel to become familiar with the 1978 MOU, although it should be handled carefully. One example of the burden budget affecting flight projects may be found in an October 27, 1982 memorandum from John R. Casani to Deputy Director Charles H. Terhune. Casani reported that the burden planning rates for Project Galileo were being increased, with a reduction in project reserves by 40% to offset the increase. Casani reported that the possibility of a second Galileo spacecraft for a potential Saturn mission was in serious jeopardy due to the rate increases. A long-range facilities plan dated October 1983 attempted to analyze the facility space needs over the next twelve years, with primary objectives of consolidating all employees at the Oak Grove facility, and replacement of substandard facilities. In March 1983 there were around 775 JPL employees working off-site at the Foothill Complex. The coming of the Olympic Games to Los Angeles in July-August 1984 was of some concern to JPL. A handout discussed by the IEC in April 1984 addressed such concerns as delay in deliveries to and from the Laboratory, a shortage of rental vehicles in the Los Angeles area, hotels booked up, traffic congestion expectations of an all-time high, and possible terrorist activities. JPL management recommended carpooling, early morning and late evening Laboratory deliveries, rescheduling Laboratory work hours during the Olympic period, and discouraging visitors to the Laboratory, as well as on-Lab interviews and employee business trips during the period. Concerns over on-Lab parking were an ongoing issue of the IEC. In August 1984 there was a proposal to implement a policy of parking decals in some lots. The IEC was given responsibility for approval of the policy. A series of memos dated January 15, 1987 documents the concern over the preservation and proper storage of magnetic tapes stored at the time in various buildings at the main JPL facility. Leo Lunine, Manager of the Foothill Documentation Section (Section 641) requested that each Division and Project Office fill out a questionnaire regarding the number of magnetic tapes each office had in their possession. A year earlier, in January 1986, a Data Tape Working Group was organized to deal with the problem of the archival data tape collection stored at the Federal Records Center. There was additional concern due to the fact that large quantities of semi-active tapes would begin to collect when planetary data streams flowed again, with the Uranus and Neptune planetary encounters of Voyager and other missions. The issue was brought to the IEC on January 19, 1987. The issue of semi-active tape storage was addressed again at the August 4, 1988 meeting. Haskell G. O'Brien gave a presentation of the current status of semi-active tape storage. The IMC requested that a status report be given on the culling of planetary and scientific magnetic tapes that were in storage at the Federal Records Center in Laguna Niguel, CA. A project plan and presentation material for a 48-inch telescope located at JPL's Table Mountain facility was presented to the IEC on May 14, 1987. The telescope was called the Cloudcraft telescope, as it was a pre-existing structure, relocated from Cloudcraft, NM to the Table Mountain facility in October 1986. The telescope's objectives were to support science objectives of flight projects such as Voyager, Mars Observer and Galileo; and to support JPL research tasks in planetary astronomy. The Challenger catastrophe had caused a hiatus in science data acquisition, and the telescope was deemed more than adequate in filling the planetary observation gap between flight missions. One of the issues in the IEC July 23, 1987 meeting was the use of JPL logos in letterheads. The IEC agreed that the JPL logo should not be used within a project logo, and that all logos should be registered. Attached with the meeting minutes was a revised Standard Practice Instructions on the basic form and proper use of the JPL logotype. Included are examples of appropriate and inappropriate uses of the JPL logo. At the May 16, 1988 IMC meeting, Charles Chapman, Manager of the Documentation and Materiel Division (Division 64) presented a proposed plan for an archives program. The presentation material is present in the collection. It was reported that the matter would be addressed in the FY89 burden review in June. Also attached is a report "The Archives of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory," by David B. Gracy II, a consultant from the University of Texas at Austin. The IMC Facilities meeting held on December 2, 1988 is given a separate folder due to the amount of documentation. Each Division was given twenty minutes to give presentations regarding facilities and space assignments. This information is of historical value as it provides a snapshot of where each division was physically located both on and off lab at one moment in time. The space utilization needs for Voyager and Galileo were discussed at the regular IMC meeting on December 15, 1988. At the June 8, 1989 meeting, Public Affairs Manager George Alexander discussed the need for a JPL Historian. Alexander noted that the Laboratory relied on institutional memory, in the form of veteran managers, to transmit the "JPL culture" to new scientists and engineers, and that this institutional memory was being lost by retirement. The JPL Historian position would be a 50-50 split between JPL and Caltech, and work closely with the newly-appointed archivist. At the June 29, 1989 meeting, it was decided to postpone the issue for a year to see how the Archivist works. Present in the collection are presentation materials used by Alexander, and a report prepared by Alex Roland, a consultant from the U.S. Army Military History Institute. The outsourcing of many Laboratory duties was of concern to the IMC. Handouts from the July 20, 1989 meeting included the report "Working With Contractor Employees: A Handbook," written by a Support Contractor Study Group chaired by Fred Felberg. The purpose of the handbook was to inform JPL managers, supervisors, and administrators of various policies and practices which were applicable to on-site contractor employees. At the IMC meeting of February 1, 1990, JPL Archivist Michael Q. Hooks gave a presentation entitled "The Archives- Jet Propulsion Laboratory." The presentation included a status report and the objectives of the JPL Archives. The objectives stated were: to identify, collect, preserve, maintain, and make available the historically valuable permanent records of JPL; to obtain oral histories with key JPL people; and to document the activities, flight operations and administrative operations of JPL. Hooks made another status report to the IMC on February 28, 1991. The objectives of the Archives Office were reviewed. It was reported that the accomplishments in the past year included: establishing contact with many of the Lab's key organizations, acquiring records from several Project Offices, a start on processing records, and obtaining a number of oral history interviews. Future plans included upgrading the archives and records storage area environment and fire safety, implementing "Project Clean File" to supplant the old "records roundup," and adding archival processors to his staff. The February 7, 1991 IMC meeting featured a presentation by George Alexander titled "Special Open House Program Proposal Plan." Alexander noted that the goals of an open house program would be to satisfy the overwhelming public demand to visit JPL, to permit consistent access to JPL by an increasingly interested and sophisticated public, and to promote public awareness of JPL programs and projects. The benefits of such a program included increased public pride in the accomplishments of NASA, JPL and Caltech, favorable public awareness of JPL projects and programs leading to public support, and public support meant political support for NASA, JPL and Caltech. The Open House Program was instigated by the Campus Centennial Committee, who had planned an Open House in connection with seminars scheduled at JPL on August 3-4, 1991. Alexander requested extra money to hold a full open house, with thirty-five sites open to the public. The IMC agreed to fund a constrained Open House. Burden Budgets (folders 154-189; boxes 18-21). Starting in 1987, the Burden Budget reviews conducted by the IMC were kept separate from the meeting minutes and placed in binders. This arrangement has been maintained. There is ample documentation of the Burden Budget reviews undertaken by the IEC/IMC, especially for Fiscal Year 1987. The material includes correspondence, memoranda, reports, charts, graphs and computer printouts. Represented in the series is documentation of allocation and revisions of allocations of funds to each JPL Division. Directors Review and Discussion (DRD) Workforce Overviews (folders 190-202; boxes 21-22). This series consists primarily of charts and graphs illustrating the Laboratory manpower overview, institutional manpower status by organization, and the manpower ceilings imposed by NASA. The Workforce Overviews were sent by Gary G. McCutcheon, Financial Planning Section (Section 632) to Fred Felberg on a monthly basis, and were presented and discussed at monthly Directors Review and Discussion (DRD) forums. Also prominent in the reports is Lyle V. Burden, Section Manager of 632. JPL Discreet materials. Forty folders contain documents that are stamped or marked "JPL Discreet" or "SEB Discreet." The original positions of Discreet material in the collection have been marked with separation sheets. The material has been moved to a box at the end of the collection.
ArchivalResource:
9 cubic ft. (272 folders)
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/733100903 View
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