During his more than 20-year career at Sandia, Jeff Brewer has focused on nuclear safety.
“Very early in my Sandia career, I started working part time on weapon safety,” Jeff said.
Sandia hired Jeff as a risk analyst for commercial power reactor safety. His background and training in systems engineering and human factors aligned well with Sandia’s nuclear deterrence mission.
“I began working part time on unique signals methodology,” Jeff said. “That is how humans provide intent to use nuclear weapons, whether in aircraft, at launch facilities on land or in submarines, and how those actions are turned into information structures, which are then used by safety devices inside weapons.”
In 2010, he transitioned fully to weapon safety.
Now a senior scientist, Jeff is a domain chief engineer for nuclear safety and chief of the Nuclear Safety Technical Expert Network.
“High levels of safety are necessary to have a credible deterrent available and ready at all times,” Jeff said.
Resolving technical roadblocks
Sandia has six Technical Expert Networks, or TENs, which provide a framework to help the Labs resolve technical roadblocks faster and accelerate work to meet delivery commitments.
Jeff was tapped to establish the Nuclear Safety TEN. One of the most challenging aspects was figuring out a structure for the network, he said.
He spent time identifying the correct experts, whose primary roles at Sandia are already heavily focused on safety.
“The experts were here; they just weren’t connected,” Jeff said. “Having the right experts connected allows us to provide trusted advice about high-consequence systems.”
These high-consequence systems include, but are not limited to, nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Safety TEN has 43 people on the organizational chart. Another 55 Sandians, whose names are not listed on the chart, are considered partners and can also be tapped to support the identified subject matter experts.
Most of those seeking the TEN’s help have approached a subject matter expert, and then Jeff evaluates the request to ensure it’s in the nuclear safety purview. If it is, the experts get to work.
“For the most part, it’s usually just a limited number of people who need to engage on a particular topic or issue,” Jeff said. “We can usually address it with a small number of people.”
Input for a credible deterrent
The Nuclear Safety TEN has been very active since it launched in April 2024.
“One topic in weapons that’s rapidly evolving is the way we evaluate safety risks within and across weapon systems,” Jeff said. “We have some new techniques that we’ve been piloting on different systems and the TEN has been very helpful in supporting the expansion of that activity.”
The TEN has also been called to support peer reviews, including for the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile – Nuclear Program, or SLCM-N, which is in the feasibility and design options stage.
“Because of the pace of that program, they’re having to make some very important safety-based decisions on a relatively compressed timeline so they can begin realizing that program,” Jeff said.
The TEN is also providing its expertise to external partners.
“We’ve had multiple engagements with the Air Force, particularly the Air Force Safety Center and the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center on different topics related to nuclear weapons,” Jeff said. “We’ve also had engagements with Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories as well as our colleagues in the United Kingdom at AWE Nuclear Security Technologies.”
The feedback and advice the Nuclear Safety TEN is providing is based on ensuring the U.S. has a reliable, credible and effective deterrent, and the TEN is structured to support high-consequence systems across all of Sandia’s major program portfolios.
“The right balance of high levels of safety and other aspects of surety enable you to accomplish the national security mission,” Jeff said. “They allow your system to be ready to perform its core functions whenever it’s needed and be effective when it’s called upon.”