On August 4, 1997, Secretary Federico Peņa and Deputy Secretary Elizabeth Moler recognized the Lessons Learned Process Improvement Team with a Hammer Award from Vice-President Al Gore's National Performance Review. Dick Trevillian and Skip Castro, Co-chairs of the Process Improvement Team, received the award on behalf of their team members.

The Hammer Award is presented to teams of federal employees who have made significant contributions in support of reinventing government principles. The Award is the Vice President's answer to yesterday's government and its $400 hammer. Fittingly, the award consists of a $6.00 hammer, a ribbon, and a note from Vice President Gore, all in an aluminum frame. More than 900 Hammer Awards have been presented to teams comprised of federal employees, state and local employees, and citizens who are working to build a better government.

The following is an excerpt from a press release concerning the award:

"The Lessons Learned Process Improvement Team consisted of Federal employees and contractors at the Department of Energy, who, with no budget and no management mandate, created a system for sharing lessons learned across the DOE complex. The sharing of lessons prevents repeating mistakes or accidents, saves injuries and lives, and saves scarce taxpayer dollars.

The great successes of the Lessons Learned Process Improvement Team were achieved with essentially no up-front commitment of DOE funding, no need for dedicated management attention, and with a spirit of teamwork and cooperation. The team members made a difference in safety and cost savings, and earned respect and appreciation from everyone they touched. Today, every major DOE site has in place, a lessons learned program and a lessons learned site coordinator; all without mandates by bureaucratic regulations."
 
 

In addition, the Office of Operating Experience Analysis and Feedback, which sponsored the Team for the award, listed the following team accomplishments.

With no budget and no mandate from management, these empowered employees:

Drafted and issued a Lessons Learned Standard to provide good ideas and guidance to activities setting up or making improvements to their lessons learned programs. The standard's goal is more to promote communication of lessons learned site-to-site vice mandating that a prescriptive program be in place at a given site.

Drafted and issued a Lessons Learned Handbook to provide success stories, road maps and tool kits. This is the book of real examples, not descriptions of programs.

Created repositories on DOE-wide computer networks of lessons learned. Linking together other databases of lessons learned information from DOE Site Offices as well as other government/commercial activities.  These repositories are now available through the Internet to DOE and the general public at http://www.hss.energy.gov/CSA/Analysis/ll/.

Created a DOE-wide electronic mail system for sharing lessons learned. As soon as a lesson is posted by one of the approximately 200 members of this system, the lesson is automatically mailed to the other members.
 
 

Following is a list of Lessons Learned Process Improvement Team Members.

Dick Trevillian, DOE HQ
Manuel Castro, DOE HQ
Bobbie Smith, DOE HQ
Jean Pruitt, DOE HQ
Melissa Nielson, DOE HQ
William McQuiston, DOE ID
Tom Daniels, DOE RL
Raymond Douglas, DOE RL
Dean Andes, Stone & Webster Eng. Corp
Joseph Andrews, Weston
Bill Armour, DOE HQ
Charles Arnold, DOE HQ
Cheryl Arnold, Kaiser Hill
Theresa Beall, DOE NV
John Bickford, Westinghouse
Bruce Breslau, DOE HQ
Michael Bullock, Kaiser Hill
Ralph Butler, Argonne
Bob Campbell, DOE HQ
James Cannon, DOE HQ
Leonard Dickerson, ORNL
J.M. Drake, SPR
Mike Durst, Battelle
Linda Eichorst, DOE SR
Cynthia Eubanks, Martin Marietta
Imelda Francies, SNL
Candace Forstenson, LANL
Meredith Gerke, LANL
Rick Goodell, Mason and Hangar
Suzanne Harter, Project Perf. Corp.
Bill Hopkins, Raytheon
Bob Kibbe, Westinghouse Hanford
Mike Kinney, Weston
Stephen Lehman, RFETS
George Lscic, DOE RF
Bill McEvoy, Westinghouse SR
Lynn Maestas, DOE ALB
Rich Magill, DOE RF
Max Martinez, SNL
Larry Moon, LLNL
Thomas Moore, Lockheed Martin Hanford
Julia Phifer, Weston
Terry Pierce, Lockheed Martin
Julie Sellars, Lockheed
William Silver, LLNL
Jay Thompson, DOE CH
John Usher, Brookhaven
Mimi Welch, Lockheed
Fred Witmer, DOE HQ
Joel Wong, LLNL
Danny Yee, DOE Oakland