AGENDA
VISITING COMMITTEE ON ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY (VCAT)
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Boulder, CO
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Boulder - Room 1107

THEME: Strategic Planning

8:30 am VCAT Meeting Begins: Welcome
Dr. April Schweighart, Outgoing VCAT Chair
Ms. Deborah Grubbe, New VCAT Chair
Dr. William Jeffrey, NIST Director

8:40 am NIST Update and VCAT Agenda Review
Dr. William Jeffrey, NIST Director

9:15 am Discussion on NIST Update

9:30 am NIST's Strategic Planning and Priority-Setting Process
Dr. William Jeffrey, NIST Director

10:00 am Discussion on NIST's Strategic Planning and Priority-Setting Process

10:20 am Break

10:35 am Overview of the Strategic Planning Process in the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory (EEEL)
Dr. William Anderson, Director, EEEL

11:05 am Discussion on Strategic Planning in EEEL

11:20 am Overview of the Strategic Planning Process in the Physics Laboratory (PL)
Dr. Katharine Gebbie, Director, PL

Implementation of the Physics Laboratory's Strategic Plan in the Time and Frequency Division
Dr. Thomas O'Brian, Chief, Time and Frequency Division, PL

12:00 pm Discussion on Strategic Planning in the Physics Laboratory and the Time and Frequency Division

12:15 pm Lunch
VCAT and SMB

1:05 pm Laboratory Tours

High Speed Optical Detectors for Quantum Encryption/Information
Sae Woo Nam, Optoelectronic Manufacturing Group, Optoelectronics Division, EEEL

NIST's Role in Alternative Refrigerants and the Hydrogen Economy
Daniel Friend, Deputy Chief and Mark McLinden, Physical and Chemical Properties Division, Chemical Science and Technology Laboatory

Optical Atomic Clocks
Dr. Chris Oates and Dr. Scott Diddams, Time and Frequency Division, PL

2:50 pm Break

3:05 pm A Vision for the NIST U.S. Measurement System (USMS) Project
Dr. Dennis Swyt, Director, USMS Project

A report on NIST's updated approach and action plan to assess the state of the USMS.

3:35 pm Discussion on the NIST USMS Project

3:50 pm Adjourn

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

10:00 am VCAT Panel on Best Practices for Strategic Planning: Lessons Learned from Managing Organizations with Multiple Business Units and Customer Bases
Moderator: Ms. Deborah Grubbe, VCAT Chair
VCAT Members: Dr. John Cassidy, Mr. Thomas Saponas, and Mr. Gary Floss

This panel will focus on providing lessons learned from managing organizations with multiple business units and customer bases, similar to NIST's diverse program portfolio, in response to the following questions.

1. How do managers select and prioritize investment opportunities across diverse technologies?

2. How do organizations implement their strategic plan? For example:

a. How do managers respond to personnel whose skills no longer match the new strategic direction of the organization?

b. Are there other opportunities, as opposed to in-house research, for NIST to best achieve its mission (e.g., partnerships and contracts)?

12:00 pm Meeting Adjourned