LOS ALAMOS, NM (AP) — A former top U.S. nuclear weapons research official at the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories has died from injuries sustained in a car crash in New Mexico, authorities said. He was 69.
Charles McMillan, an experimental physicist, spent nearly 23 years in various positions at Livermore, California, and about 18 years at Los Alamos, where he was director for six years before retiring in 2017.
He died early Friday in a hospital after a two-vehicle accident on a stretch of road known as Main Hill, not far from the lab, police and the lab’s current director said.
“On behalf of the entire lab, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the McMillan family and the many current and former employees who worked closely with Charlie and knew him well,” lab director Thom Mason said in a statement published in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Michael Drake, president of the University of California, called McMillan in a statement “an extraordinary leader, scientist and human being who has made far-reaching contributions to science and technology in the service of national security and the public good.”
The Livermore laboratory, east of San Francisco, was founded in 1952 as a university offshoot and is now operated by the federal government. It maintains close ties with the universities and Drake’s office.
McMillan joined Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2006 after his friend and mentor Michael Anastasio became its director. McMillan served as deputy director for weapons programs before becoming director in 2011, the New Mexican reported.
He oversaw the lab during expansion and safety incidents, including a 2014 radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico that resulted from a drum of waste that was improperly packaged at the lab. The National Nuclear Security Administration found the lab had violated health and safety regulations in 2015 and cut him more than $10 million in performance bonuses.
Mason pointed to McMillan’s work on developing a vaccine against HIV and modern models to better understand climate change.
Democratic U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico praised McMillan for “invaluable contributions to our state, to science and to our national security,” citing his work in supercomputing and artificial intelligence.
Nella Domenici, Heinrich’s Republican challenger in the U.S. Senate, called McMillan’s death “a great loss to the scientific community and his family.”
Los Alamos police and fire officials said three people were treated for injuries and McMillan and a 22-year-old woman were hospitalized following the crash, which occurred around 5 a.m. The cause is under investigation.
