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Report on the KPNO Director Search (1Sep95)
(from Director's Office, NOAO Newsletter No. 43, September 1995)

As most of you will have heard by now, we do not plan to fill the
position of Director of KPNO. I would like to summarize for you the
procedure that was used in conducting the search, the recommendations
of the search committee, and the plans for the future.

Before going through these details, I would like to make an editorial
comment. Despite the disappointing outcome of the search, I remain
convinced that KPNO will continue to play a critical role in astronomy
in this country. In WIYN it has a telescope that represents the
current state of the art in 4-m class telescopes. It is still one of
very few sites with two 4-m class telescopes. It will be pioneering
the use of queue observing, which is an essential element of the
Gemini operations plans. All major instrumentation that is built by
NOAO for CTIO and Gemini will be fabricated in Tucson and commissioned
at Kitt Peak. And, most importantly, KPNO continues to serve the
largest number of users of any of the NOAO sites. Without KPNO, we
would begin to move back toward the situation that prevailed when I
first entered astronomy--that only those lucky enough to be at a few
selected universities had the opportunity to use the very best
facilities to pursue their scientific ideas. I regret that the
potential candidates that were approached about the position of
Director of Kitt Peak judged the risk/opportunity ratio at KPNO to be
so unfavorable (see discussion below). I do not agree with their
judgment. I see KPNO's scientific and technical staff and its
observing facilities as key to much of what NOAO must do over the next
five years. Check back in five years and see who was right!

The search for a Director of KPNO was initiated in the summer of 1994.
The chair of the search committee was Bob O'Connell and the members of
the committee were chosen because they are frequent users of KPNO,
genuinely care about its future, and are well known in the
astronomical community. This last characteristic was particularly
important because we expected personal contacts by committee members
to be an important factor in persuading potential applicants to apply.

The search process was hampered in its initial phases by concerns
about the potential impact of the recommendations of the OIR report,
which were at that time being formulated under the chairmanship of
Dick McCray. That report became available in January 1995. While I
view the report overall as representing a good blueprint for OIR
astronomy, the recommendations with respect to Kitt Peak were not of
such a nature as to encourage applicants for the position of Director.
The comments of one potential candidate who ultimately withdrew from
consideration offer some important insight into the problems that must
be faced by Kitt Peak:

"While I see some positive outcomes from the McCray panel (in
particular the recommendation that investment of public monies in
private observatories carry with it the obligation of public access) a
fundamental consequence of the report is that NOAO in general and KPNO
in particular must "downsize" as we approach the Gemini era. Not
surprisingly, I think this represents unwise and short-sighted policy.
Nevertheless, it is... the context within which the institutions will
operate for the foreseeable future.

"It seems inevitable that operations at KPNO in particular will be
curtailed dramatically over the next five years. Indeed, absent any
significant influx of capital funds (either from university consortia
or from the NSF), KPNO activities may be reduced to (1) carrying out
queue and/or service observing with WIYN and possibly with the Mayall
telescope; (2) carrying out preparatory observations/mini-surveys for
Gemini programs; and (3) serving as a test-bed for future Gemini
instrument concepts. While transitioning to this role represents a
challenge, it is not clear to me that appointing a KPNO director from
outside NOAO represents the best way of meeting it, especially given
competing needs at NOAO and the limited resources available to meet
them... I do think that the search committee and AURA would do well to
carefully consider the functional needs of NOAO as a whole before
deciding to invest valuable resources in an external director for
KPNO."

Other potential candidates had similar views. The committee contacted
21 astronomers from outside NOAO about the job, all of whom were
judged to have the stature and experience necessary for the
Directorship. Four expressed interest in the job, but in the end none
chose to apply. According to the committee report, the
risks/uncertainties associated with the position were perceived to be
large compared with the opportunities.

Based on their experience with the search, the committee recommended
that NOAO reformulate its management structure to adjust to the Gemini
era. Since reorganization is in their view inevitable, they
recommended against reopening the search or making any other long term
commitments concerning the KPNO Director. They did recommend the short
term appointment of someone from inside the organization. In the final
analysis, I was unable to identify internal candidates who were
willing to accept the type of appointment that I was able to offer.

I agree with the committee's recommendation that a reorganization is
necessary. In order for the position of Director to be attractive it
must offer opportunities for innovation, development of new programs,
and major initiatives. I still believe that all of that is possible
within NOAO, even given budget constraints, but I believe that most of
our initiatives will be centered somewhere other than Kitt Peak
mountain. The management of an observatory as complex as Kitt Peak is
a challenging activity that requires commitment and attention.
However, I have believed for some time that other responsibilities
must be added to role of Kitt Peak Director as traditionally defined
in order to make it attractive to people of the stature and experience
that the position requires. I would have preferred to redefine the
position prior to initiating the search, but it was clear that neither
the user community nor the advisory committees with whom I work were
ready to accept such a radical change as in effect abolishing the
position of KPNO Director. Now that the search process has failed, we
have no alternative but to develop a new management structure.

What then do I see as the future of KPNO in the context of NOAO?
First, the budget situation is, if anything, even more daunting than
when the search was in progress. The budget planning guidelines that
we have been given by the NSF call for about a 20 percent cut in
purchasing power between now and the year 2000, if we make reasonable
estimates of inflation rates in the US and Chile. (The combination of
the unfavorable change in the peso/dollar exchange rates and inflation
last year raised our Chilean costs by about 20 percent.) These cuts
will be in addition to the approximately 30 percent reduction in the
operations budget, again corrected for inflation, over the past
decade. It is clear that there will be major stresses on all parts of
the organization.

The problems are particularly acute for Kitt Peak. All units of NOAO
face serious restructuring and downsizing. But Gemini South is now
under construction on Cerro Pachon, and we remain optimistic about the
SOAR project. NSO has recently begun to collect data from the GONG
network and is planning to submit a major proposal for a truly
innovative new solar telescope. The instrumentation program in Tucson
has taken on the responsibility of building major new instrumentation
for CTIO as well as KPNO and won the competition to build the near-IR
spectrometer for Gemini. Science observations have recently been
initiated at the WIYN telescope, and the image quality continues to be
superb. However, the Tucson scientific and technical staff will be
increasingly drawn away from KPNO and toward activities related to US
involvement with Gemini and new telescope and instrumentation projects
for sites outside Arizona. Unless the person responsible for KPNO
operations can also lead some of these other efforts it is unlikely
that the position will be perceived to be attractive.

Over the next several months I will be formulating a new management
plan for NOAO that will take into account the changes required in the
organization to carry out our national responsibilities on behalf of
the international Gemini project, to integrate the nighttime
instrumentation program, and to work more closely with the independent
observatories. I question whether the current separation of
responsibilities---one director in charge of the US Gemini Program and
another in charge of KPNO---is the right one. I am more inclined to
believe that we should group similar activities---perhaps
instrumentation on the one hand and operations on the
other---independent of the telescopes involved.

What about KPNO in the interim? There are three classes of activities
that have traditionally been performed by the KPNO Director. The first
is long range planning and advocacy for the program. It is appropriate
for the NOAO Director to take on that role for all of the divisions,
and I will do so. The second is leadership of the scientific program,
including the interactions with the user community. I have set up a
committee of the scientific staff to advise me in these matters and on
the kinds of detailed priority decisions that must be made to
implement the long range plan. I also plan to maintain ongoing
interactions with the users committee to obtain their advice about the
difficult priority decisions we will face. The third area is
leadership and management of observing support and of instrumentation
and telescope improvements projects. I have appointed Bruce Bohannan
to the position of Assistant Director of KPNO in order to oversee
these activities. Questions from the users that were formerly sent to
the KPNO Director should be sent to me. Questions concerning
instrumental capabilities, planning for observing runs, etc. should be
addressed to the instrument scientists or other usual contact persons.
And, of course, the money saved by not filling the director's position
will be spent on the mountain to support the observing program.

Sidney C. Wolff

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