Two arrested when alert
employee helps foil theft

Two men were arrested yesterday for the alleged theft of 320 pounds of scrap metal from this dumpster.

An alert and clear-thinking employee helped prevent the theft of scrap metal from a dumpster near the Feynman Computing Center on Tuesday morning, leading to the arrest of two persons on the Fermilab site. The two had allegedly loaded a quantity of scrap aluminum from a storage bin into their van at around 9 a.m., but they were unaware that they had been spotted.

A lab employee pulling into the parking lot saw what he described as a "beat-up white minivan." He also saw a man wearing a hooded jacket or sweatshirt pulling metal out of the storage bin and piling it into the van, while appearing to look around furtively several times. The employee called Fermilab Security at ext. 3131 on his cell phone to report the suspicious activity, but his view of the van's license plate was blocked. Remaining in his car and on the phone while the van started to pull away, the employee was then able to report the plate number along with the direction the van was heading. The security dispatcher alerted Fermilab Security patrols and called local law enforcement.

A security mobile unit stopped the van on Pine Street, just before it left the site. The van was occupied by two adult males and one juvenile male. Batavia City Police responded and backed up lab security until the arrival of Kane County Sheriff Department Deputies. Staff from the lab's Business Services Section removed the aluminum from the van, then weighed it and inspected it. The metal weighed 320 pounds and was worth $176 at scrap value. The employee who made the original phone call was summoned to identify the vehicle and the suspects. The Sheriff's Deputies jailed the two adults, one of whom was the father of the juvenile. The Sheriff's Deputies then allowed the father to place a call to relatives, who came to the scene to take care of the juvenile.

Fermilab Security has been working with groups across the lab in efforts to prevent thefts of scrap metal, including suggestions for individual employees to take responsibility for making sure that material is secured well. Bill Flaherty, head of lab security, said there had been a similar suspicious incident with no arrests the previous week, with several other incidents reported over the last six months. Even with additional security procedures in place, individual employees who are alert for suspicious activity can sometimes be the most effective resources.

"It was the right thing to do," the employee said. "I know times are tough, and maybe these were people who are struggling, but this was not the right way for them to go about it. I just hope they will all learn a lesson."

--Mike Perricone

John Santic

John Santic

Fermilab engineer John Santic passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, March 24.
He was 51 years old.

At the time of his death, Santic worked with the Conventional Facilities Siting group for the ILC. His efforts were fundamental to the completion of the ILC Reference Design Report and the associated cost estimate presented in Beijing in February. "John was an excellent engineer, a friend and a valuable member of the CFS team," said CFS Americas Regional Team Leader Vic Kuchler. "He will be sorely missed."

Santic has been associated with Fermilab for 16 years. In 1991, he started as a consultant on the Main Injector and NuMI projects. Over the next few years, Stanic also worked on BTeV and provided much-needed high-voltage electrical support to the FESS Engineering Group. Just after the ILC Snomass Conference in August of 2005, he joined the International Linear Collider project. He became a full-time Fermilab employee on October 9, 2006.

Santic is described by colleagues as a hard worker who was good at dealing with the massive challenges of an international project. He was also fun to be around. "John was well-liked and able to interact with other members of the ILC collaboration to get the most difficult jobs done," said Kuchler. "We will miss him dearly."

Friends may call at the Burns-Kish Funeral Home, 8415 Calumet Ave., Munster, Ind., on Wednesday, March 28, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Funeral services will be held Thursday, March 29, at 9:15 a.m. at the funeral home followed by a mass. More information is here.

European Space Agency,
March 27, 2007:

Using measurements of the four ESA's Cluster satellites, a study published this week in Nature Physics shows pioneering experimental evidence of magnetic reconnection also in turbulent 'plasma' around Earth.

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