George Peter Nanos Jr. is a retired vice admiral in the United States Navy and former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Early life Nanos is from Bedford, New Hampshire. He received his bachelor's degree and was a Trident Scholar at the United States Naval Academy in 1967 and received his doctorate in physics from Princeton University in 1974. Military career Nanos served for 35 years in the United States Navy and retired as a vice admiral. Nanos conducted many tours at sea aboard destroyers and carriers and is credited with the first-time application of systems engineering at the battle group level rather than just at the individual ship level. In 1989 he began ten years with the Navy's strategic programs overseeing the submarine inertial navigation and missile programs. In 1992, he became technical director of strategic system programs and, after promotion to rear admiral, was named director, where he served until 1999. Promoted to vice admiral, he served as the commander, Naval Sea Systems Command where he was responsible for design, development and logistics support for all navy ships and shipboard weapons systems until his retirement. In that capacity, he oversaw four nuclear repair shipyards, 10 defense laboratory divisions with more than 20,000 employees and over $23 billion in ship and weapons systems procurements, logistics and repairs. He was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (2 awards), the Meritorious Service Medal (5 awards), and the Navy Achievement Medal. Los Alamos National Laboratory On January 6, 2003, Nanos began working as the interim director of Los Alamos National Lab. On July 17, 2003, he was named director of the lab. In May 2004, Nanos ordered an emergency shutdown of operations after classified computer disks were reported missing by a flawed auditing procedure, and a student suffered an eye injury from a laser beam in the same week. "In no case will I authorize a restart until I'm absolutely convinced that each organization will not risk further compromise of safety, security and environment," Nanos said in an internal e-mail. '"This willful flouting of the rules must stop, and I don't care how many people I have to fire to make it stop. If you think the rules are silly, if you think compliance is a joke, please resign now and save me the trouble," Nanos added in a separate e-mail to Los Alamos employees. The shutdown