His work is fearsomely difficult yet peaceful. When Sheppard finishes work in Los Alamos, he drives the 10-minute journey home. He lives a few hundred yards from a national forest and enjoys walking amid the conifer and aspen trees while he luxuriates in the stillness and beauty. He reads and responds to 400 email messages a week, spends dozens of hours on the phone each month and is learning the fine art of diplomacy. Scientists believe in deliberation, in making sure the proper amount of time is taken before a problem is considered solved.
Bureaucrats have a different set of priorities.
Tact is preferred to direct answers, and deadlines, even impossible ones, must be met. He wonders, but he knows why. I did it out of a sense of duty. He has remained with the Ukraine work because his sense of duty has deepened. He first started working with the Ukraine project a few years ago when the Department of Energy recruited him for his expertise in nuclear physics.