In October 2023, Philip Lantz Turner III joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the Director of the Laboratory Protection Division. In this role, Lantz leads a 250+ person team responsible for providing security of nuclear material, information, personnel, and physical infrastructure at the nation’s premier science research laboratory, established in 1943 as a part of the Manhattan Project. With a budget in excess of $60M annually, his team manages security and fire protection, emergency preparedness, emergency medical services, and site operations.
Lantz came to ORNL from the Idaho National Laboratory, where he served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Safeguards and Security Directorate from 2018-2023. At INL, Lantz led and managed security operations for a team of over 500 employees with a budget of $150M. Prior to his service in Idaho, Lantz spent 30 years in the Department of Defense—20 years as an active-duty US Army officer and 10 years in the civil service within DoD. Commissioned in 1988, he began his career serving in a nuclear-capable field artillery unit in South Korea. Lantz later commanded soldiers at the 101st Airborne Division and spent nine years as an accredited diplomat in US Embassies in New Delhi, India and Bangkok, Thailand. He deployed to Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for his service there. His last assignment in government was in the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he served in the Directorate for Operations and was instrumental in establishing the Defense Debriefing Service—DoD’s only overt strategic intelligence collection service.
He is certified as a Level II Instructor at the US Intelligence Community’s premier training institution. Along with an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lantz has a Master of Arts in Asian Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Arts in Management and Leadership from Webster University, and a Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras (India). He earned a Professional Certificate in Nuclear Security Fundamentals from Texas A&M University. In 2023, he completed an in-residence senior executive leadership course at Harvard Business School.
Lantz has been married to his wife, Mary, for 30 years and they have two adult children; a married daughter living in New York City and a son living in Tennessee.
