Changing of the guard set for Savannah River cleanup contractor

The BWX Technologies-led joint venture doing liquid waste cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Wednesday its president is retiring and will be succeeded by the vice president.

Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) President and Program Manager Dave Olson, who has held the top job since SRMC won the $21-billion contract more than three years ago, retires June 6, BWXT said in a press release. Thomas Burns, Jr., current vice president and chief engineer for SRMC, is stepping into the top job.

Olson is a 40-year industry veteran who also was in charge of liquid waste at the site near Aiken, S.C., between 2011 and 2013 for the prior environmental prime, Savannah River Remediation, according to the Wednesday press release.

During Olson’s three-year watch for SRMC, Savannah River processed more than 6 million gallons of salt waste and met five big regulatory milestones to remove waste from and clean tanks to ready them for closure, SRMC said in the release.

Burns, a 25-year industry hand, has a long history at the 310-square-mile Savannah River Site. Before being in his current role for three years, he was previously a senior vice president for Parsons, which included serving as deputy project manager for Savannah River’s Salt Waste Processing Facility.

“Dave Olson has set the table for us moving forward,” Burns said in the release. “We all owe him an enormous debt of gratitude for the work he has done to establish this new contract successfully.”

SRMC is made up of partners BWXT, Amentum and Fluor. That is basically the same partnership team in charge of liquid waste cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state.