As she closes out her third full month at the helm of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White might not be finished putting together her leadership team.
Bechtel Project Manager Mark Frei is said to be in consideration for a top Environmental Management post, possibly even the principal deputy assistant secretary (EM-2) position, currently held by James Owendoff, two industry sources told Weapons Complex Monitor.
One source indicated Frei had actually been interviewed. Contacted by telephone, Frei declined to discuss whether he had been interviewed for a leadership post at Environmental Management.
Frei is a veteran of the Energy Department cleanup complex, having worked at DOE and its predecessor agencies between 1974 and 2008 in posts such as acting manager of the Idaho Operations Office, acting deputy assistant secretary for waste management, and deputy assistant secretary for planning and budget, according to an online search.
Between 2008 and 2015 he was a consultant for DOE contractor Longenecker & Associates. Since joining Bechtel in 2015, he has been operations manager at the Waste Treatment Plant project at the Hanford Site in Washington state, as well as a senior adviser to James Taylor, general manager of Bechtel National’s Environmental business line.
Owendoff “is a valuable player” and it will be interesting to see what happens with him in any reorganization at the Office of Environmental Management, one industry source said Thursday. A longtime DOE hand, Owendoff became acting assistant secretary for environmental management in June 2017, replacing Susan Cange. After his tenure as acting EM-1 ran out after a few months, Owendoff remained principal deputy and effectively ran the Environmental Management office until White was sworn in to office in late March.
There have already been changes made since White took over, and industry watchers anticipate further updates to her management team.
Angela Watmore was listed as an acting chief of staff and senior adviser within DOE’s nuclear cleanup branch in a June 1 organizational chart. The slot was described as “vacant” in an April 19 version of the same chart. Meanwhile, a senior adviser for environmental management, Roger Jarrell, left DOE this month to accept a position with the prime contractor for cleanup of the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR).
In late May, White said veteran DOE hand Ken Picha would take over as acting EM associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations. Picha has served recently in the office as a senior adviser and senior site liaison coordinator for field operations. He replaced Dae Chung, who resumed his post as head of the EM special projects office.
Details Scarce on Potential EM Changes Driven by White House
Meanwhile, industry observers had few insights this week into how a White House report, which called for a sweeping reorganization of the federal government, might alter the DOE Environmental Management office.
The June 21 report says “EM will specifically review supervisor-to-worker ratios, skill gaps, and cost reduction measures such as consolidating facilities and reducing administrative support.” Environmental Management must focus on its cleanup mission in a cost-effective manner, according to the report.
“This effort will review the Environmental Management organizational structure to identify opportunities to streamline the management team,” according to the White House document.
As of 2016, the Office of Environmental Management employed about 1,400 people nationally, including roughly 160 in Washington, D.C., and about 110 in Germantown, Md.
“I don’t think that’s in there by accident,” the industry source said of the EM office’s inclusion in the White House document. It has been years since the Energy Department completed remediation of a cleanup site, he said. For example, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility in Colorado completed its cleanup in 2006.
Sixteen sites remain under EM’s aegis, including the most challenging jobs such as the large, highly contaminated Hanford Site in Washington state. Finishing remediation involves more than “spreading money around,” the source said.
Most sources who could be reached this week said they didn’t know what the White House has in mind at DOE’s cleanup office.
The primary change proposed for the Energy Department would merge applied energy research programs – including nuclear, renewable, and fossil fuel research — into a new Office of Energy Innovation.
One industry source noted there had been talk very early in the Trump administration of streamlining the hierarchy below Energy Secretary Rick Perry. There had been suggestions there were too many “cooks in the kitchen” in the DOE leadership, he added.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the White House document.
Late in the Obama administration there was some reorganization of the office, with the goal of putting more managers in the field.
The Trump administration has already changed the DOE silo for the cleanup office. An Energy Department reorganization announced in December moved Environmental Management out of the Office of the Undersecretary for Management and Performance and to the Office of the Undersecretary of Science.