Jeff Griffin is the new head of field operations for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management (EM).
Griffin, previously associate director for environmental management at the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, has been named EM’s new associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations. Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White made the announcement Tuesday via her DOE Twitter account.
“Congrats to Jeff Griffin, our new EM APDAS for Field Ops! We’ll be moving forward with the sites and with vision toward completion and accelerated closures,” White said on the social media site. “Thanks to Jeff and the sites as we develop our options to reduce liabilities and serve the American taxpayers!” The post included a picture of Griffin being congratulated by White.
Griffin has more than 29 years of experience in the nuclear and environmental remediation fields, much of it around the Savannah River complex, according to his LinkedIn biography. He spent nine years and nine months as SRNL associate director for environmental management, in which he provided “Strategic leadership and growth of a $80M+ portfolio of research and technology programs in support of environmental remediation and nuclear chemical processing across US Department of Energy sites and internationally,” according to his profile.
Ken Picha, who has been filling the field operations post in an acting role since June, is expected to retire from DOE later this month, according to an industry source. Picha has 30 years in federal government management and engineering jobs.
The field operations chief has responsibility for 16 cleanup sites, including nuclear operations and construction.