Thanks to retirements, the Department of Energy and its Washington state regulator have some new managers at the Hanford Site, the Hanford Advisory Board heard Wednesday.
Hanford Advisory Board member Pam Lasen also announced during the start of the two-day board meeting that a former longtime board member from Oregon, Norma Jean Germond, died this summer. Germond was a member of the Hanford cleanup board for Oregon and was a past president of the Oregon League of Women Voters, Larsen said.
During Wednesday’s session, advisory board members were briefed on a number of personnel changes concerning cleanup of the former plutonium production facility for national defense.
On Aug. 13, Heather Dale became DOE’s new assistant manager of river and plateau for Hanford’s Office of River Protection. That’s according to Delmar Noyes, Office of River Protection assistant manager for tank farms, who spoke to the advisory group this week.
Dale replaces Bill Hamel, who retired in June. Tom Teynor had been the acting assistant manager for river and plateau since then, a DOE spokesperson said in an email to Exchange Monitor Wednesday.
Dale is a 20-year federal manager who most recently led commodities and services acquisition for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the DOE spokesperson said. Dale had a prior stint at Hanford as a contract specialist from 2010 to 2012.
Meanwhile, there are also changes at Hanford’s state regulator, the Washington Department of Ecology.
Theresa Howell has replaced recently retired John Price as the Tri-Party Agreement section manager. Beth Rochette replaced Nina Menard as the cleanup section manager at the state Ecology Department.
Stephanie Schleif, Ecology’s acting nuclear waste program manager, announced the personnel moves at the board meeting. Schleif has been filling in this summer for Dave Bowen the head of the Ecology office, who has been on a special assignment this summer but returns in a few days. In summer 2022, Ecology had 31 vacancies but has whittled that number down to 12, Schleif said.