Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
1/17/2014
Federal law enforcement officials late this week raided the office of Transportation, Operations and Professional Services, Inc. (TOPS), a protégé firm of Oak Ridge cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, though the subject of the their investigation remains unclear. The Jan. 16 raid reportedly involved agents from the FBI and the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General removing records from TOPS’ office in Oliver Springs, Tenn. The DOE Inspector General’s Office declined to comment on the investigation, referring calls to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, which did not respond to calls for comment. Phone calls to TOPS were not answered. Both the DOE Oak Ridge Operations Office and UCOR largely declined to comment, referring calls to the DOE Inspector General’s Office.
According to the company’s website, TOPS is a woman-owned small business that performs engineering and construction-related services. In 2011, UCOR awarded TOPS a sole-source contract worth approximately $14 million to provide waste transportation services, including waste hauling, managing a transportation hub and maintaining the haul road between the East Tennessee Technology Park and the Oak Ridge on-site disposal cell. The contract came under scrutiny, though, amid rumors that Richard Sain, the son of UCOR President and Project Manager Leo Sain, was affiliated with TOPS—rumors denied at the time by UCOR in local media reports. On its website, TOPS described the UCOR subcontract as its “anchor subcontract” that helped lead to more work at Oak Ridge and other DOE sites. TOPS is one of UCOR’s two protégé firms, along with Veterans Contracting Solutions Group, and last year TOPS won UCOR’s inaugural protégé of the year award.
