Garret Harencak will replace Mark Martinez as president of Mission Support and Test Services effective Nov. 1, the Honeywell-led prime contractor for the Nevada National Security Site announced this week.
The Exchange Monitor reported on Monday that Martinez would step down.
Harencak joins Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) after four years as vice president of strategic defense programs for Jacobs Engineering, one of the MSTS partners. The former Air Force major general will now be responsible for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main subcritical nuclear testing site, located on the same sprawling desert range where the U.S. conducted full-yield nuclear explosive tests during the Cold War.
Martinez had been president of MSTS since the contractor took over the site in 2017. The NNSA has exercised five years worth of options on the deal, extending the prime’s management and operations deal through Nov. 30, 2027. The pact is worth about $5 billion in total.
During his time at the top, Martinez presided over the start of construction of one of the largest projects at the site since full-yield testing ceased in 1992: expansion of the U1a underground area into a modern, subcritical experiment facility that will verify the destructive power of the U.S. nuclear arsenal for much of the rest of this century.
An MSTS spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment about why Martinez was leaving the company with five years remaining on its contract with the NNSA.
In addition to hosting much of the NNSA’s subcritical experiment facilities, the Nevada National Security Site supports an environmental mission run by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, which is cleaning up after years of underground Cold War testing.
