Carol Johnson will retire as president and CEO of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the Energy Department confirmed Wednesday, ending the nuclear veteran’s two-year tenure at the head of DOE’s prime management and operations contractor for the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.
“On July 21, 2016 SRNS notified the [Savannah River Site] Contracting Officer of Carol’s departure and requested [Contracting Officer] Key Personnel approval for Stuart MacVean to replace her,” DOE spokesman Jim Giusti said by email. “The SRNS request was approved on August 8, 2016.”
Johnson did not let the cat out of the bag until earlier this week, writing in an all-hands email to SRNS employees that “the time has come for me to return to the retirement and personal plans that were placed on hold when I was given the opportunity to serve as your President & CEO.”
Johnson, a 30-year nuclear industry veteran, joined SRNS parent company Fluor Corp. in 2014 to become president and chief executive of SRNS. Prior to that, she had spent two years as president and project manager for Washington Closure Hanford, which this year wraps up an 11-year run as DOE’s prime contractor on the Hanford Site’s Columbia River corridor cleanup near Richland, Wash. Washington Closure Hanford was led by URS, which is now part of AECOM.
MacVean, a Savannah River Site veteran, joined Fluor in February after two years with the Aiken, S.C., site’s AECOM-led prime liquid waste contractor, Savannah River Remediation. MacVean is currently vice president of operations for Fluor Government Group’s Environmental and Nuclear business. He will officially take the reins some time in September or October, Fluor spokeswoman Annika Toenniessen said Wednesday.
Rumor of Johnson’s impending departure surfaced Tuesday, nearly a month after three Democratic senators held a press conference in Washington, D.C., about whistleblower retaliation by DOE contractors. At the presser, former SRNS employee Sandra Black alleged Johnson fired her in 2015 for cooperating with the Government Accountability Office’s recently concluded probe into whistleblower culture across the DOE nuclear complex.
SRNS has forcefully denied this, and disputes Black’s version of events. Neither Fluor nor SRNS would discuss whether Johnson’s departure was precipitated or hastened by the whistleblower controversy.
“Carol has done an outstanding job at SRNS. Her dedication and leadership has moved the site forward in many ways,” Bruce Stanski, Fluor Government Group president, wrote in a prepared statement. “Carol will stay engaged with Fluor in a part-time role in the future.”
News of Johnson’s retirement also coincides closely with DOE’s Aug. 4 announcement that it had exercised the remaining two options on SRNS’ management and operations contract at the Savannah River Site, which would keep the company on the job through July 31, 2018. All told, the company’s 10-year contract could be worth up to $8 billion, including options.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s husband Mike Johnson will evidently follow his wife in leaving the nuclear life in South Carolina. Mike Johnson has been executive director of the nuclear-friendly interest group Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness for about a year. According to its website, the Aiken-based group, “pro-nuclear and proud of it,” was founded in 1991 “to sensitize elected officials and the public to the need to acquire new missions for the Savannah River Site.”
