Jeff Griffin, a longtime manager around the Energy Department complex, 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 wrote. “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 getting a high-five from 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,” his profile says.
Prior to DOE, Griffin worked for Westinghouse for more than a dozen years at Savannah River in roles such as research scientist and analytic development.
“He is not a creature of headquarters,” one industry source said Thursday. While Griffin’s career is concentrated at SRS, the site does a lot of technology research for DOE-wide nuclear cleanup, the source said.
It was not clear at press time if Griffin had already assumed the field operations post. An Energy Department spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. The online management chart for the cleanup office has not been updated since Sept. 12.
Ken Picha, who has filled the field operations post in an acting role since June, is expected to retire from DOE later this month, according to the same industry source. Picha has 30 years in federal government management and engineering jobs.
Among other jobs for DOE, Picha has been acting deputy assistant secretary for tank waste and nuclear materials management and EM program manager for radioactive startup of the Defense Waste Processing Facility at SRS.
The field operations chief has responsibility for the Environmental Management office’s 16 cleanup sites, including nuclear operations and construction. The DOE branch is funded at $7.2 billion in the current federal budget to oversee remediation from defense nuclear operations around the country.
