The decision to shift oversight of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s field offices out of the Office of Defense Programs represents a move to better align the offices with the rest of the agency, Principal Deputy Administrator Neile Miller told NW&M Monitor in an interview. Miller outlined the changes to NNSA leadership late last week, formally installing Naval Reactors Laboratory Field Office chief Michael Lempke as the agency’s Associate Administrator for Infrastructure and Operations with direct oversight of the agency’s site offices. The Defense Programs mission “we expect to continue to be of great importance at all of the sites we have but everyone knows that a number of sites, and almost every site, is doing additional work beyond Defense Programs, some more than others,” Miller said. “Part of this is a recognition, saying we’re not going to manage it through Defense Programs anymore because there is much more going on at these places than Defense Programs.”
The reorganization is the latest effort by NNSA officials in the last two years to change the way the agency is structured. The agency has also strengthened its acquisition and project management by establishing a new associate administrator position, and shifting employees of the NNSA’s Albuquerque Service Center to report to headquarters. Miller said there aren’t likely to be any more major changes. “Probably the large foundational changes have now occurred,” she said. “But the specifics of this are going to be created in a collaborative way among the various parties involved. Meaning for the people in those functional organizations wherever they live, in the field or headquarters, there is going to be a lot of cross pollination.”
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