PHOENIX —Born of necessity during the pandemic, the virtual tours and online meetings held for Department of Energy nuclear cleanup work have proven popular and probably won’t go away soon, even as the impact of COVID-19 fades, officials said here last week.

Like other organizations, the DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center is taking a hybrid tack toward stakeholder engagement going forward, Aaron Deckard, procurement director for the office, told a session of the Waste Management Conference here Tuesday.

It is “an item we have been wrestling with,” Deckard said. “As we moved out of the pandemic period, what does that [engagement] look like,” he added.

Members of the contractor community have utilized a lot of virtual tours in the past couple of years and many of these “were quite good,” Deckard said. He pointed to a recent one in connection with the Occupational Medical Services contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state as a prime example. The virtual events and related online procurement offerings provide much detail, can accommodate an unlimited number of people and can be easily re-watched.

Online offerings have also been popular with small businesses with limited travel budgets, Deckard said. Nevertheless, business people also savor the back-and-forth that comes with face-to-face interactions, he added.

“At one point there will be another in-person pre-solicitation conference,” Deckard said. “I’m not sure which one that will be,” he added. “There are some pros and cons both ways.”