Consolidated Nuclear Security said this week it anticipates success in its campaign to hire 1,150 new employees in fiscal 2016, which ends on Sept. 30.
“More than 800 people have accepted offers in fiscal year 2016 with CNS, and with the remaining offers being extended CNS will meet its hiring goals for this year,” company spokesman Jason Bohne said by email.
CNS is the management and operations contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant in Texas and Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The new hires are being brought on to help the company handle increased workloads at both sites, including additional disassembly of retired nuclear weapons components.
“This increased workload will help ensure the safety and reliability of our nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, provide capabilities to draw down global weapons inventory, reduce the spread of nuclear weapons and terrorism, and provide highly specialized fuel for the nuclear navy,” Michelle Reichert, CNS’ deputy enterprise manager, said in a message to employees in March.
The current breakdown of hires at the two facilities was not immediately available. As of late June, more than 350 workers had been hired at Y-12 and over 300 at Pantex.
One complication has been obtaining security clearances for new hires, which can take a year or more.
CNS is a corporate partnership of Bechtel National, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, and SOC. It operates the two facilities under a contract with a five-year base period to June 30, 2019, and options for another five years.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is scheduled to tour the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons labs in New Mexico next week.
Carter will be in the state on Tuesday and Wednesday. At the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, Carter will “thank the scientists and engineers at these facilities for their ongoing work involving the development, assessment and security of the nuclear triad,” according to a Pentagon press release. Carter also plans to visit Kirtland Air Force Base, which houses the 377th Air Base Wing, which includes nuclear readiness among its missions, and the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, which is charged with “synchronizing all aspects of nuclear materiel management on behalf of the AFMC Commander in direct support of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC).”
Prior to his stop in New Mexico, Carter will travel to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on Monday, which houses Minuteman III ICBMs and B-52H Stratofortress bombers from the 5th Bomb Wing. At the base he will offer a speech on the future of the U.S. nuclear capability, the press release says.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said this week it has bulked up its technical staff, bringing the headcount at the independent Energy Department watchdog up to 116.
Known as DNFSB, the board comprises five civilian members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to provide independent oversight of agencies and contractors at DOE defense nuclear facilities.
The group announced Monday it had added new technical staffers, created and filled a new chief information officer position, and appointed a permanent general counsel for a total staff turnover of eight.
James Biggins was appointed general counsel, DNFSB stated in Monday’s press release. Prior to joining the board, he was deputy assistant general counsel for rulemaking at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where he had previously worked on new reactor licensing. Biggins succeeded acting DNFSB general counsel, John Batherson, who left the board in 2015.
Greg Floyd, who previously spent nearly 30 years at the Department of Defense, is the new chief information officer.
New and returning DNFSB technical staff include:
Miranda McCoy, who returned to DNFSB headquarters in Washington from a professional development technical assignment in aeromechanics at NASA’s Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif.
Chris Scheider, a former nuclear submarine officer in the Navy. In the Navy, Scheider managed nuclear operations and training, and “emergency preparedness and response for the nuclear reactor during an engineered refueling overhaul,” DNFSB said. Scheider was most recently assistant professor of naval science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
Fernando Ferrante, who previously worked for eight years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s reactor oversight program, and for three years at the Southwest Research Institute’s Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analysis in San Antonio, Texas.
Kelsey Amundson, who joins the DNFSB technical staff after a recent research internship at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in upstate New York.
Andrew Martin, who previously worked as a building controls intern for the Purdue University Physical Facilities department in Indiana, “developing opportunities to reduce campus energy consumption,” DNFSB said in the release.
Katie Sullivan, who joined DNFSB after working at the Southern Nuclear Co. as a reactor and systems engineer in Augusta, Ga.
The Carnegie Corporation of New York and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Thursday that they would provide potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars for development of strategies for ensure the security of nuclear materials that could be used in acts of terrorism.
In a statement on the request for proposals, the organizations said they are seeking “projects that will generate fresh thinking and new approaches that can be taken up by government and industry.”
“As the Corporation and MacArthur indicated in their Civil Society Gift Basket, there are many impediments to progress and no simple solutions,” the release states. “How can secrecy and national security be balanced with transparency and accountability? How might access to the benefits of civilian nuclear technology be balanced with corresponding security considerations? How can we ensure that solutions take into account the constraints and incentives of existing stakeholders?”
While the four Nuclear Security Summits made progress in lowering this threat, sufficient fissile material remains to power tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, the groups said.
According to the release, proposals should: show novel strategies for addressing challenges in nuclear material minimization and elimination, security, control, governance, and culture; include a research plan, “a plan for multi-stakeholder convening,” or a separate cooperative initiative that directly addresses the issue at hand; feature ideas that governments, international organizations, or the private sector can take up; and provide “a strong dissemination plan to increase the salience and viability of the ideas.”
Requests should be for a maximum of $500,000 for two years of work.
Letters of inquiry are due by Oct. 24. Those preliminary applicants who make the cut will be required to submit full proposals by the middle of January 2016. Final decisions are expected by June.
More information on the program and application process can be found here.
