A former Tinder executive, the chairman emeritus of a national whiskey distiller, and the president of the California Institute of Technology are among the eight new members of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced Monday.
The board is a sort of think-tank and sounding board for the energy secretary. Membership is capped at 20: a headcount the board has not quite reached, even with the eight new members slated to join eight members announced in February at a meeting scheduled for Oct. 2.
The full slate of new nominees to the board are:
- Scott Campbell – Senior Strategic Advisor, Baker Donelson; President, The Howard Baker Forum
- Marvin Fertel – Retired President and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
- Ankur Jain – Founder and CEO, Kairos, and former vice president of product at Tinder
- Kay Coles James – President, The Heritage Foundation
- Sean McGarvey – President, North America’s Building Trades Unions
- Dr. Thomas Rosenbaum – President, California Institute of Technology
- Bill Samuels, Jr. – Chairman Emeritus, Maker’s Mark Distillery Inc.
- Michael Whatley – Partner, HBW Resources
The newly nominated members have less of a traditional government-and-business bent than do many of the eight members Perry added in February.
The board’s operations are expected to cost the department $400,000 per year, including one full-time equivalent employee, according to the charter issued in August 2018. It is intended to meet on a quarterly basis. The board will expire two years after the date of the charter unless the charter is renewed.
A Colorado-based company has won a roughly $2.8 million litigation support contract for the U.S. Energy Department’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center.
The Cincinnati-based procurement center for the DOE Office of Environmental Management published the award to TLI Solutions on Sept. 19. The contractor will support the EMCBC chief counsel in “simple and complex litigation” pertaining to government contract law, environmental law, or civilian personnel law, among other issues, according to the award notice.
The notice did not indicate what form the support services will take. The company’s website says it has over 30 years of experience delivering “support services in the areas of regulatory analysis, liability research, risk assessment, and remediation oversight.”
TLI is a subsidiary of TechLaw Holdings Inc., and is based in Golden, Colo., with offices in Chantilly, Va., Knoxville, Tenn., and Los Alamos, N.M. The website also indicates TLI has provided environmental support services for DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory.
