NS&D Monitor
6/20/2014
UPF Procurement Chief on Temporary Assignment in UK
With the Uranium Processing Facility project in a lull while the National Nuclear Security Administration and its contractors put together a new strategy for how to proceed, the UPF procurement manager has temporarily left the project. Bechtel veteran Rich Brown, who’s headed the UPF procurement program for the past few years, is on a temporary Bechtel corporate assignment in the United Kingdom, according to Jason Bohne, the communications chief for Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security, the contractor that will take over management responsibility for Y-12 and Pantex and UPF July 1.
Brown will return to his position at UPF in a “few weeks,” Bohne said. “Rich is going to England for a short-term assignment to assist with some of Bechtel’s work in their UK offices,” Bohne said in response to questions about Brown’s departure from the Oak Ridge project. “One of the benefits Bechtel provides its customers is corporate reachback to experts that can be called to assist on specific tasks.” Bohne said Brown is “helping with a specific task in his area of expertise while his work is paused. He’ll be back at UPF within a few weeks.”
UPF Being Scaled Back
A number of activities associated with UPF have been scaled back in recent weeks while the project is reassessed and restructured, according to recommendations of a Red Team review conducted earlier this year. It was not immediately clear how of the procurement effort has been impacted by the change of directions, although officials had acknowledged earlier that at least a couple of contract offerings had been delayed.
The NNSA has said it intends to follow the recommendations of the Red Team. The team came up with an alternative to the original UPF strategy that will incorporate the use of some existing facilities at Y-12 instead of relying on a single “big box” facility to hold all of Y-12’s uranium processing operations. The new approach is supposed to accelerate the schedule, reduce the construction costs for the multi-billion-dollar project and allow Y-12 to get out of some of the oldest—and most deteriorated—facilities by 2025. Bohne said he did not have details of Brown’s temporary assignment. “We do quite a lot of work in the UK,” he said.
