Peggy McCullough, who Bechtel announced Friday would be leaving her post as project director at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, will be replacing John Howanitz as head of the company’s Nuclear Security, and Operations business based in Virginia.
Bechtel said Friday that Brian Reilly, who like McCullough is a senior vice president at the company, will take over as project director at WTP. In response to a reporter’s email, Bechtel spokesman Fred deSousa said Monday that McCullough will be replacing Howanitz at the company’s Reston, Va., headquarters.
Bechtel will soon be making an announcement about what’s next for Howanitz, the spokesman indicated. Howanitz is a 35-year Bechtel veteran with wide experience in energy infrastructure and national security sites, according to his biography.
McCullough will take over from Howanitz in overseeing the businesses that includes Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, the Pantex Plant in Texas as well as various Naval Nuclear laboratory sites.
Also no one should infer that McCullough is being moved because of performance issues, said Bechtel’s deSousa. “Absolutely not the case here!” the spokesman said. McCullough is the longest-serving project director at WTP, he noted.
“Both the WTP and UPF projects are transitioning to new phases in their respective lifecycles, and both Peggy and Brian were huge reasons for those successes,” deSousa said. UPF is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Uranium Processing Facility in Tennessee which Reilly has been overseeing since 2014. “These moves allow us to bring new perspectives and experience to each position. They’re the right people at the right time,” deSousa said.
