By the end of this month, the manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico will leave to become deputy manager of the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., an agency executive said Tuesday.
Carlsbad manager Reinhard Knerr, responsible for overseeing the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant since July 2020, is returning to the joint project office for the two former uranium enrichment complexes, DOE Office of Environmental Management acting boss William (Ike) White said Tuesday.
In a “Dear Colleagues” email, viewed by Exchange Monitor, White also announced the No. 2 manager at Carlsbad, Mark Bollinger, will become the acting boss.
Bollinger came to Carlsbad in March 2021. In addition, Environmental Management’s acting head for Waste and Materials Management, Betsy Forinash, will become acting deputy manager for Carlsbad, White said in the email.
“These three individuals are no strangers to EM, and all are experienced leaders,” White said.
Knerr and Bollinger start their new jobs Jan. 29, White said. Forinash has a Feb. 12 start date.
According to his bio, Knerr came to Carlsbad from the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office, where he was federal project director for the depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion plants at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
In Lexington, Ky., Knerr will report to Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office Manager Joel Bradburne. Bradburne was the prior deputy manager there and DOE appointed no successor after Bradburne became the acting manager in July 2021 and subsequently the permanent manager in December 2021, a DOE spokesperson said via email Tuesday in response to an Exchange Monitor inquiry.
Knerr has spent much of his DOE career at Paducah, but also logged nine years as a nuclear criticality safety engineer at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant in Texas, White said.
Bollinger has been deputy manager at the DOE Office of Science’s Fermi Site Office in Illinois, White said. Forinash has overseen Environmental Management’s Office of Infrastructure Management and Disposition Policy. She has also led headquarter efforts for the national transuranic waste disposal program, White said.
