Joe Franco, the Department of Energy’s deputy manager at the Hanford Site’s Richland Operations Office in Washington state, is leaving the agency to become a special adviser to the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Amentum-led Nuclear Waste Partnership said in a Thursday press release that Franco will become special adviser to the joint venture’s president and project manager Sean Dunagan, effective Oct. 26.
Franco has been deputy manager at Hanford’s Richland office since August 2018 and has been working in the nuclear field for more than 30 years, including management jobs for both DOE and the private sector with much experience at both Hanford and in New Mexico.
The move is a homecoming for Franco. In 2012 he was named manager at DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office that oversees the transuranic waste disposal site in New Mexico. Franco oversaw the early recovery stages of the WIPP project following the February 2014 fire and underground radiation leak that would idle the facility for about three years. He left Carlsbad in 2015 and returned to the Hanford Site.
Years earlier, in 1989, Franco joined Westinghouse, the management and operations contractor for WIPP at the time. Westinghouse TRU Solutions and Washington TRU Solutions are among the corporate predecessors to what is today Amentum.
“Joe’s experience at WIPP and across the DOE Complex puts him in a unique position to support a number of projects and continuous improvement initiatives based on need and priority for the WIPP mission,” Dunagan said in the release. “We are fortunate to have a professional of Joe’s caliber rejoin the team.”
Tuesday was the “farewell” day at Richland for Franco, Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance said during his update Wednesday to the Hanford Advisory Committee.
“Joe Franco has decided to pursue opportunities outside of our department,” Vance said during the online meeting. “We wish him well. He will certainly be missed.”
Hanford Advisory Panel Briefed on Other Changes
Stepping in as Hanford’s deputy manager on an acting basis will be longtime federal manager, Brian Stickney, Vance said this week. Stickney has been with the Department of Energy for almost 12 years, spending the last two as assistant manager of safety and environment at Hanford, according to his LinkedIn profile.
A West Point graduate, Stickney also spent about a decade in the U.S. Army, where among other posts, he was a battalion rear detachment commander based in Germany.
It is likely to be several months before a permanent deputy manager is hired for the Hanford Richland Operations Office, Vance said.
Also Wednesday, the Hanford Advisory Board heard what was perhaps its last presentation from Alex Smith as head of the nuclear waste cleanup program at the Washington state Department of Ecology.
Smith, an attorney, said recently she is leaving Ecology to accept a post with the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Her last day is Oct. 31 and she expects Ecology will be close to picking a successor by then.
Smith said Ecology, the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the Environmental Protection Agency are continuing “holistic” talks into a slew of issues regarding the tank waste mission at Hanford. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is working with the parties to bridge their differences, and the players have agreed not to divulge specifics about the talks, she said.
During the same presentation, Smith said the state agency and the DOE Office of Environmental Management are close to reaching agreement on a proposed plant to eventually revive packaging and shipment of transuranic waste from Hanford to WIPP. As part of the Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup milestones, the Environmental Protection Agency must sign off on the proposal.
A 30-day notice would be followed by a public comment period on resumption of Hanford shipments to WIPP, Smith said. She did not offer any details. Hanford has not shipped transuranic waste to WIPP since 2011, although the parties have been studying resumption plans for about two years.
The current deadline for removal of all transuranic waste from Hanford is September 2030.
