As part of its efforts to put its house in order, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) intends hire a high-profile staff management position, Chairman Bruce Hamilton said Thursday during a meeting in Washington, D.C.
“We need to hire this executive secretary, or chief of staff, or whatever you want to call it,” Hamilton said, adding, “which we are doing, by the way.”
The addition of a high-level executive staffer to improve operations, along with a more robust approach to strategic planning, were among needs cited in a highly critical report on the DNFSB in November from the National Academy of Public Administration. The report found the quality of the DNFSB’s interaction with the Energy Department had fallen to an all-time low and that the board must take ownership of problems and set a positive tone for staff.
The board is in early discussions regarding adding an executive director of operations, DNFSB General Manager Glenn Sklar said by email Friday. While it was frequently mentioned during the meeting, the DNFSB has not formally authorized or advertised the position yet, he added.
Hamilton and other board members noted during the meeting the role and expectations for the administrator have yet to be drafted. The NRC has an executive director for operations, who is effectively the agency’s chief operations officer and manages its day-to-day activities.
Board members Joyce Connery, Jessie Hill Roberson, and Daniel Santos said the DNFSB has plenty of problems to work on before the new hire starts.
Connery suggested poor communication is a major problem, both between the board and DNFSB staff and between the board members themselves.
“I don’t think hiring the perfect person is going to solve the problem,” Connery said. “No hiring that we do is going to resolve … our unwillingness to talk to each other.”
The DNFSB is a safety watchdog for the Department of Energy’s nuclear complex. While it has no enforcement power over DOE it can issue recommendations which the energy secretary must respond to publicly.
