The Energy Department appears to have retained a firm to provide leadership training seminars this month for certain officials at the Office of Environmental Management, which coincides with an ongoing reorganization of the nuclear cleanup office.
In an award notice posted Wednesday on www.fbo.gov, DOE justified the noncompetitive contract awarded to Lake Arrowhead, Calif.-based Effectiveness Dimensions to provide seminars “needed to create better teamwork and improve individual and organizational effectiveness within” Environmental Management.
The $80,000 contract specifically covers three “executive development” seminars in August, each two days long, along with participation by eight staffers at a public session in October featuring up to 80 attendees.
“The conduct of these seminars will coincide with the wrap-up of EM-1 transition activities, and a re-alignment of the EM headquarters organization to improve communications, management and oversight effectiveness,” according to the posting.
Anne Marie White became the assistant secretary of energy for environmental management in late March. A White House report issued this summer on reinventing government said the DOE’s cleanup office should look at revamping its headquarters operations in and around Washington, D.C. Environmental Management has said little about its response to the White House report.
“During the confirmation process, Assistant Secretary White pledged to Congress that if confirmed she would review the skills and qualifications of EM staff to ensure they are appropriately matched to their strengths,” and the staff members were prepared to accomplish the cleanup mission, a DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday. “The training was a tool to assist in meeting that pledge.”
The Energy Department didn’t immediately provide specific details on when exactly the seminars were happening and who was participating.
White has been gradually reshaping the office’s management team. Earlier this month, she reassigned DOE veteran Jim Owendoff from the position of principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management (“EM-2”) to a senior adviser role for DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Most of the duties of the No. 2 post are now handled by Mark Gilbertson, associate principal deputy assistant secretary for EM’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Affairs, pending a permanent replacement for Owendoff.
In late May, White made Ken Picha, a senior adviser and liaison for field operations, the acting EM associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations. Picha replaced Dae Chung, who returned to his prior position as head of EM’s special projects office.
The justification language for the training contract notes Environmental Management has field offices across the nation and is involved in operations including engineering and science, finance, contracting, regulatory issues, security, and relations with Native American tribes and international agencies. The two-day seminars can help participants juggle competing priorities and “overcome barriers to trust and teamwork,” the document says.
A source with a company doing business within the DOE complex did not immediately recall the cleanup office conducting such seminars in the recent past, although this training is common in the corporate world. “Major corporations have leadership training all the time.”
“Training is key,” said a second industry source. “It’s exactly what a multibillion-dollar organization needs.” It has probably been years since the Environmental Management office has done leadership training, the source said.
The training is being handled by Effectiveness Dimensions President John Hanes. The DOE notice cites Hanes as an “international authority on individual and organizational effectiveness” who has provided training to Fortune 500 companies and other large organizations.
The Energy Department is included, with dozens of other organizations, on a partial client list on the Effectiveness Dimensions website. Other familiar names include the AFL-CIO, Amtrak, Caterpillar, the Defense Logistics Agency, General Electric, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, the National Football League Players Association, the U.S. Army, and the United Parcel Service.
