Huntington Ingalls Industries has hired two former officials with the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration to lead a performance assessment team for company affiliates doing work at nuclear sites around the country.
Kim Lebak, who managed the NNSA’s Los Alamos National Laboratory Field Office from 2014 through 2017, and Doug Dearolph, who ran the field office for the agency’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina from 2009 through 2017, will direct the subject matter experts to analyze issues and improve Huntington Ingalls work practices.
The two, who were hired in recent months, will provide their expertise at DOE sites where Huntington Ingalls affiliates are working as part of the contractor or subcontractor teams, HII Technical Solutions Nuclear and Environmental Group President Michael Lempke said during a Tuesday interview in Washington, D.C.
The performance assessment team would not reproduce DOE internal audits, but would come in typically at the request of company leadership at a facility, to take a fresh look at work site challenges, Lempke said. “We are in the stuff happens business,” he added. “Things go bump in the night.”
In April, the HII-led Newport News Nuclear-BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) started a potential $1.39 billion, decade-long contract for legacy cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Huntington Ingalls and its Newport News Nuclear affiliate will also be an integrated subcontractor for the upcoming Triad National Security management and operations contract at Los Alamos, which starts Nov. 1.
The HII corporate family is also a member of the joint ventures that manage the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Nevada National Security Site.
