Connie Flohr, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup manager at the Idaho National Laboratory will retire from the federal government and take an industry job, a top executive at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told staff Wednesday.
The pending departure of Flohr, a career fed and former budget official who became Idaho cleanup manager in 2020, was announced in an email to staff from Jeff Avery, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for Environmental Management. The email was viewed by Exchange Monitor.
Flohr plans to leave DOE in April before taking a position with Navarro Research and Engineering, a source with knowledge of the situation told Exchange Monitor Wednesday.
During Flohr’s time at the site, the Idaho Cleanup Project completed exhumation of buried waste and other key milestones in accordance with a settlement agreement between Idaho and the federal government, Avery said in the email. Flohr’s tenure also saw the April 2023 startup of the long-delayed radiological operations of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, Avery said. The unit has treated the first 68,000 gallons of up to 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing radioactive waste at the Idaho lab.
During Flohr’s tenure, Idaho also finished treating all legacy transuranic waste that will ultimately be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, Avery said.
“Please join me in thanking Connie for over 35 total years of service to the department and congratulating her on the next exciting chapter of her career and life,” Avery wrote. “We will keep you apprised of Connie’s transition and will provide updates on filling her position in Idaho.”
Flohr was appointed the Idaho cleanup manager in February 2020, after doing the job on an acting basis, Avery said. Prior to that, Flohr was deputy cleanup manager for Idaho since March 2017. She also served as Environmental Management’s deputy assistant secretary for resource management in Washington D.C., and was the cleanup office’s budget director from 2008 to 2016.
Flohr has also worked with DOE’s nuclear energy office, according to her agency bio. Her departure will make the second field office manager vacancy that Environmental Management must fill in 2024. Michael Mikolanis, the cleanup field office manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, has been tapped to fill the National Nuclear Security Administration manager slot at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
