Candice Robertson, a familiar face at the Department of Energy, officially started in her new role as acting second-in-command at the agency’s $7.6-billion Office of Environmental Management, according to the latest organizational chart posted Monday.
Robertson is the acting principal deputy assistant secretary, or EM-2, at the DOE nuclear cleanup office, filling the opening created by the departure, announced last month, of Todd Shrader. The Office of Environmental Management (EM) said at the time it was waiting for the official paperwork to be issued.
In recent years, Robertson has been a senior adviser to EM, DOE’s chief human capital officer and a senior staffer for deputy secretary of energy David Turk, according to her LinkedIn biography.
Shrader left the EM office to run the DOE Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, being created to support technology projects, including small modular reactors, meant to help the United States attain net-zero emissions by 2050.
Meanwhile Erik Olds, a longtime hand within DOE and Environmental Management, was formally appointed Monday as communications director for the nuclear cleanup office after acting in that role since September.
A DOE staffer for more than 28 years, including over 20 years in the Office of Environmental Management (EM) program, Olds completed his third assignment as the office’s chief of staff from January 2021 until September 2021, EM Senior Adviser William (Ike) White said in a “Dear Colleague” email Monday.
“Erik brings a wealth of headquarters and field leadership, project, and communications experience to this role,” White said. In addition to working at headquarters in Washington, D.C., Olds has also held a variety of management jobs at the Hanford Site in Washington state, including stints as chief of staff for both the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection.
