Lewis Monroe was to replace Jeff Johnson as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s associate administrator for defense nuclear security, a source said Tuesday.
As head of the Office of Defense Nuclear Security at agency headquarters in Washington, Monroe will be responsible for physical and information security across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) network of nuclear-weapons labs, plants and sites.
Human resources was a detour for Monroe, who has spent most of his NNSA career in some sort of security role.
Monroe has been the agency’s director of human resources since 2020 but was the deputy associate administrator for defense nuclear security for three years before that, during which time he was dual-hatted as the director of the office of security operations and programmatic planning, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Monroe joined NNSA headquarters as a senior advisor for defense nuclear security in 2013 and worked at the Pantex Plant, for then-prime-contractor B&W Pantex, for more than four years prior to that.
Johnson announced in March that he would retire after eight years in the NNSA. The nuclear-weapons agency was the second life in government service for Johnson, who previously spent seven years as a civilian and 20 years in uniform with the Marine Corps.
