Robert Edwards III, a seasoned hand around the weapons complex, has retired as manager of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office, DOE confirmed Thursday.
Edwards retired effective July 31 “after 35 years of federal service,” and Joel Bradburne, the deputy manager for the Lexington, Ky., office in charge of the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky, is serving as acting manager, said Stephen Clutter, spokesman for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, in an email.
The spokesman confirmed the news that Herman Potter, United Steelworkers Local 1-689 president for Portsmouth, and two DOE contractor sources told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing Wednesday.
Edwards, who joined DOE in 1992, was a member of the government’s senior executive service who became manager at the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office in July 2016, according to his online bio. He served as deputy manager since December 2012 of the office that oversees cleanup of the two gaseous diffusion plants as well as Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Conversion Project at the two sites. Edwards came to the Portsmouth-Paducah office after serving several years in management positions at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Before joining DOE, Edwards worked in the Reactor Engineering Division of the nuclear engineering department at the Charleston Naval Shipyard in South Carolina, where he eventually became chief of the technical support branch.
As for Bradburne, he became deputy manager at Portsmouth-Paducah in November 2017 after working as the site lead for the Paducah Site. He has about 30 years of combined experience at DOE sites, shipyards and the commercial nuclear industry, according to his DOE biography.
