Sources: Senior execs leaving DOE weapons complex

With the White House seeking to dramatically shrink the federal workforce, sources told Exchange Monitor recently that senior executives with decades of experience in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex are leaving the government.

Those who may be departing, either through taking the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) deferred resignation or other means, such as standard retirement, include a former acting head of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and one or more site managers, according to sources who spoke to the Monitor.

OPM closed out the deferred resignation, or “fork in the road” buyout program on Wednesday evening Feb. 12. Multiple sources who the Monitor spoke to Thursday and Friday listed the following managers as leaving DOE:

Jim Owendoff has been DOE’s chief risk officer since October 2018. Prior to then, Owendoff worked in several high-ranking jobs within DOE Environmental Management, including as acting head of the nuclear cleanup organization early in the first Donald Trump administration. Altogether, Owendoff spent 21 years at Environmental Management, according to his online bio. He spent 25 years in the U.S. Air Force and also worked in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security. A phone call placed to Owendoff’s extension at DOE Friday was not immediately returned.

Mike Budney became manager of DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina in February 2018, according to his bio. For the three years prior to that, Budney headed business operations in the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Budney also spent 29 years in the U.S. Navy and worked with Northrop Grumman. . A call to Budney’s extension at SRS Friday was not immediately returned. 

“You wonder who DOE has on the bench,” one executive with a DOE contractor told the Monitor Friday.

More names of Environmental Management supervisors are circulating. This is a developing story.