Thom Mason will leave his post as director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee on July 1 to join Battelle as a senior executive, the Department of Energy site announced Friday.
Mason, a physicist who has served for a decade as ORNL director, is set to become senior vice president for laboratory operations at Battelle in Columbus, Ohio. The contractor, along with the University of Tennessee, has managed Oak Ridge since 2000.
Mason will work with Ron Townsend, Battelle’s executive vice president of global laboratory operations, to lead lab operations strategic planning with the contractor, among other responsibilities. Meanwhile, Oak Ridge said it has formed a search committee that is seeking a replacement for Mason.
Mason joined Oak Ridge in 1998, where he was put in charge of completing construction of the Spallation Neutron Source facility. During his time at Oak Ridge, he helped establish the lab “as a center for advanced manufacturing, and creation of game-changing technologies in support of clean energy and industry,” according to an ORNL press release.
In 2014 Mason was asked to head a Red Team to identify and evaluate alternatives to the Uranium Processing Facility under construction at the nearby Y-12 National Security Complex. The team was to identify operations to modernize Y-12’s uranium operations within the constraints of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s cost limit of $6.5 billion.
Mason also chaired the Red Team that issued the 2015 report on pathways for disposal of 34 metric tons of surplus nuclear weapon-usable plutonium at the Savannah River Site in South Carolin.
