Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
6/20/2014
URS moved this week to shuffle the top leadership at two of its major cleanup contracts. Ken Reuter, president of Savannah River Remediation, LLC, the liquid waste contractor at Savannah River, is moving back to URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, to take over for outgoing President Leo Sain. At SRR, Chief Operating Officer Stuart MacVean will replace Reuter as president. The change comes less than a year after Rueter moved last September to lead SRR from his post as UCOR chief operating officer. In the spring URS announced that Sain would return to a corporate role with the company. “Ken’s prior leadership in UCOR’s successful D&D of the K-25 facility will be invaluable as we continue the D&D of the K-27 and K-31 gaseous diffusion facilities. I am confident he will build on the UCOR team’s recent accomplishments as well as his previous experiences at the East Tennessee Technology Park to ensure we continue to make safe progress for our DOE client,” URS Federal Services President Randall Wotring said in a statement.
DOE Won’t Implement $1 Million Fee Reduction
Though the SRR contract allows DOE to levy a $1 million fee reduction for a change in president and project manager after less than two years, the Department of Energy will not enforce the provision in this case, according to DOE-Savannah River spokesman Jim Giusti. “We looked at the overall benefit to the Department,” he said. “Given everything that’s been going on and the way URS has been moving people around in response to WIPP and everything else, we understand why this is necessary. EM headquarters and us the corporation talked about it and agreed that it was beneficial.”
MacVean will take over the SRR president and project manager post. He has 30 years of experience in the industry, including most recently as chief operating officer and deputy project manager at SRR. “Stuart is an excellent leader and was instrumental in SRR’s recent success in closing high-level waste tanks. During his tenure as Chief Operating Officer for SRR, all three primary operating facilities have safely achieved performance improvements and work production records. I am confident SRR will continue to excel under his leadership,” Wotring said.
Sain served as UCOR president since it won the Oak Ridge cleanup contract in mid-2011, and during his tenure the contractor marked a major accomplishment with the completion of D&D activities at the K-25 former uranium enrichment process building. In early May URS announced that Sain will head up URS Global Management and Operations Services’ Decontamination and Decommissioning and Waste Management Strategic Business Group, which includes URS’ work at the East Tennessee Technology Park, as well at the Separations Process Research Unit; Hanford’s River Corridor Closure project, the Idaho Cleanup Project; Idaho’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project; and the Department of Energy’s two depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion plants.
