The fire chief for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has died, contractor Mission Support Alliance announced this week.
Norbert Kuhman died May 29 at age 63, according to an obituary published Wednesday in the Tri-City Herald newspaper.
Kuhman had served in the position since February 2014. Management of the 145-person Hanford Fire Department is part of Leidos-led MSA’s contract to provide support services at Hanford.
Kuhman spent more than 40 years providing fire protection, emergency management, and related services at government installations, including those operated by DOE, the Navy, the Air Force, and NASA, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before coming to Hanford, Kuhman spent most of the previous 20 years in Florida involved in fire protection at locations such as the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share with our MSA family about the passing of our long-term Hanford Fire Chief and friend to all, Norb Kuhman,” according to a Monday memo to MSA employees from President Bob Wilkinson and Chief Operating Officer Amy Basche. “Norb was always a gentleman and looked at life with optimism and a smile, and he will be greatly missed.”
An online publication, Firehouse.com, said Facebook postings from friends indicate Kuhman was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Deputy Fire Chief Adam Moldovan is serving as acting chief, an MSA spokeswoman said.
Energy Department documents addressing issues from research needs to employee benefits at the Savannah River National Laboratory have been added to a federal procurement website.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management in April published a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the potential 10-year, $3.8 billion stand-alone lab contract. Comments on that draft RFP were due May 8, and the Energy Department aims to issue the final version this month.
The six documents posted since May 14 include a 200-page 2015 report on basic research needs for DOE environmental management of its nuclear sites, along with three more recent reports on employee health plans and pension plans run by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. The Fluor-led vendor is the current operations and management contractor for the entire 310-square mile Savannah River Site, including the laboratory. Links to the SRS’s Citizens Advisory Board as well as the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council were also posted.
The Savannah River National Laboratory is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center with about 1,000 employees. Some sources have suggested that having its own management contract might raise the profile of the laboratory, and bring more attention to what SRNL documents describe as its “world-class” scientific and technical research.
The July 2015 report states that “progress towards cleanup [of DOE nuclear sites] has been stymied in part by a lack of investment in basic science that is foundational to innovation and new technology development.” Using only currently available technologies, it would take hundreds of billions of dollars and more than 50 years of effort to remediate contamination left by the Manhattan Project and Cold War nuclear arms programs.
The report alludes to more than a dozen SRNL research papers on environmental managements issues. The Savannah River National Laboratory has an annual budget of roughly $350 million.
