The U.S. Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office has two new assistant managers to help conduct its oversight of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
WIPP is the nation’s only underground repository for disposal of transuranic waste from across the Department of Energy complex. James (Ed) Garza has been named assistant manager for WIPP Operations and Kenneth Princen is assistant manager for the National TRU Program, according to a news release. Both were already at the Carlsbad Field Office in different roles.
The posts were created in response to an underground fire and separate, subsequent radiation release in February 2014, which forced WIPP offline for almost three years. The site resumed taking shipments of transuranic waste in April 2017.
Garza has been facility oversight division director at Carlsbad since 2015. He worked at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory for 18 years prior to joining the department in 2006 as a federal facility representative for the lab’s Advanced Test Reactor. Garza will be involved with WIPP operations, radiological safeguards, fire protection, and nuclear safety.
Princen, who has been at Carlsbad since 2015 as a facility representative, will oversee acceptance of TRU waste from sites around the nation. He was a readiness review coordinator during the WIPP recovery, and previously served as a nuclear facility operations specialist at the Nevada National Security Site and a submarine warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.
Colorado-based engineering firm Merrick & Co. announced Tuesday it has selected a familiar face to lead its Nuclear Services & Technology (NST) unit.
Effective April 1, Merrick Vice President Scott Gustafson will become business unit lead for the NST team. Gustafson will replace John Buckle, who will become a part-time consultant to the firm.
In a news release Merrick praised Buckle, who has been with the firm since 2001, for contributing to the growth and profitability of the business unit. The company expressed confidence Gustafson will continue this growth.
Gustafson has been with Merrick for 25 years, starting as a mechanical engineer in its Los Alamos, N.M., office, and advancing into leadership ranks with stints as a project manager, office manager, and deputy team lead for federal projects. Gustafson also served a two-year term on Merrick’s board of directors.
In addition, Tony Wampler will join Merrick’s NST unit on March 19 as a business development manager. Wampler has more than 12 years of experience in nuclear services and technology and recently worked as a lead business developer for a nuclear equipment company.
Merrick is an employee-owned $125 million firm that contracts with the U.S. Energy Department and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Its services include glove-box design and fabrication, including work for the Uranium Processing Facility at the NNSA Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The company also provides decommissioning and decontamination support to the commercial nuclear power industry, including cost estimates and planning.
