John Howanitz will be promoted to president of Bechtel National’s nuclear, security and environmental global business effective Sept. 1, replacing the retiring Barbara Rusinko as the head of the Reston, Va.-based company’s nuclear business with the Department of Energy and other agencies worldwide.
The company announced the impending change Wednesday in a press release.
Howanitz is currently senior vice president and general manager of Bechtel’s nuclear security and commercial nuclear power business. He already has spots on the board of governors for Lawrence Livermore National Security, the prime contractor for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the board of managers for Consolidated Nuclear Security, the management and operations contractor for the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Bechtel is the lead industry partner on both contracts.
Howanitz has been with Bechtel for almost 40 years, the company said.
Meanwhile, Rusinko, a company veteran of more than 30 years, is leaving the company after five years at the helm of the nuclear, security and environmental business.
Bechtel has lost some DOE business over the last couple of years but the company is bidding aggressively for just about all of the work available at active and shuttered nuclear weapons sites.
A Bechtel-led team is said to be in the running for the next Savannah River Site management and operations contract, and the company was at least weighing a bid to secure the next joint management and operations contract for Pantex and Y-12. The current Bechtel-led prime’s contract at those sites was at deadline scheduled to expire Sept. 30.
Responders have completely contained the Black Glass Canyon Wildfire that broke out Sunday at the Nevada National Security Site, the site wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday.
The site burned some 860 acres at Areas 25 and 29 and about five acres at Area 30, the site said. “The fire in Area 30 entered a radiologically contaminated area from a Cold War era test,” but “radiological exposures for onsite personnel are well below the criteria for initiating protective actions; there is no risk to health and human safety, and there is no offsite risk to the public,” the site said.
