Idaho National Laboratory Director Mark Peters is preparing to leave his current post after nearly five years to become executive vice president for laboratory operations at Battelle.
Battelle Energy Alliance is the management and operations contractor for INL.
In his new job, Peters will work with all DOE national laboratories in Battelle’s portfolio – which includes Brookhaven in New York, Lawrence Livermore in California, Los Alamos in New Mexico, and Oak Ridge in Tennessee.
There is no firm date for his departure and Peters will remain at the Idaho National Laboratory while Battelle selects a new director. He said via Twitter that he began his “dream job” as INL director on Oct. 1, 2015, and “I enjoy every single day” in the post.
Before becoming INL director, Peters served as associate laboratory director for the Energy and Global Security directorate at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. That role covers the facility’s programs in energy research and national security.
The Idaho National Laboratory focuses on nuclear energy research, but its work extends into areas including the environment and national security.
As INL director, Peters also holds the post of president of Battelle Energy Alliance, comprised of Battelle, BWX Technologies, Amentum, the Electric Power Research Institute, and several university partners. The contract to manage the Idaho National Laboratory extends through September 2024.
Fluor has sold its construction equipment rental business in the Caribbean for $22 million.
The assets of AMECO Caribbean are now almost fully owned by to Stewart’s Automotive Group, Fluor said in an Aug. 17 press release. The remaining assets of the AMECO equipment rental in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East remain for sale.
Fluor’s AMECO has operated in Jamaica since 2001, providing customers with fleet and equipment management solutions. It provides mobile equipment and tools for construction, mining, and industrial sectors. That business is now named JAMECO Equipment Company Ltd.
In September 2019, Fluor announced plans to sell all of AMECO as well as its government services business, which includes contracts for the Energy Department’s nuclear complex, as part of a company restructuring.
The Irving, Texas-based company reversed course in February, deciding to keep the government contracting business that has about 28,000 employees and more than 40 projects, including DOE work in Idaho, South Carolina, New Mexico, and other locations.
Fluor has still not filed an earnings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission during 2020, as the federal agency examines the adequacy of certain financial documents filed in 2019.
The company’s stock price closed Monday at $9.90 per share, which is roughly half of its 2020 high of $19.97 but well above the low of $3.40 recorded March 18, which was about the time the Energy Department started to reduce on-site staffing at most nuclear cleanup properties. Some stock market analysts have opined that companies such as Fluor, with billions of dollars’ worth of government-backed contracts, provide a safe harbor for investors in an economy in which other business sectors are reeling from the pandemic.
The head of the nuclear and environment business unit for Maryland-based Amentum has been deemed a public sector “leader to watch” during 2020, by a website for executives.
Mark Whitney, executive vice president and general manager for Amentum’s Nuclear & Environment Strategic Business Unit, was featured in an Aug. 19 article by WashingtonExec.com.
WashingtonExec is a private membership organization founded in 2011 to provide information and networking relationships with managers around Washington, D.C. , and its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, according to its website.
“Whitney’s focus is solving clients’ problems to safely achieve their missions through effective use of the best talent in the industry and applying innovative approaches to complex challenges,” according to the article. That places him among 30 public-sector executives to watch, it says.
Amentum was formed in January when two New York-based investment firms bought the Management Services business of Los Angeles-based AECOM. The business unit headed by Whitney is worth roughly $1 billion and has about 10,000 employees to service government contracts, including those for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management and the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
Amentum leads a joint venture that manages DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. It also heads contractor teams in charge of radioactive waste management at the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, along with decontamination and decommissioning at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
Whitney joined AECOM in October 2016 after two-and-a-half years in top jobs at the DOE nuclear remediation office, including as acting assistant secretary for environmental management, according to his LinkedIn profile. Overall, Whitney held multiple management jobs at DOE, EM, and the NNSA dating to February 2005. Before that he worked in the private sector as a consultant.
