Lynchburg, Va., -based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Ronald (Chip) Whitford, Jr., to a senior vice president post succeeding Thomas McCabe, who will retire from the nuclear company this summer.
Separately, the company has promoted Omar Meguid to chief digital officer, a new executive role that reports directly to CEO Rex Geveden, according to a press release. Meguid, a new hire for BWX Technologies (BWXT) will be responsible for the company’s “comprehensive digital platform supporting its business operations in the U.S., Canada and United Kingdom,” according to the release.
Whitford, meanwhile, became senior vice president, general counsel, chief compliance officer and corporate secretary effective this week, BWXT said in a press release. Whitford has been with BWXT since 2017 and most recently has been vice president, deputy general counsel and assistant corporate secretary, the company said. Whitford will also be a liaison and secretary to the company’s board of directors. Until he retires Aug. 1, McCabe will serve as special advisor to the CEO Rex Geveden.
Rick McLeod, the longtime executive director of the Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization, officially retired from the post this week although he will stay on while the South Carolina-based group looks for a successor, he said in a Jan. 1 post on LinkedIn.
The organization is searching for a new boss. “I’m on retainer for the next couple of months until one is named and will help with the transition,” McLeod said in a Wednesday email to Exchange Monitor.
McLeod led the economic development organization for about 15 years, or about half of its existence. The Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization (SRSCRO) was set up by congress in 1993 to advance the economic prospects of the five counties in South Carolina and Georgia that surround the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. McLeod has been active within the Energy Communities Alliance and a frequent speaker at nuclear conferences, such as the Exchange Monitor’s Radwaste Summit.
A joint venture between two small businesses has won a stopgap contract worth up to $25 million over two years to provide consolidated technical support services to the headquarters for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
Catawba-TEA, LLC, of Rock Hill, S.C., a joint venture between Catawba Engineering and Environmental Services and Trinity Engineering Associates was awarded the contract over the holidays, DOE said in a press release. The award followed issuance of a September 2022 request for information.
That competitive bidding process is still ongoing and this award is designed to ensure “there is no lapse in service,” DOE said in the release. The two-year award calls for technical support services for a wide array of services — ranging from decommissioning and demolition to emergency preparedness — performed by the Environmental Management office. Trinity is based in Cincinnati and Catawba in Hickory, N.C., according to the respective company websites.
Securities and Exchange Commission general counsel Dan Berkovitz, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office, is leaving his government job at the end of the month after 34 years of federal service, according to a press release from the market regulator.
“I am grateful for Dan’s exceptional public service and his dedication to this agency,” Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler said in the release. Berkovitz said “it is time for me to pursue new and different challenges and opportunities.”
Before becoming the top SEC lawyer in November 2021, Berkovitz was a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for three years. He spent 10 years of his career as legal counsel with the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee before serving as a deputy assistant secretary with the DOE Office of Environmental Management between 1995 and 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile. Along the way he has also been general counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and worked for a permanent Senate committee on investigations. Berkovitz has also been a partner in the Washington, D.C. offices of the WilmerHale law firm.
The president of United Steelworkers Local 1-689 at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio is happy to see the Department of Energy being required to report to congress on the recycling potential for over 20,000 tons of high-grade nickel from decommissioned uranium enrichment plants.
Herman Potter said his union has long supported nickel recycling for use in products such as batteries to provide jobs at places like Piketon, Ohio. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a December press release a provision in the fiscal 2023 omnibus budget enacted just before Christmas will require the nickel report.
But for such a project to ultimately become a reality, it would require lifting a moratorium against recycling DOE metals that was put in place in 2000 by then-Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, Potter said.
