Jack Anderson and Sandra Fairchild, two experienced hands around the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, have joined the advisory board for Las Vegas-based contractor Longenecker & Associates, the company said this week.
Anderson logged more than 30 years with DOE and its national laboratories, including tours with Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Longenecker & Associates (L&A) said in a Tuesday press release. Anderson’s experience ranges from environmental health and safety to facilities management, the company said.
Fairchild has about 30 years of management experience in roles such as controller and chief financial officer, L&A said. This includes major corporate rules for DOE’s prime environmental contractors at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. There are currently 14 active members listed on L&A’s advisory board.
Shalanda Baker, who heads the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Justice and Equity, will leave DOE at the end of June, a DOE spokesperson said Wednesday.
Baker joined DOE in January 2021, first as the deputy director of Energy Justice and adviser to the secretary on equity, the DOE spokesperson said in an email to Exchange Monitor. Since June 2022, Baker has been DOE’s director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity. “Her [Baker’s] efforts to advance President Biden’s Justice40 initiative have transformed the Department’s work in underserved and overburdened communities across America,” the DOE spokesperson said. The DOE statement did not mention Baker’s future plans.
Prior to her appointment with DOE, Baker was a professor of law, public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University. She was the co-founder and co-director of the Initiative for Energy Justice. She is a former U.S. Air Force officer.
At some point, the National Nuclear Security Administration might consider locating a small modular reactor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an agency field manager told the Radwaste Summit last week in Louisville, Ky.
Michael Mikolanis, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) field office manager at the site, stressed he was not “breaking news” and no decisions have been made. However, Mikolanis said Savannah River’s 310-square-mile footprint has room to accommodate new missions. New nuclear development on weapons complex sites, has been mentioned by feds and contractors since Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced the Cleanup to Clean Energy program in July 2023.
NNSA currently relies upon the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar nuclear plant to produce some tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons, Mikolanis went on to say. The idea of a small modular reactor at Savannah River, was one of the topics Mikolanis touched upon during his June 4 presentation.
