NS&D Monitor
4/04/2014
IN THE NNSA
A University of Michigan-led consortium has been awarded a $25 million grant by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development for research and development in nuclear arms control verification technologies. The grant is expected to provide the consortium $5 million per year over the five-year life of the contract, according to the NNSA. The consortium is expected to work on the effectiveness of nuclear safeguards as well as geophysical modeling of underground nuclear detonations. “Developing the R&D expertise of tomorrow can take years to cultivate,” NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Anne Harrington said in a statement. “But we are linking national laboratories and academia by funding the next generation of researchers to perform complex research and gain an understanding of technical challenges in areas of major importance for the nuclear nonproliferation mission that can only be garnered first-hand at the national laboratories.” The group includes Los Alamos, Lawrence Liver-more, Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, Idaho, and Princeton Plasma Physics national laboratories as well as 12 other universities: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Columbia, North Carolina State, University of Hawaii, Pennsylvania State, Duke, University of Wisconsin, University of Florida, Oregon State, Yale, and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
IN DOE
The Department of Energy will hold a pre-proposal conference April 17 for its Brookhaven National Laboratory procurement. The daylong meeting will take place at the Upton, N.Y., lab and will begin at 9:15 a.m. The meeting will include a tour of the laboratory as well as insight into the recently released Request for Proposals, but DOE said it will not take questions and answers. Any questions must be submitted to [email protected] by 3 p.m. April 11. “Questions received by the deadline will be answered at the Pre-proposal Conference,” DOE said. “The answers to any questions submitted after the deadline or at the Pre-proposal Conference will not be answered at the Pre-proposal Conference, but instead will be posted on the website at a later date.” The deadline for registering for the conference is also 3 p.m. April 11.
IN THE INDUSTRY
Babcock & Wilcox officially announced late last week that it is restructuring its government operations by having its Technical Services Group, its subsidiary operations at Nuclear Fuel Services, and its Nuclear Operations Group report to one leader. As NS&D Monitor first reported, Sandy Baker, who is currently president of the Nuclear Operations Group, will be President and Chief Operating Officer for Government Operations. “Consolidating these operations under a single leader helps us to better leverage the synergies that exist between our government nuclear business and our management and operations initiatives,” B&W President and CEO James Ferland said in a release. “The restructuring also provides for greater efficiencies that will result in cost savings to B&W and our customer.” B&W’s release late last week made no mention of TSG President George Dudich, but a company spokeswoman said Dudich “left B&W to pursue other interests.” Also as NS&D Monitor first reported, Ken Camplin has been named Vice President and Chief Business Development Officer for B&W’s government operations, and Chuck Spencer, will serve as Chief Operating Officer of TSG. Both Camplin and Spencer will report to Baker.
Randy Garver, the head of the protective force at the Savannah River Site, is retiring next month and will be replaced by Mark Bolton. Garver, who joined protective force contractor WSI-SRS in 2004, has served as the company’s senior vice president and general manager since September of 2008. He is expected to retire May 15. Bolton currently serves as WSI-SRS’ vice president and deputy general manager.
