After a seven-year tenure as director of EM’s Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Dr. Terry A. Michalske stepped down on March 15. Under his leadership, the lab greatly expanded its role across the DOE complex, for both the EM and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) missions. In an interview, Michalske talked about his time at SRNL and the changes he has seen.
As you look back on your tenure, where has SRNL made the most impact on EM’s mission?
When you look at the impact of SRNL on the EM mission, it’s important to begin at the Savannah River Site. SRNL continues to provide technically sound, innovative approaches that get put into practice and have accelerated the schedule and reduced the cost of this very important cleanup mission. It’s no mystery why the cleanup work at the Savannah River Site continues to move forward so successfully - the laboratory’s role in working hand in hand with DOE and the contractors every step of the way has been one of the key elements.
About two years ago, the Department challenged this laboratory to take that basis of experience and expertise and lessons learned and translate that to help build successes across the entire complex. That was a very important turning point for the lab. I think the laboratory has responded quite strongly and capably in that regard.
We’ve opened an office at the Hanford Site in Washington, where we can have that close connection and collaboration with the site and contractors. We’ve expanded work at sites including WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant), Oak Ridge, Portsmouth, Paducah, Idaho, and Los Alamos. I’m very proud that SRNL is really showing what it means to be the national lab for EM.
How is SRNL different today than when you started as director 7 years ago?
It’s different in a lot of ways. Most notably, the lab has evolved from providing competent technical support to taking a leadership role in bringing the best resources together and working with DOE to provide solutions.
Our leadership of the multi-laboratory and university teams to provide technical assessments of the WIPP release event and Hanford Vapor Study are good examples of SRNL bringing the best team together to address critical issues.
We do a lot of work in the management of nuclear materials across the world. This is in support of both EM and NNSA. Our laboratory has successfully led important initiatives in countries including Finland, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Jamaica, Chile, and Japan. This is the kind of leadership that extends beyond the national realm, on a global scale.
That change has been profound for the laboratory and one that is opening doors for significant new programs, such as the high-temperature graphite reactor fuel from Germany.
One of the very important differences at SRNL from when I started is the relationship between the laboratory and the Department of Energy in the governance of the lab. We now have a formal governance relationship that involves the laboratory, our managing contractor, DOE-EM and NNSA - both at the headquarters and at the site level. This partnership is having a profound impact on the laboratory’s current success.
When I started, the laboratory was an operating unit of the M&O (management and operations contractor), utilizing all of the same business systems and policies. DOE, SRNS (Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the SRS M&O), and the lab worked collectively to stand up the lab as a separate business unit within the M&O. This has made an enormous difference in our ability to put in place business practices and efficiencies that are tailored to the needs of the laboratory.
As you look to the future, what new opportunities and missions to do you see for SRNL?
The cleanup mission is one of the most important missions of the nation. We have a moral and legal obligation to remedy the enormous environmental legacy, and I see that continuing to be an important focus of this laboratory complex-wide. We are just beginning to see the growth of those activities as we partner with and work more closely with the many EM sites.
In addition, once a remedy is in place at a site and the site is cleaned up, we have to make sure that the remedy is meeting expectations. At that point, responsibility falls to the DOE Office of Legacy Management (LM). We just recently signed a memorandum of understanding with DOE-LM to position SRNL to be the lead laboratory to bring the science and technology needed to effectively monitor and oversee those remedies going forward. So this is a whole new area where the skills, talents and expertise of the lab will be called upon in a very long-term sense.
SRNL’s role in supporting the nation’s nuclear deterrent, particularly with the tritium mission, is a core mission of our lab and will continue to grow. We are also seeing growing activities in cyber technologies. Likewise, plutonium work at the site is expected to increase. SRNL will play a key role in this work, in terms of legacy materials, international programs, and materials that are important to the current stockpile.
We have always been a manufacturing site, and the lab has a strong heritage in supporting industrial-scale manufacturing, which I believe will continue to be a growth area for the lab.
When it comes to growth at SRNL, how important is public-private collaboration?
We have what we call the “iron triangle," which is the government, private sector industry, and the academic community. It is that partnership across the three that really allows great progress to be made.
Our recent success in leading the formation of the national manufacturing institute, RAPID, is a good example of using this iron triangle to drive the innovation in chemical manufacturing needed for DOE and NNSA missions as well as U.S. industry.
We are vectored quite strongly to move some of our operations off the site and onto the campus of the University of South Carolina-Aiken, because we think that kind of location allows those three entities - government, industry, and academia - to work shoulder to shoulder in an extremely powerful way. We will always maintain our secure and radiological work on the site, but we feel that building those partnerships and having the ability to work in the same space as those partners is absolutely critical.
What advice would you offer to the next SRNL director?
The next person stepping into the director role will have the benefit of the best leadership team I’ve ever worked with, and a truly committed and focused staff. My advice is not to hesitate to put SRNL in the middle of the nation’s most challenging problems, because the lab will do well, the lab will make you proud, and provide an enormous return on investment. So, don’t be timid - that’s my advice.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
