The Tri-Cities’ longtime champion of securing federal dollars to clean up Hanford and invigorate the local economy plans to retire next month.
Gary Petersen, Tri-City Development Council’s vice president of federal programs, leaves his post March 3 after 14 years with the agency.
The 76-year-old Richland man came to the Tri-Cities in 1965 to join Battelle and the national laboratory, and except for a short stint at the Nevada Test Site with the Atomic Energy Commission, he’s lived in Richland the entire time.
He worked for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the International Nuclear Safety Program, visiting Chernobyl and Soviet-designed nuclear reactors in several countries, before retiring in April 2003.
TRIDEC is in the process of screening applicants to replace Petersen and hopes to have his successor identified by the end of the month and on board in early March.
There will be big shoes to fill as the position has been held by only two people, Petersen and the late Sam Volpentest, a longtime champion of the Tri-Cities.
“The institutional knowledge can’t be replaced, nor can all of Gary’s personal stories. We didn’t think Sam could be replaced and Gary has done a fine job, so I am optimistic that whoever replaces Gary will do a great job also — different, but great just the same,” said Carl Adrian, CEO of TRIDEC.
Petersen has had a unique front-seat view of the Tri-Cities’ biggest projects, so we thought it would be good to get him on the record before he retired.
Petersen: The “your” in the above question is simply wrong!
There is not a single thing that I would consider a personal accomplishment. I only take credit for being smart enough to ALWAYS join, or work with others who actually wanted to get something done!
Every item on the following list was accomplished by a group of individuals working together.
Petersen: Meeting with Speaker of the House Tom Foley several times in late 1984 to gain congressional language authorizing the refinancing of more than $2 billion in Washington Public Power Supply System bonds. This language saved BPA and the region hundreds of millions of dollars over time.
But, if you are speaking of while I’ve been here with TRIDEC, there are two:
Petersen: Even in 2004 no one realized the full breadth of the technical problems/difficulties of cleanup, nor what the cost would be.
The river corridor cleanup in the past 10 years has been an amazing success story managed by Washington Closure Hanford – ahead of schedule and under budget.
Hanford cleanup is hazardous work – whether it is the Plutonium Finishing Plant, or K Basins, or the tank farm vapors. Through all that, Hanford workers have an outstanding safety record, particularly when recognizing the complexity and hazards of each job.
DOE and Hanford contractors should be proud of the safety training provided at HAMMER. Personally, I am convinced that without HAMMER there would have been more accidents and possibly even deaths out on the site. TRIDEC has and will continue to support HAMMER as vital to Hanford worker safety and to the safety of firefighters, National Guardsmen,and other non-Hanford first responders fortunate enough to go through HAMMER Training.
Petersen: It is the constant management changes at the top that is most surprising. When I tell DOE staff that there have been 38 different prime contractors at Hanford since 1965, they find it hard to believe. Or the fact that there have been 12 DOE managers (of the three DOE offices) in just the past 10 years (and this doesn’t count the four “acting” DOE managers). Then, when you look at the prime contractors, the presidents of contractor organizations typically “change out” every two to three years. DOE headquarters in D.C. has had similar and frequent change out – from assistant secretaries to the secretary of energy.
Every new CEO who comes in, anywhere in the chain, brings with them some “new” idea for doing things better.
Rebidding the prime contracts also brings change. Any new prime contractor requires about 18 months to completely grasp the job assigned, and then perform that assignment near 100 percent performance level.
This particular job that I am in at TRIDEC has only had two incumbents in the past 53 years — Volpentest and myself. We have had the institutional knowledge that DOE and most of the contractors do not.
Petersen: Dr. Bill Wiley – 1989 – “This is the molecular age.”
We need to benefit from new technologies, new inventions and new ways to communicate. Bill had just hired me to be his director of communications for the lab. (That same year, I got my first desktop computer at PNNL. I personally didn’t get a cellphone for another 13 years – 2002).
Volpentest – 2003 – right after he had asked if I wanted to work for him, and work “just 10 hours a week.” Sam said the trouble with his job (which I somehow simply acquired after Sam died at 101) is that “there will always be just one more thing you want to accomplish!” And, he was right.
Petersen: I think the Tri-Cities and our elected representatives are going to have to do a lot of educating of the new administration for both PNNL and Hanford cleanup. It looks to me that federal dollars for DOE will become much more limited, and we will have to fight even harder to maintain funding levels at close to what they have been.
Petersen: I would like to think of these as “opportunities,” not “critical issues.”
Petersen: We have a number – from our wine to being the french-fry capitol of the world to the Columbia Generating Station (nuclear power plant) providing enough power to meet all of Seattle’s electrical needs, or to the fact that nearly 5 percent of the nation’s total energy production comes from nuclear fuel manufactured right here by Areva.
But there are two “secrets”… that local residents don’t often think about:
This region is a net exporter of carbon-free energy.
We can become the Pacific Northwest’s crucible for energy policy and energy development — batteries to electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar generation, and smart appliances and smart manufacturing.
Petersen: Well, I am only barely past three-quarters of a century old, and while I do want to “re-learn” how to play golf, there are probably one or two items listed above that at least will keep me interested in keeping on-keeping on while trying to support the Tri-Cities!