TRIDEC’s Petersen reflects on 52-year  career in Tri-Cities

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.

Q: What do you consider your key accomplishments during your career at TRIDEC?

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.

• Worked with congressional offices to increase federal budgets in support of PNNL and Hanford cleanup, including funding for new facilities for PNNL. TRIDEC funding requests to Congress are made every year, with a consistent success ratio of more than 80 percent, and more than $1.4 billion in additional federal funding through the past eight to 10 years.
• TRIDEC strongly supported DOE subcontracting to small businesses, with a result of more than $500 million per year going to local small business during the past 10 years.
• Conduct an annual congressional staff tour of PNNL and Hanford. More than 100 congressional staff from at least three states have participated in these annual fact-finding trips.
• Manhattan Project National Historical Park – signed into law in December 2015. Major credit goes to the B Reactor Museum Association, going back more than 20 years. Twenty-six individuals from across the country teamed together for nearly 10 years to gain broad political support for a national park at three locations – Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Hanford. Congressional action was led by Congressman Doc Hastings, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, who drafted the language with very strong support by Sen. Patty Murray.
• Yucca Mountain. Bob Ferguson, Bill Lampson and I were the original litigants in federal court on Yucca Mountain. Thank heaven that the attorneys general of Washington and Tennessee and Nye County joined this successful lawsuit, where the judges ruled that Yucca Mountain is the nation’s high-level waste repository – by law.
• 1,641 acres of Hanford transferred from DOE to TRIDEC, and then on to the community (city of Richland, Port of Benton and Energy Northwest) at in essence no cost. This team effort also took more than five years to achieve congressional authorization.
• Public access to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain (not completely accomplished yet, but public access IS the LAW. Thanks Doc!)

Q: You’ve played a key role in making sure Hanford issues stayed in front of congressional offices. What’s your most memorable conversation or interaction with an elected official?

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:

• In 2011 when Gov. Chris Gregoire, Sen. Cantwell and Congressman Hastings managed to bring Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to B Reactor for the first time. Sec. Salazar had an “Ahhh” moment when he walked into the B Reactor face.  It was at that point that the secretary of interior, for the first time, got “onboard” with protecting and preserving B Reactor and forming the Manhattan Project National Park. Accompanying the governor, a congressman, a senator and the secretary of interior on a tour of B Reactor is a pretty amazing opportunity.
• In summer 2013, Sen. Murray (who had been to PNNL and Hanford cleanup sites numerous times) wanted to take a tour of just the spots being recommended to be “in-the-park.” A small group of us were standing with her in what used to be the Hanford High School gymnasium, currently a shell, and Sen. Murray, standing there, said, “I think my father may have played one of the last basketball games in this gym, back before 1943.” Her father went to Kennewick High School. We were all struck silent!

Q: How has the progress of Hanford cleanup changed during your tenure at TRIDEC?

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.

Q: Has anything surprised you over the years? If so, what?

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.

Q: Who have your mentors been over the years and what advice of theirs did you use?

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.

Q: How do you think the new Trump Administration will affect the Department of Energy and Hanford objectives?

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.

Q: What do you see as the critical issues for the region in the next five years?

Petersen: I would like to think of these as “opportunities,” not “critical issues.”

• When the Manhattan Project National Historical Park fully opens to the public – meaning visitors can drive right out to B Reactor, the Bruggemann’s ranch, White Bluffs Bank and Hanford High School – our community should/could see an influx of more than 100,000 visitors to the park each year and possibly more than a half million visitors. Last year, the park had 13,000 visitors.
• Our Mid-Columbia region continues to grow. Hard to realize that 50 years ago there wasn’t a single winery within some 50 miles of the Tri-Cities. Our hospitals are world-class; tourism – from sports to scientific experiences – continue to expand; and education – from STEM schools such as Delta High to Columbia Basin College and Washington State University Tri-Cities are building the foundation for our future. Our Tri-Cities (all four) — two counties and three ports — need to collaborate on future planning more than ever, and I feel they are working toward this end.

Q: What’s the Tri-Cities best kept secret?

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:

• The Columbia River rivershore. Because really nothing has been done to the 34 miles of rivershore running through our three cities in the last 68 years. Trees, shrubs and trash bushes have simply grown up along the entire stretch of river, and it happened so slowly that we are all simply blind to the change.  Five different studies have all said that the Tri-Cities rivershore is our crown jewel, and yet it is the most unkempt and underutilized property that runs through the community.
• ENERGY! The Mid-Columbia region has it all, from the region’s only operating nuclear power plant to massive hydro facilities, to a national laboratory with strong capabilities in smart-grid, energy storage, management and production, and environmental protection.

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.

Q: What do you plan to do when you retire?

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!