B&W Y-12 executive takes leadership job at USEC

The former vice president of environmental management at B&W Y-12 in Oak Ridge has taken a leadership job at USEC.

Robert Warther has been named deputy program manager for the American Centrifuge research, development, and demonstration, or RD&D, program, a press release said.

The board of managers of American Centrifuge Demonstration LLC, a subsidiary responsible for running the program, approved Warther’s selection at its first meeting on Aug. 3. Warther will report to program manager Paul Sullivan.

Also at that meeting, the board of managers selected Luis Reyes as its chairman, the release said. Reyes is the former executive director for operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

At B&W Y-12, Warther was responsible for seven nuclear cleanup projects. He also spent nearly a decade with the U.S. Department of Energy, working on a variety of nuclear projects, the release said.

He previously served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy nuclear submarine service, and he has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and master’s degrees in business administration and mechanical engineering.

“Bob has had a distinguished career executing high profile, large-scale nuclear projects,” said Sullivan, who also serves as USEC’s vice president for American Centrifuge and chief engineer. “Not only has he had great success in completing his projects on time, but he brought them in under budget.”

The release said the aim of the RD&D program is to show the American Centrifuge technology through the construction and operation of a cascade of 120 commercial centrifuge machines, among other things. The RD&D cascade would be incorporated in the full commercial plant in Piketon, Ohio, which is planned to run 96 identical cascades.

The RD&D program will support more than 1,000 direct jobs in Ohio, Tennessee, and several other states.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., USEC is a global energy company and a leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel and nuclear industry related services for commercial nuclear power plants. In Oak Ridge, the company has operations at the former Boeing plant.