Daniel Hoag
Two National Nuclear Security Administration officials have been reassigned after the July 28 security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Daniel Hoag has been temporarily reassigned to the Oak Ridge Site Office, NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said in an Aug. 7 staff memo. Hoag has been deputy manager of the new NNSA Production Office, or NPO, which oversees nuclear production missions at Y-12 in Oak Ridge and the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas.
Hoag’s appointment was announced in July, shortly before the security breach. He served as the chief operating officer for Pantex and Y-12, reporting to NPO Manager Steven Erhart in Oak Ridge.
Meanwhile, Douglas Fremont, NNSA chief of defense nuclear security, has been reassigned pending the outcome of a review. Fremont, who works in Washington, D.C., has been reassigned to another unidentified job in NNSA.
D’Agostino said Hoag will give senior-level technical support at the Oak Ridge Site Office, “filling a critical void for the Office of Science and enabling the department to benefit from the experience and leadership of one of our executives.”
Hoag previously served as acting manager and deputy manager of the NNSA’s Y-12 Site Office in Oak Ridge and as YSO senior project director. He has also held other key management positions at YSO, serving as the assistant manager for operations, assistant manager for programs, and as chief of the environment, safety, and health branch.
Other staff changes have also been announced at B&W Y-12, the plant’s managing and operating contractor, and WSI Oak Ridge, the site’s security contractor. The staff changes and a range of other fixes followed the July 28 security breach, when three anti-nuclear weapons activists cut through fences at Y-12 and spray-painted slogans and splashed human blood on the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, where bomb-grade uranium is stored.
D’Agostino said the U.S. Department of Energy is now conducting reviews to “gain a better understanding of our approach to security throughout the DOE enterprise.” At NNSA, Brig. Gen. Sandra Finan is assessing the organizational structure of security oversight and chain of command, D’Agostino said.
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