Cange to move to DC to serve in interim DOE Environmental Management job

Sue Cange, manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, is pictured above at the end of demolition of the K-27 Building on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Note: This story was last updated at 2:30 p.m.

Sue Cange will be moving at least temporarily to Washington, D.C., to become interim principal deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management. She will be temporarily serving in the role formerly filled by Mark Whitney, who has taken a job in the private sector.

Whitney is a former manager of the Environmental Management program in Oak Ridge. He has been appointed chief operating officer of AECOM’s nuclear and environment strategic business unit. He worked for DOE for 11 years and served in both the Environmental Management office and the National Nuclear Security Administration, AECOM said in a press release.

Cange is expected to move in the next few weeks, sometime in October, said Ben Williams, DOE spokesperson for the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.

While Cange is in Washington, she will not serve as manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, Williams said.

While she is away, Jay Mullis, deputy manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, will serve as acting manager of Environmental Management in Oak Ridge, Williams said.

Among the projects that Cange has helped oversee in Oak Ridge are demolition work at the East Tennessee Technology Park (the former K-25 site), mercury cleanup efforts at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and construction of the proposed new Environmental Management Disposal Facility on Bear Creek Road, just west of Y-12.

Here is Cange’s biography:

Sue Cange is the manager for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and is responsible for safely executing the environmental cleanup of the Oak Ridge Reservation. This entails successfully managing the cleanup of the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Over the past 27 years, Sue has held various leadership positions within the Department of Energy in the offices of Environmental Management, Nuclear Energy, and Assets Utilization. In addition, Sue was one of the founding members of the Reindustrialization Program in Oak Ridge, which transfers underutilized assets to the private sector to accelerate cleanup and promote economic development.

Prior to coming to Oak Ridge, Sue worked for the Environmental Protection Agency. In this capacity, she helped to develop much of the policy and guidance that is used today to govern environmental cleanup under the Superfund Program.

Throughout Sue’s career, she has been able to integrate the necessary technical knowledge with personal communication skills to be highly successful in an environment that includes a broad spectrum of stakeholders such as federal and state regulators, state and local government officials, the corporate community, concerned citizen groups, and the media.

Sue holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Vanderbilt University.

Among the projects that Cange has recently discussed with the public as part of her work are the cleanup budget, demolition of the big five buildings once used to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants and atomic weapons at East Tennessee Technology Park, the planned Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the construction of the proposed Environmental Management Disposal Facility on Bear Creek Road, which is required to complete the remaining cleanup at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Mark Whitney

You can see the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management leadership team here.

Among the DOE positions that Whitney has held, according to AECOM, are acting assistant secretary for environmental management, manager of Environmental Management’s Oak Ridge Office, assistant deputy administrator for nonproliferation and international security, and acting principal assistant deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, where he oversaw the operations of the Department’s global nuclear security and nonproliferation programs. From 2005 to 2008, Whitney managed the Department of Energy’s Russian operations.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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