Top leader of Hanford contractor is leaving after decades at the site
A new leader has been named for the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site, as its current Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration (HLMI) leader retires after 37 years at Hanford.
Ray Geimer, who has 40 years of nuclear operations experience at Department of Energy environmental cleanup sites, has been named as the new HLMI laboratory manager at the lab.
Don Hardy is retiring effecting May 12.
He started his career at the 222-S Laboratory and also worked at the Hanford nuclear reservation’s PUREX plant, the Plutonium Finishing Plant, the Waste Sampling and Characterization Facility and the tank farms.
“HLMI is being left in great hands with Ray Geimer, who brings a wealth of nuclear operating experience to the position,” Hardy said.
Geimer most recently worked as project manager for the Hanford 100 K Reactors area for Central Plateau Cleanup Co.
His diverse experience includes management of nuclear facility operations, management of large-scale projects and programs, deactivation and demolition and nuclear facility construction.
DOE awarded HLMI, owned by Navarro Research and Engineering and Advanced Technologies and Laboratories International, the contract for the 222-S Lab a year ago.
Its value is estimated at $389 million for up to seven years of work.
The 222-S Laboratory in the center of the nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington state handles highly radioactive samples to conduct 15,000 to 25,000 radiochemistry and other analyses annually.
It has 11 hot cells, where workers operate handling equipment from outside the cells and look through thick, leaded glass to work with radioactive waste samples within the hot cell.
Information now is used to determine what wastes can be combined in Hanford’s underground storage tanks and to help plan how workers can best be protected while working at specific tanks.
In the future it will be used to support the Hanford vitrification plant, as DOE plans to begin treating tank waste for disposal at the end of 2023.
It employs about 275 workers.
The Hanford site in Eastern Washington was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce about two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for its nuclear weapons program.