RICHLAND, Wash. – EM has named Brian Vance as manager, on a permanent basis, of the two offices that supervise cleanup of the Hanford Site, a move to cement coordination at the site that is preparing to initiate landmark tank waste treatment.

Since February 2019, Vance has been serving on a limited appointment as the manager for both the Richland Operations Office (RL) and Office of River Protection (ORP). In that post, he has aligned operations as Hanford gears up to begin treating tank waste through the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) approach, and concentrates cleanup work on the site’s central plateau.

Last fall, the site marked the removal of the radioactive sludge from Hanford’s K Basins away from the Columbia River for safer longer-term storage; safely resumed removal of demolition debris at the Plutonium Finishing Plant; and most recently completed startup testing at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant’s Analytical Laboratory, a key component of the DFLAW system.

“Brian has guided Hanford operations with a steady hand,” said William “Ike” White, Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science. “The men and women on the ground continue making great progress, and I have full confidence that Brian will continue to lead this team into the next phase, as we move towards actual tank waste treatment and cleanup completion in many areas.”

Vance has more than 30 years of nuclear industry experience, including project director for RL contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company’s 300-296 Soil Removal Project at Hanford. He is a retired Navy nuclear submarine officer with a Bachelor of Science in meteorology from Penn State University, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Joe Franco will continue as the RL deputy manager, and Ben Harp will continue as the ORP deputy manager, with both responsible for the day-to-day operations of each of the offices.