Mark Gilbertson is retiring at the end of October after more than 40 years of private and public sector service, including more than 25 years in leadership positions in EM.
Mark Gilbertson is retiring at the end of October after more than 40 years of private and public sector service, including more than 25 years in leadership positions in EM.

How did you get your start in EM?

I was working on EM issues before there was EM. I came over (to DOE) in August of 1988 from EPA to work in the Office of Environmental Safety and Health on environmental survey reviews. It was a program that looked at 40 sites to try to catalog environmental issues, at all of our major sites. As we were wrapping up that program, the FBI raided Rocky Flats [for investigation of anti-pollution law violations].

I was sent out to Rocky Flats to interface with EPA and lead a review of the site’s environmental program. I also was a member of (DOE Special Assistant) Leo Duffy’s four-member team that negotiated the first Federal Facility Compliance Agreement. [Duffy later became the first EM assistant secretary] While I was out there, Secretary of Energy Watkins announced a Tiger Team initiative, and the Rocky Flats review was the first one. When I returned to Washington after the review I started working in the Office of Special Projects, which did all of the Tiger Team assessments of all of the sites across the complex. Admiral Watkins used the Tiger Teams in the creation of EM, this new focus for the Department to help sites and the national laboratories ease into the transition of the end of the Cold War. After the Tiger Teams and follow-on progress assessments, I formally was asked to join EM and help Tom Grumbly (then-EM assistant secretary) and Carol Henry (EM co-director of integrated risk management) to create EM’s Risk Policy Office.

Mark Gilbertson pictured in 1992. Presently the associate principal deputy assistant secretary for policy and regulatory affairs for EM, Gilbertson is retiring at the end of this month after more than 40 years of private and public sector service, including more than 25 years in leadership positions in EM.
Mark Gilbertson pictured in 1992. Presently the associate principal deputy assistant secretary for policy and regulatory affairs for EM, Gilbertson is retiring at the end of this month after more than 40 years of private and public sector service.

What were the early challenges?

It was a challenge from a technical perspective because this was first time anybody in the world had tried to tackle these kinds of environmental issues. And it was a challenge in that you're coming from the Cold War, and you never talked about any of this. Stakeholder interactions were new to the Department and we plowed new ground when we created advisory boards to be able to talk to the public. That was the first time anybody did anything like that, and we had to do it because nobody knew what even was going on a mile from their city or 10 miles from their house.

It was a really unique time. It was a fun time. The reason people work here now is the same reason as back then. They want to make a difference. You have to be driven to want to work here because it's not that visible. I've never been able to explain to my family exactly what I do. But you know it’s important work.

What do you see as the biggest achievement in your time at EM?

That we could do the cleanup at sites and get these sites transitioned to other uses. It was really rewarding a month ago when we got the award with (Office of Legacy Management) from EPA for stewardship at Rocky Flats. Because that's where I was, and to see it now, where the community has embraced it, and it is serving the purposes of a park and people recognize it as a success. That is very rewarding, and a very big accomplishment.

It is amazing how much work has been performed in this program and we have done a great job at protecting our workforce. We've accomplished this complicated cleanup at a number of individual sites. Our sites, from a cleanup-construction perspective, are some of the safest places to work in the country, barring this issue we have now with COVID.

What do you see as EM’s biggest challenge moving forward?

That it's going to take a while to clean up some of these big sites, and to continue to refresh and evolve as how you communicate with the public changes, with the internet and social media and things like that. How you tell the story is a big challenge going into the future. How you retain the institutional knowledge, why you did what you did so you don't have to go back and re-adjudicate things that have been done in the past. That people understand it well enough so that we'll move forward as a country to invest in some of the higher risk areas, rather than invest in just further cleanup of something that's already safe.

With a number of experienced people like yourself departing, are you optimistic about the ability of EM to replenish itself?

I think EM needs to be disciplined to make sure that they are aggressive in hiring new people. In my time as director of the Laboratory Operations Board and having been able to interface with the younger people in the laboratories and people that are coming out of college right now — my gosh, we’ve got some of the brightest minds in the world that are here in our country. And we just have got to figure out how we let them know that there's still this problem that we’ve got to work on, and create the space to allow them to use their creativity to address it going into the future. I am optimistic that there is the brain power out there to continue to make a difference in this program. We just need to make sure that we give people an opportunity.

What are you going to miss most about EM?

The people. The interaction with people. The passion of people to do the right thing. I think Ike [Acting Assistant Secretary William “Ike” White] is right on: When everybody is aligned to achieve a goal, you can accomplish some great things. I think that people are accomplishing some great things right now, even in the COVID environment where we haven't been able to meet and get together in person. It's been just as big a challenge as when we took on the issue of accelerating work in the Recovery Act times. It has taken personal dedication of individuals within their home-work environment to make things continue to move forward in a positive way. And people have done it, all across the country.