An EM employee who has worked at DOE for more than three decades was recently honored for his long-term contributions.
Office of Environmental Management
August 27, 2019
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NEW ORLEANS – An EM employee who has worked at DOE for more than three decades was recently honored for his long-term contributions to the International Symposium on the Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM).
Dr. James Shuler, program manager for DOE's packaging certification program within EM's Office of Packaging and Transportation, received the Aoki Award at PATRAM 2019, a series of symposia that brings together experts from government, industry, and research organizations around the world to exchange information on packaging and transportation of radioactive materials.
“It is so nice to know that the world of packaging and transportation of radioactive materials appreciates the hard work and dedication that I have devoted to maintaining a safe and secure transportation environment,” Shuler said.
For more than 44 years, Shuler has worked in radioactive material packaging and transportation. For the past 38 years, he has worked in federal government, including seven years at the Department of Transportation (DOT). Shuler also helped return U.S.-origin radioactive material from foreign countries to the U.S. for disposal.
As manager of the packaging certification program, Shuler has completed over 700 packaging dockets and counting. The program performs independent compliance reviews of package designs certified by DOE for shipment of nuclear material. Each change to a certified package design, no matter how small, requires a new docket and compliance review.
Shuler supported EM’s efforts to help establish what's been dubbed "Packaging University" in conjunction with the University of Nevada, Reno and several DOE national laboratories. The university offers a graduate certificate in nuclear packaging — the first of its kind in the U.S.
Shuler also helped develop the DOE Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) Program for tracking, monitoring, and geofencing radioactive material packages and vehicles. This technology can also be used to restrict vehicles to specific routes. Developing this technology led to Shuler being named a finalist for a technology innovation award from Nextgov, an online information resource on technology and government. He also received three international awards for this work, including one from the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility.
The program manager has also authored and coauthored 14 books and more than 200 publications, and is a coinventor holding four patents.
PATRAM is the only meeting in the world devoted entirely to the subject of packaging and transportation of radioactive materials. It takes place every three years alternately in the U.S. and a non-U.S. location.
This year’s symposium was sponsored by DOE, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and DOT, and hosted by the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management.