Reinhard Knerr is the Acting Manager of the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO) in Lexington, Kentucky. In this role, he oversees the deactivation and demolition of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) former gaseous diffusion plants and ongoing Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion operations at both the Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky, sites. He is also responsible for managing the support functions for PPPO including security, information technology, cybersecurity, budget and finance, emergency response, nuclear safety and procurement.
He returned to PPPO in 2023 as the Deputy Manager after serving as DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office Manager since July 2020 where he safely increased transuranic waste shipments and emplacement to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to pre-shutdown levels. Mr. Knerr also led the recovery of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System and the Utility Shaft Capital Asset projects. Further, he led the development of the strategic approach to align regulatory and operational activities to safely and compliantly mine the access drifts and panels need to support transuranic waste emplacement operations into the future, including completion of several key mining milestones.
At PPPO, he was previously the DUF6 Federal Project Director and held several leadership and strategic planning roles at the Paducah Site starting in 2004. At Paducah, he managed environmental remediation and deactivation and demolition work at the site, returning the former gaseous diffusion plant from commercial enrichment operations back to DOE and led several critical utility and infrastructure optimization projects, significantly reducing costs at the site.
Since joining DOE in 2001, Mr. Knerr has also served as the transuranic waste certification team leader at WIPP and led a project team of DOE waste management experts in resolving multiple complex-wide radioactive waste management issues. Mr. Knerr also has more than nine years of experience as a nuclear criticality safety engineer supporting contractor operations at DOE's Pantex Plant, Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and Y-12 Plant.
His background includes nuclear facility decontamination and decommissioning, environmental regulations, project management, strategic planning, baseline management, radioactive and hazardous waste management, nuclear criticality safety, nuclear safety, transuranic waste characterization.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in nuclear engineering from Penn State University.