DOE-EM-EFCOG-ECA Workforce Roundtable at Hanford; ECA Kicks Off Third New Nuclear Forum Tonight
Today, DOE-EFCOG-ECA is holding the third workforce roundtable meeting in the Tri-Cities with the communities that host Hanford, the largest EM-managed site in the country with the largest budget, likely the longest ongoing mission and consequently, the greatest long-term workforce needs. We look forward to welcoming a diverse group of local, Tribal, and state government leaders, the contractor leadership, DOE leadership, and others to focus on improving training, recruiting, retention and to address the issues that impact people working at the site today as well as those that may work there in the future.
These workforce roundtables grew from a discussion between Ike White (EM-1) and other EM leaders, and the ECA Board at Waste Management Symposium in 2022. It began by discussing general issues and turned into a long, focused discussion on how best to assess and address workforce issues at every DOE site. That initial meeting has since led to several engagements with DOE contractor leadership, a data compilation of hiring needs for each site’s 5-year projections broken out by technical specialty, and several in-person meetings in host communities across the DOE nuclear complex. These sessions have been attended by elected officials, DOE-HQ, DOE leadership at the site, DOE contractor leadership at the site, Tribal leaders, Chambers of Commerce, unions, educators, economic development professionals, homebuilder associations, and others invested in the long-term health of the community, State and region supporting EM/DOE’s mission. The efforts to bring everyone together have yielded excellent ideas for addressing our shared challenges.
The Tri-Cities are the third community to host this workforce discussion, following Los Alamos in August 2023, and the Savannah River Site (SRS) in December 2023. Next week, ECA, DOE and EFCOG will return to SRS on May 17th for our second workforce-focused discussion with those host communities. We intend to follow up on the recommendations and action items that came out of our first meeting in Aiken in December 2023.
The partnership between EFCOG (DOE contractors), ECA (DOE host communities), the Department, educators from around the sites, and the workforce grows stronger through these meetings. From that ECA Board meeting in Phoenix and follow-on sessions at the Cleanup Workshops, there is now clear recognition that when we work together, we are better able to identify key issues and improve the approach to workforce development. We have moved from “we cannot take action here” to “how can we collaborate to make the site work better for our workforce?” – a real breakthrough.
This evening ECA is also hosting the welcome reception in the Tri-Cities to kick off our third annual New Nuclear Forum: Building Nuclear Partnerships and Projects.