For Immediate Release
Contact: Fran Smith
fran.smith@ettp.doe.gov
(865) 241-6226
Oak Ridge, Tenn., February 28, 2013 – Mark Ferri, who has led the safe, successful
deactivation and demolition (D&D) work at K-25 since URS | CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC (UCOR)
arrived in Oak Ridge in August 2011, has announced that he will retire from UCOR at the end of
February and will accept a CH2M Hill corporate opportunity in the United Kingdom.
Ferri was part of UCOR’s original, handpicked leadership team. His selection proved a wise
one, as progress under his leadership has been stellar. Workers have demolished more than 2
million square feet of the old gaseous diffusion facility and more than 15,000 loads of waste
have been shipped under the “pack as you go” philosophy that he and his counterpart, Waste
Management Manager Jeff Bradford, installed as part of the UCOR way of doing business.
Ferri came to UCOR with an impressive resume, having led successful D&D work at some of
the Department of Energy’s highest profile projects, including plutonium buildings at the Rocky
Flats Environmental Technology Park in Colorado and uranium and plutonium facilities at the
Savannah River Site in South Carolina. His career also includes work in the commercial sector,
having led deactivation and demolition at Maine Yankee.
Immediately prior to coming to UCOR, Ferri spent time in England, working as the Managing
Director for CH2M Hill Nuclear Business Group and as special advisor to the UK Department of
Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
“It was my fortunate opportunity to come here and be a part of the team to get K-25 to this
point,” said Ferri. “The workforce here is the most skilled, talented and dedicated I have ever
worked with. All I and the other leaders had to do was give them the tools and the
empowerment, and the results were outstanding.”
“When we arrived here, there were 27 units standing at K25 along with much of the equipment
from the West units. Now that the West equipment is gone and we are down to six units, it
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makes sense to combine them with the nine units at K27. I’ll miss the people here in Oak Ridge,
but my wife and I are looking forward to moving on to our next challenge in the United
Kingdom.”
According to UCOR President and Project Manager Leo Sain, UCOR will use this opportunity to
streamline its organization and gain efficiencies. Bradford, who formerly led Waste
Management, will now lead a new organization called D&D and Waste Management. He is also
an original member of the UCOR leadership team and has been integral in the successful, vital
integration of D&D and waste shipping thus far in the K-25 demolition process.
Steve Dahlgren, also an original member of the UCOR team, who has been leading demolition
work at K-27, Poplar Creek, and the balance of other site facilities, will now be D&D Manager.
“This will allow us to more closely integrate work at K-25 and K-27, which is important because
they are similar in type and structure and we can better transfer personnel and use lessons learned
from one to the other,” said Sain.
Lane Butler will lead the Waste Management organization on an interim basis.
In addition to deactivating and demolishing K-25 and other cleanup work, UCOR is responsible
for other specific scopes of work at ETTP, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.
