More than 100 Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) employees have been selected to receive a Secretary’s Honor Award, one of the highest honors an employee can receive within the Department of Energy (DOE).
DOE-wide, a total of 32 Honor Awards—which include the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award (24 teams), the Secretary of Energy Excellence Award (6 individuals) and the James R. Schlesinger Award (two individuals)—are being given based on accomplishments from 2019.
Additionally this year, DOE added a category of Honor Awards focused on the accomplishments of DOE employees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are 10 Honor Awards related to the COVID-19 response during the first half of 2020, which include the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award (nine teams) and the Secretary of Energy Excellence Award (one individual).
All NNSS recipients are being recognized as part of teams receiving a Secretary of Energy Achievement Award and fall within the following categories, respectively: NNSA Nuclear Security Enterprise Recruitment Team; Packaging and Shipping of Radiological Waste Assessment Team; Source Physics Experiment, Phase II, Dry Alluvium Geology Team; Seattle Response and Recovery and Cs-137 Joint Investigation Teams; and COVID-19 Facilities and People Response Team.
These teams led the success of exceeding recruiting goals and hiring over 9,300 new employees; strengthening the management of radioactive waste packaging and shipping operations; advancing the science of nuclear explosion monitoring, concluding 10 years of testing experiments and producing historical data sets; responding to and remedying a radiological emergency; and transitioning the enterprise to maximum telework to reduce the transmission of COVID-19.
To honor these individuals for their exceptional work, there is normally an award ceremony where the DOE Secretary of Energy would present the awards. In order to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines, there is currently not an award ceremony scheduled at this time.