Employees at the Nevada National Security Site were awarded the highest internal honors.
Over 100 NNSS employees were selected to receive the Secretary of Energy’s Honor Award, which is one of the highest honors an employee can receive within the DOE, according to a release from NNSS.
Within the scope of the awards, DOE-wide, for accomplishments from 2019, 32 Honor Awards are being given. Under the Honor Awards includes 24 teams receiving the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award, six individuals receiving the Secretary of Energy Excellence Award and two individuals receiving the James R. Schlesinger Award.
For 2020, an Honor Award category was added to recognize accomplishments of DOE employees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, 10 Honor Awards are being given based on actions during the first half of 2020. Nine teams will receive the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award and one individual will receive the Secretary of Energy Excellence Award.
Teams at NNSS receiving the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award fall into multiple categories: 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,” a release from NNSS states.
Due to COVID-19 guidelines, there is currently not an awards ceremony scheduled.