Y-12 honors its inventors with Technology Transfer awards

  • Posted: Monday, June 25, 2018, 10:21 am


Y-12 recently recognized 17 inventors and three teams at their annual Tech Transfer award ceremony. The site was awarded 10 patents in the past year.

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee – Y-12 inventors were awarded honors for their innovative technology accomplishments during the recent 14th annual Technology Transfer Awards Ceremony. The site has a long history of producing technologies that are transferred to the private sector.

Ten patents were issued in fiscal year 2017 in areas ranging from detection devices to several unique material processes.

Twenty-seven inventors were recognized for bringing forward new ideas, having patents issued, and deploying innovative solutions. These employees were acknowledged for both their creativity and innovative ideas in support of the technology development and transfer mission. The new inventions developed by the honorees will be used to further Y-12’s mission work and will be made available through license to benefit the public through Y-12’s Technology Transfer program.

Y-12 patent recipients included Lee Bzorgi, John Freidrich Q. Grindstaff, Justin Holland, Vincent Lamberti, Patrick Moehlen, Jeff Preston, Ed Ripley, Greg Schaaff, and Ashley Stowe.

At the ceremony, Senior Research Specialist Jeff Preston was given the Technology Transfer Support Award, which goes to employees whose efforts go above and beyond the call of duty in contributing to technology promotion and licensing. Since 2016, Preston has been listed as the lead inventor or co-inventor for nine invention disclosures and two patent applications as well as leading six research and development projects.

Receiving the Government Use Award, which recognizes employees whose invention or copyrighted work has significant value to the U.S. Department of Energy or other government agencies, was the Enterprise Logistics Management System (ELMS) team. The team, composed of employees from Y-12 and its sister site Pantex, developed an innovative solution to container issues that were causing disruptions to the NNSA Supply Chain. ELMS not only has saved NNSA money by eliminating several types of waste, but the program has lead the National Nuclear Security Administration to establish CNS as a center of excellence for logistics management with the program being deployed at several other NNSA sites.

ELMS team members include Jonathan Bolz, Peggy Dyer, Terry Holeman, Vince Howard, Brian Knight, Jack Lewis, Jim McClanahan, Bryan Miller, Kent Nix, Karon Overlin, Jim Plemmons, and Tim Schwartz.

The eDC/RO team also received the Government Use Award for their role in developing and deploying a web-based document management and routing system that allows for efficient and secure classification reviews. By automating the review request and status tracking for documents, the team has enabled improved efficiency, reduced time to request and manage reviews, enhanced audit capabilities and decreased security concerns. The success of the system has led to the deployment of it at other Department of Energy and NNSA sites and is being evaluated to possibly be the standard for all DOE sites.
Team members include John Barton, Casey Guinan, Joshua Harris, Kenneth Light, and Greg McDuffie.

The final Government Use Award was given to the OneCOMM team, whose interactive command-executed communication system supports security operations by allowing security officials the ability to quickly provide information and commands to either a large or precise group of personnel, provide the ability to deploy pre-determined commands and custom messaging, and be used as an enhanced secondary form of communication. OneCOMM currently is currently being used in Y-12’s emergency management information system with an eye toward use in both government and commercial applications.

Team members include Brian Teague, Ben Venable, and Richard Wright.

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