Y-12 Blog

Posted: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - 8:06am

In recognition of working 30 days without a recordable injury at Y-12, the Site Manager’s Safety Council’s Safety Challenge for Charity donated $500 to extend community relief from COVID-19, in partnership with the East Tennessee Foundation’s Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund. Inspired by the act, ETF’s employees also came together to match Y-12’s donation.

Chosen by Y-12 Site Manager Bill Tindal, donating to ETF means broadening our support to represent the East Tennessee community.

“It’s important that we were able to select an organization that means a lot to our community and employees during this time,” Tindal said.

By serving on a grant based request basis, Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund’s program has been able to assess and target community needs throughout our 25 county region during the pandemic. From food, shelter, to utilities, the fund has supplied timely contributions to area non profits providing essential emergency services to affected community members.

“In times of crisis, it is especially crucial that our communities come together in support of our area,” said ETF President and CEO Michael McClamroch. “We are thankful for the support of Y-12’s Safety Challenge. The populations we serve are in desperate need of relief, and we are ready to get to work.”

While safety is one of the top priorities, the opportunity to provide for our community in crisis has the power to encourage maintaining safety precautions, and continue supporting those who need protection more than ever before.

“We hope that by doing this, it keeps people mindful to stay safe every day,” said Atomic Trades and Labor Council president Mike Thompson.

ETF President and CEO Michael McClamroch (third from left) receives a $500 donation through Y-12’s Safety Challenge
East Tennessee Foundation President and CEO Michael McClamroch (third from left) receives a $500 donation through Y-12’s Safety Challenge.

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Posted: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 - 8:40am
Gary Sanders, Vice President of Mission Engineering

Mission Engineering is led by Gary Sanders, who has a wealth of experience within the nuclear weapons complex.

Gary Sanders has led a unique and distinguished career, including stops at the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters, where he interacted with top defense brass and foreign nuclear agencies. However, as a child, he aimed higher.

“I always wanted to be an Air Force pilot,” Sanders recalled, “but they wouldn’t let me fly because of my vision.” Instead, he pursued a new path — nuclear engineering and reactor design.

“I never could have predicted all the opportunities I have had,” said Sanders, whose opt in attitude has kept him on the go. An engineering internship at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory led to graduate school and Sandia National Laboratories, where he helped design the nuclear weapons that Pantex and Y-12 maintain and refurbish today. Fewer than 12 years after starting his career, Sanders had his first special assignment in Washington, D.C., which eventually resulted in multiple assignments with the Air Force.

“I still didn’t get to fly their planes, but I did get to improve the safety features of their nuclear weapons.”

Before joining CNS, Sanders and his wife thoroughly enjoyed two years of retirement. “We’d alternate between visiting mountains and beaches,” he recalled, noting that outside of work he likes to scuba dive and hike. “I also volunteered at the aquarium and really enjoyed raising multiple litters of puppies for the local animal shelter,” Sanders said.

Why are you mission success, and how was it proven during the sites’ reduced, mission critical operations?
Mission Engineering enables Pantex and Y-12 Operations. Production equipment must work, project teams need to be able to do their updates, nuclear safety has to be in place, and so much more. The sites literally cannot do their mission without us, and we are useless if they can’t use what we design and build.

During the reduced, mission critical status, the importance of Mission Engineering was proven yet again: Approximately 80% of the Pantex work to build and surveil weapons continued, and we had teams set up to help with their Safety Basis, tools and procedures. Virtually all of the Development work continued as mission essential, including work on purifying uranium, melting binary, performing readiness assessments of lithium technology, and much more. All Engineering support for the Uranium Processing Facility continued across multiple shifts, and most project engineering support continued, including using computer-aided design to perform designs from home.

How did your opinion of your work environment change as CNS sites were placed in reduced, mission critical status? What is your favorite aspect about your work environment?
The flexibility to perform a large degree of engineering design work remotely has been eye opening and only made possible by the heroic support of Information Solutions and Services. I believe teleworking will permanently change some of how we do business in the future to accommodate family dynamics.

As for my favorite aspect, hands down, it is not having to wear a suit and tie. I wore both for years in Washington, D.C., while working at the Pentagon. I brought only one suit with me when I moved to Tennessee.

As an employee, what do you want to be remembered for?
I can think of two things. First, asking two important questions: Why are we doing it this way, and can we do it better? And second, for reinforcing educational standards for Pantex and Y-12 Engineering positions. An engineering degree denotes a level of technical rigor that must be in place for certain aspects of our work.

What work advice would you offer someone who is new to Pantex and Y-12?
Be open to experiences and challenges — they will both come, and both provide opportunities. Also, visit or transfer between the sites. It’s important to understand the people and challenges at both locations.

What one thing would your coworkers be surprised to know about you?
I was not raised in the United States. My father worked for U.S. Steel, which took us to Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, where I grew up.

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Posted: Monday, June 22, 2020 - 4:13pm
Jim Zonar of Y-12 Development shares his experience as a TOPGUN pilot.

Jim Zonar of Y-12 Development shares his experience as a TOPGUN pilot.

It was admittedly the best six weeks of his life and nothing like what Hollywood depicts. For Y-12 Development senior operations lead Jim Zonar being accepted and attending TOPGUN, formally the United States Navy’s Fighters Weapons School, was better than the movie.

As a motivated young adult growing up in Ohio, Zonar hoped that he would follow his familial legacy. His father, who flew P-40 Warhawks, served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He inspired Zonar to do the same one day. In sharing his love for the sky with him at a young age, he and his father attended the Cleveland Air Show every year. Fascinated by the sounds and sights of the jets, Zonar witnessed his dream of becoming a fighter pilot.

“If a jet is flying overhead, I will always look up,” he said. “If it’s a military jet, I am still wowed.”

Following a Navy ROTC scholarship to Ohio State University in 1973, he began his path toward the military. It only took six weeks while on a Navy frigate, between his freshman and sophomore year, to realize he didn’t want to make his home at sea post graduation.

It’s often said that when one door closes, another one opens. In changing direction, Zonar was recruited into the U.S. Marine Corps along with a one way ticket for the opportunity to achieve his dream — a guaranteed seat at Navy Flight School to train to become a pilot.

Jim Zonar, December 1982, in the cockpit of a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet fighter.

Jim Zonar, December 1982, in the cockpit of a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet fighter

“It was one of my best decisions ever,” he said.

Along with talent, determination, and 1,000 hours of safe flying, Zonar turned his vision into reality by serving in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1977 to 1983 as an F-4 Phantom II pilot. With deployments ranging from Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, Zonar has flown around the world and nation to protect the homeland.

Today, after six and a half years of military service, Zonar remains serving the nation. As a Y-12 employee and devoted community member, Zonar has used his experiences to extend opportunities for other young men and women.

“I feel privileged to have worked with him on the Workforce Development Committee for the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce. While serving in an advisory relationship with the Chamber, he played a vital role in bringing the Dream it. Do it platform to students and gives them opportunities to visit local industries and learn about careers related to manufacturing and technology,” said CNS Education and Outreach Specialist Kristin Waldschlager. “He is a true legend with a heart of gold.”

Although he admits, “I’d jump back into the cockpit in a heartbeat,” Zonar continues to pursue excellence for the nation on and off of the ground. With a patriotic spirit, his proudly lit American Flag flies at his home day and night, symbolizing the freedom that he fought and flew for.

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Posted: Monday, June 22, 2020 - 3:55pm
Cary Langham in his Y-12 office

Cary Langham in his Y-12 office

The United States flag that spans the wall of Cary Langham’s office has a singular purpose: to remind him of his responsibilities as a patriot.

“This is more than a job,” said Langham, who is Y-12’s director of Cost Savings Reinvestment. “This is my duty to the nation, and the flag is a reminder of that.

“Every day I come to work, I come knowing that I must do my part, give my best, to deliver Y-12’s mission because if Y-12 didn’t exist, I feel sure we’d live in an entirely different world,” he said.

Langham always knew he wanted to have a career serving the nation, and, before college, he thought he might join the military.

“My father George and uncles Marvin, Fred, and John were drafted back in the 1940s and ’50s,” he said. “In those days, they didn’t have a choice, but my parents told me that education was going to be the key to my success, and they were right. I chose to go to Tuskegee University, hired on here at Y-12, and haven’t looked back.”

Working at Y-12 is the only job Langham’s ever had. It’s the only job he’s ever wanted. After graduating from Tuskegee with a degree in mechanical engineering, he hired on as a project controls engineer, tracking project costs and schedules. That was 17 years ago.

Since then, he’s held positions as a process engineer for casting operations, functional manager of engineering staff, and liaison to the United Kingdom under the 1958 U.S. U.K. Mutual Defense Agreement, where he facilitated technical exchanges of defense information to identify process improvements and new manufacturing technologies.

In his current role, Langham oversees site infrastructure improvement projects funded through cost savings. Refurbishing offices; repaving roads and sidewalks; restoring heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems; and upgrading emergency response equipment encourages all employees to take pride in their 75 year old site, he said.

“I like knowing I’m helping improve the everyday quality of life for people on site,” he said. “It’s true that when employees take pride in where they work and what they do, they want to do a good job. Striving for personal excellence becomes a natural follow on.

“I love working at Y-12, and I believe in our mission,” he added. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

Cary Langham is Y-12’s director of Cost Savings Reinvestment

Cary Langham is Y-12’s director of Cost Savings Reinvestment. In this role, he works to improve site infrastructure and quality of life for employees.

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Posted: Monday, June 22, 2020 - 3:33pm
Jeff Yarbrough, Y-12 deputy site manager

Jeff Yarbrough, Y-12 deputy site manager

Jeff Yarbrough’s expertise is rooted in ensuring the safety of our nation’s nuclear security. As Y-12 deputy site manager, it is his responsibility to provide an independent perspective in order to keep the site safe and secure from threats or abnormal conditions, including COVID-19.

Along with an integrated team, Yarbrough has served as an essential leader, after joining Y-12 only five months ago, to guarantee operations are transitioning safely and smoothly throughout the pandemic.

“The fact that we continued several mission-critical activities with a significantly reduced on site workforce and were the first site in NNSA to get a recovery plan approved are testaments to that hard work,” he said.

Before moving to East Tennessee, Yarbrough spent 29 years at Pantex where he held diverse leadership roles, implemented a new management organizational structure, and managed a portfolio of programs and projects.

“In the work that we do at Pantex and Y-12, you have to set and follow high standards,” Yarbrough said.

Over the course of his career, Yarbrough has served as a leading proponent of safety performance for the enterprise. While he was a division manager in the engineering and design division at Pantex, he played a key role in the design and implementation of a nuclear weapons process re-engineering and safety basis initiative. This initiative involved several new approaches to how nuclear assembly and disassembly work was engineered, analyzed, authorized, and performed.

“I think you have to have a vision and plan where you want change to take you,” he said. “It’s important to have a process or set of tools that you trust to help you get to that vision.”

“The recipe for success can simply be boiled down to putting the right leadership team in place, developing partnerships with internal and external stakeholders, providing the tools, and empowering the workforce to improve processes,” he said.

What does mission success mean to you, and how was it proven during the sites’ reduced mission-critical operations?

Mission success in a pandemic is new territory for all of us. You quickly realize the principles relied on for mission success, in normal times, are more important than ever in difficult and uncertain times. It was proven by a great team effort that developed and executed CNS’s pandemic prevention and recovery plans to protect our employees and ensure processes, systems, and critical plant infrastructure were maintained and available.

How did your opinion of your work environment change as CNS sites were placed in reduced mission-critical status?

Since I’ve been on site most of the time, I didn’t have to significantly change my routine like those who are teleworking, as I teleworked for only a few days during the reduced mission-critical status. For almost all of my career, face-to-face communication was the way work was accomplished, so this has been a big adjustment. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the excellent transition to teleworking across the sites. This is a tribute to the quick technology infusion and innovation by our Information Solutions and Services teammates. I do look forward to the day when everyone returns to the site.

Are you doing what you envisioned as a young adult? If so, describe how you got here.

I grew up in a petro-chemical community. My family worked in the oil and gas industry in Texas, and I always envisioned a career in that field. However, the industry wasn’t hiring engineers after I completed my bachelor’s degree. It was a combination of circumstance and a better engineering opportunity that led me there, and I loved my time at Pantex.

Which CNS principle drives you to be successful?

Verbatim compliance is important because it ties together safety and taking care of employees. While the sites are here to support the nuclear security of the country, if we don’t support safety and compliance, then we are not successful.

What’s your top bucket list item and why?

I am an avid golfer. One day, I would love to play golf in Scotland at St. Andrews (or play at any course in Scotland!).

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