Public/private partnerships subject of TVC Summit

Press Release

The Tennessee Valley Corridor features a number of private industries that exhibit leadership in science, national security, space, environmental clean up and advanced manufacturing, a lot of things that require partnerships with the public sector.

That was the subject of the final day of the TVC's national summit, held at Tennessee Technological University.

"These are challenging times nationally and internationally," Tennessee's Third District Congressman Chuck Fleischmann said. "And it's because of that we need to have regional cooperation."

A few of the high tech industries highlighted during the final day include the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bechtel Nuclear, Security and Environmental, UCOR, and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Tom Rogers, director of industrial partnerships and economic development with ORNL, spoke about the projects the lab is involved in, including the development of the second neutron science and imaging target station, which costs $1 billion over the next five years, and the development of high performance computing.

"We're leveraging our research and development for economic development," he said. "We are looking at the geographic concentrations of interconnected companies in a certain field."

John Howanitz, senior vice president of Bechtel Nuclear, Security and Environmental, spoke about the different projects that company is involved in -- domestically and internationally.

"The company began more than 117 years ago and is still family owned and operated," he said.

As the largest engineering, construction and project management company in the country, the company has four business units: infrastructure, nuclear; defense and security; oil, gas and chemicals; and mining and metals. Howanitz spoke on the nuclear, security and environmental aspect of the company.

"This area consists of nuclear power, government security, cleanup and naval nuclear propulsion work," Howanitz said. "We're going to be taking over the operations of Arnold Air Force Base as of July 1."

The company also oversees the Y-12 National Security Complex and recently completed construction on Watts Bar Unit 2, which was stopped 30 years ago.

Ken Rueter, president and project manager of UCOR, spoke about the cleanup of East Tennessee Technology Park, the former Oak Ridge K-25 site.

"The goal of this cleanup is to turn the property into a private sector industrial park," Rueter said.

"The $2.6 billion cleanup effort has many phases, including deactivation and demolition, waste disposition, environmental remediation, surveillance and maintenance, facility design and construction, reindustrialization and historic preservation."

To summarize the scope of the cleanup, he said that the property entails 100 acres and 6.5 million square feet of facility.

Attendees also heard from Dr. Andy White, director of the University of Tennessee's Aerospace and Defense Business Institute, and Jon Breed, manager, state and federal advocacy of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

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