Kenneth J. Rueter was named the recipient of the AIChE 2016 Management Award. He was honored with this distinguished recognition at the organization’s annual conference in San Francisco in November 2016, where he spoke to our delegates about lessons learned during his impressive career as a chemical engineer.
Ken is living testimony to the fact that chemical engineering can be a rewarding career that offers cutting edge opportunities in innovation and problem solving. His experience underscores the value of the chemical engineering profession in addressing unprecedented national technical challenges. As President and Project Manager of URS|CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR), Rueter led his company’s success in providing positive solutions for large-scale nuclear environmental cleanup, restoring once contaminated land to a clean landscape for future economic development purposes.
While most engineers win acclaim for the enduring projects they design and build, Ken’s most recent noteworthy achievements stem from what he and his company are demolishing and cleaning up. Today, across the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex, millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste are being processed. Thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and special nuclear material are being disposed. Huge quantities of contaminated soil and water are being remediated. And thousands of excess facilities are being deactivated and demolished.
In 2016, Ken and his team at UCOR completed demolition and cleanup of the gaseous diffusion facilities at the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This was a historic moment for a community that carved its place in history during World War II and the Cold War. It marked the first time in the world that all of a site’s uranium enrichment process buildings were removed anywhere, eliminating environmental hazards and paving the way for future economic development.
Photo at awards ceremony, from left to right: Mark Swientoniewski (Division Vice Chair), Nemoy Rau (Division Chair), Ken Rueter (Awardee), and Billy Bardin (M&E Technology Director, The Dow Chemical Company) representing the award sponsor.
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