Ken Rueter is UCOR’s President and Project Manager, overseeing cleanup of the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, now called East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), and other sites on the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Reservation. As part of the $2.6 billion project, Ken also oversees management of the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (the Reservation waste repository) and surveillance and maintenance of various unneeded facilities across the three major Reservation sites—ETTP, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Ken brings more than 26 years of experience in his field to the UCOR team. He has led all aspects of site cleanup/remediation, radioactive waste treatment, and project integration, including project, construction, interface, and risk management as well as cost and schedule development.
Previously, Ken served as President of Savannah River Remediation LLC and as Project Manager for the Savannah River Liquid Waste Project. Prior to that, he
served as UCOR's Chief Operating Officer. At Savannah River Remediation LLC, Ken led a $3 billion high-level waste treatment and tank closure project. He oversaw a complex, integrated set of radioactive liquid waste facilities that remove high-level waste from the Savannah River Site’s large waste tanks, turning the waste into a safe, immobile glass form in the Defense Waste Processing Facility. In addition, he oversaw other areas, including salt waste processing, removing low-level radioactive materials from the tanks, and safely demonstrating and proving new technologies.
Ken worked as Chief Operating Officer for the Hanford Tank Operations Contract (TOC) from June 2010 to May 2011. He was responsible for the day-to-day
operations of the project, which was valued at more than $600M per year with more than 1,500 personnel. These operations involved facility operations, business management, and capital and non-capital project execution under DOE Order 413.3.
Ken also served as the Director of Project Integration for Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford Site
in Washington. He managed an annual budget of $40 million and a team over 300 personnel. He also ensured standardization in project management and controls, interface management, Earned Value Management project engineering, and construction and commissioning approach, definition, and control.
Also at TOC, Ken led the deployment of the URS Execution with Certainty project operational approach application to a federal project. This deployment entailed application of contract, business, project, and performance assurance methods and techniques. He was also responsible for overall operations and execution of $360M in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) project and work scope. He received recognition that the ARRA project executed for the Office of River Protection was one of the best in the DOE complex.