RICHLAND — Brad Brannan had to stop answering his cell phone after Washington River Protection Solutions announced this spring it would train and hire health physics technicians to work at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
A combination of the promise of pay starting about $20 an hour, good benefits and 26 weeks of paid training for the jobs had Hanford workers with access to his cell number jockeying to recommend people for the jobs.
Brannan, a radiological control manager for Washington River Protection Solutions, and other managers, received more than 500 applications. They interviewed nearly 100 people and picked 30 to train.
They are just a fraction of the 400 new Hanford workers selected in the first round of hiring with $1.96 billion in federal economic stimulus money expected to be spent by the Department of Energy to retain or hire about 4,000 employees at Hanford.
The majority of the new hires will be doing decontamination and demolition work for CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. As “D&D workers,” they’ll be paid a starting wage of about $17 an hour and receive five weeks of paid training. The minimum education for the job is a high school or general equivalency diploma.
“I probably should have been out here a long time ago,” said Chris Nelson, 35, of Kennewick, a new D&D worker.
He’d been looking for work after being laid off earlier this year from an automotive sales job. Landing a job with medical, dental and vision insurance for his two sons was “huge,” he said.
He’s worked some construction, has been a volunteer firefighter and has two years of technical college, so he’s comfortable with the work he’ll be doing at Hanford.
“It was fun,” he said after coming out of a dark, cramped smoke-filled building with alarms blaring at the HAMMER training center in an exercise meant to gauge new employees’ ability to cope with claustrophobia.
But the most interesting training has been learning about hazardous materials, he said.
Many of the jobs opening up at Hanford are inherently hazardous because of the nature of the work — cleaning up chemical and radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
But Robert Valdez, 32, of Richland, who will be helping decontaminate and demolish facilities near Hanford’s K Reactors, said he’s impressed with the training he’s receiving “before ever setting foot on the dirt.”
That’s a change from the concrete and construction work he had been doing before hearing from his stepfather, who works for CH2M Hill, that many new jobs would be created at Hanford.
“I’ve never had benefits before,” Valdez said. “It’s better pay and a future for my kids.”
Sarah Southerland, 20, of Kennewick, was concerned about finding a job during the recession. She had been looking for work for several months after serving in the Air Force doing special operations radio communications in Japan.
A new nuclear chemical operator, she likes the Hanford culture of government structure and emphasis on safety, she said. Three uncles, an aunt and her father have worked at Hanford, and she wouldn’t mind a career at the site that sees her through retirement, she said.
There’s no guarantee of a lifelong career, however, in jobs paid for with economic stimulus money. All the money must be spent by October 2011. But many of the new hires are optimistic that the numerous baby boomer workers at Hanford nearing retirement and the decades of cleanup work remaining will give them a shot at additional years at the site.
Some new employees, like the health physics technicians hired by Washington River Protection Solutions, which operates Hanford’s tank farms, should have careers at Hanford as long as they wish. Although they are being hired with stimulus money, work at the tank farms should only increase and there will be additional job opportunities as the vitrification plant begins operating in 2019 to treat the 53 million gallons of radioactive waste now held in underground tanks.
John McCulloch, 26, of Pocatello, Idaho, quit a good job working for a semiconductor firm to take a Hanford position as a health physics technician after learning about openings from an uncle in the Tri-Cities.
“It’s a rare opportunity to get technical training,” he said. He didn’t see another way to add to his high school education now that he’s a new father.
He’ll receive 20 weeks of classroom training covering topics like algebra, structure of atoms, biological effects of radiation and instrumentation. Then he’ll receive six weeks of training on the job. As a health physics technician, he’ll help plan cleanup jobs and then be on site as work plans are carried out to help make sure each worker is protected from radiation.
Washington River Protection Solutions looked for employees who had good people skills, since they’ll have to work with staff from union craft workers to senior managers, and good math skills. The 30 who were picked for the job correctly solved impromptu math logic problems during the interview.
Joel Nunn, 19, couldn’t wait to graduate from Pasco High School last year, but found he missed learning. The 20 weeks of classroom work are a bonus in his new job, he said. It’s his first permanent job.
Since graduating, he’s been hired twice for seasonal positions with the U.S. Postal Service, but now he’s joining aunts, uncles and his mom who already work at Hanford.
Stephanie Boschert, 26, of Richland, had wanted to be a math teacher but ended up working in retail before getting laid off at the first of the year. Since then she’s found some temporary work, but getting hired as a health physics technician gives her the steady work she craves after being laid off and allows her to use her math skills.
Boschert said the health physics technician training will give her the choice of a long career at Hanford or the adventure of eventually moving to a similar job elsewhere in the nation or overseas.
Health physics technicians are in such high demand across the nation that Washington River Protection Solutions decided to train its own workers rather than trying to recruit workers with the necessary education, Brannan said.
“This gives 30 people a career,” he said. “They’re homegrown talent.”
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