New INEEL manager ready for rough ride

The new manager of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory is committed to using the site’s new responsibility for nuclear energy research to create a bigger and better INEEL.

Associated Press The Spokesman Review

"I won’t take no for an answer," said Beth Sellers, who took over as the government’s on-site manager this summer. "We are going to make something of this lab and the future."

But the chemical engineer and 20-year Energy Department veteran made no guarantees that the path to the future will be smooth.

"Tough decisions will be made along the way and some people won’t be happy," Sellers said. "But if you make people happy all the time, you don’t make any progress."

Sellers, 50, moved to INEEL from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s office in Kansas City, Mo. She replaced Beverly Cook, who left the job two years ago for an Energy Department position in Washington, D.C.

Her priorities remain cleaning up the decades of nuclear waste in eastern Idaho and coming up with management contracts that will jump-start the INEEL’s work as the nation’s leading nuclear power research facility. She intends to champion INEEL’s national security work while pushing for a national energy policy that encourages further development of nuclear power.

She is in charge of a facility that has been ineffective on some past missions, struggled to get enough operating money from Congress and fought off attempts to shut it down.

Even now, efforts by the state’s congressional delegation to secure cash for planning in a new generation of nuclear-powered reactors have been inconclusive despite the formal designation of INEEL as the government’s lead nuclear power research institution more than a year ago.

But Billy Shipp, the retiring president of INEEL contractor Bechtel BWXT Idaho, said Sellers has earned a reputation for taking on challenges and delivering results.

"She’s always looking to solutions for problems and getting on with the task at hand," Shipp said.

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