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Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects (2007)

Chapter: A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant

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Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
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A
Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Joseph P. Colaco (Chair) is president of CBM Engineering, Inc., a structural engineering consulting firm. Since 1975, he has served as the principal in charge of many tall buildings and other major construction projects including the Texas Commerce Tower, Houston, Texas; Two Prudential Plaza, Chicago, Illinois; Lake Robbins Bridge, The Woodlands, Texas; and the Guoman Hotel/Office building, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, among others. He is a visiting lecturer at the University of Houston School of Architecture and has also lectured at Rice University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the National Society of Professional Engineers and is a fellow in the Institute of Structural Engineers and the American Concrete Institute. Dr. Colaco holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois.


Don Jeffery (Jeff) Bostock (Vice Chair) retired from Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc., as vice president for engineering and construction with responsibility for all engineering activities within the Oak Ridge nuclear complex. He has extensive experience managing projects as a DOE contractor. He has also served as vice president of defense and manufacturing and manager of the Oak Ridge Y-12 plant, a nuclear weapons fabrication and manufacturing facility. His career at Oak Ridge included engineering and managerial positions in all of the various manufacturing, assembly, security, and program management organizations. He also served as manager of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. He was a member of the committees that produced the NRC reports Proliferation Concerns: Assessing U.S. Efforts to Help Contain Nuclear and Other Dangerous Materials and Technologies in the Former Soviet Union and Protecting Nuclear Weapons Material in Russia. Mr. Bostock has also served as a panel member for the annual NRC assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Measurement and Standards Laboratories. He was also a member of the NRC Committee on Oversight and Assessment of Department of Energy Project Management between 2000 and 2005. Mr. Bostock has a B.S. in industrial engineering from Pennsylvania State University and an M.S. in industrial management from the University of Tennessee. He is a graduate of the Pittsburgh Management Program for Executives.


David B. Ashley is president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Prior to taking this post in July 2006, he was the executive vice chancellor and provost and held the Shaffer-George Chair in Engineering at the University of California, Merced. Prior to joining UC Merced in July 2001, he was the dean of engineering at the Ohio State University. He has also been on the civil and environmental engineering faculties of UC Berkeley, the University of Texas, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His principal research and teaching activities are in the area of construction project planning, focusing especially on risk analysis and management of large-scale, complex projects. His work within this field has brought him recognition as a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, the Construction Management Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and an honorary doctorate from Chalmers University in Sweden. Dr. Ashley holds a B.S. and an M.S. in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in engineering economic systems and a Ph.D. in construction engineering management from Stanford University.

Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
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Allan V. Burman is president of Jefferson Solutions, a division of the Jefferson Consulting Group, a firm that provides change management services and acquisition reform training to many federal departments and agencies. He is an expert in federal acquisition, procurement, and budget reform. Dr. Burman provides strategic consulting services to private sector firms doing business with the federal government as well as to federal agencies and other government entities. He has also advised firms, congressional committees, and federal and state agencies on a variety of management and acquisition reform matters. Prior to joining the Jefferson Consulting Group, Dr. Burman had a lengthy career in the federal government, including administrator for federal procurement policy in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he testified before Congress more than 40 times on management, acquisition, and budget matters. Dr. Burman also authored the 1991 policy letter that established performance-based contracting and greater reliance, where appropriate, on fixed-price contracting, as the favored approach for contract reform. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Dr. Burman served as chief of the Air Force Branch in OMB’s National Security Division, and he was the first OMB branch chief to receive a Presidential Rank Award. Dr. Burman is a fellow and member of the board of advisors of the National Contract Management Association, a principal of the Council for Excellence in Government, a director of the Procurement Round Table, and an honorary member of the National Defense Industrial Association. He is also a contributing editor and writer for Government Executive magazine. Dr. Burman obtained a B.A. from Wesleyan University; was a Fulbright Scholar at the Institute of Political Studies, University of Bordeaux, France; and has a graduate degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the George Washington University.


Robin Dillon-Merrill is an assistant professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. She specializes in risk and decision analysis. The focus of her research is using programmatic risk analysis to improve project and operational management in complex, resource-constrained environments, which are typical of DOE projects. Dr. Dillon-Merrill’s work has been applied in the selection of a new tritium supply facility for DOE and in the assessment of options for unmanned space missions for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has coauthored papers with the nation’s leading risk and decision analysts. Dr. Dillon-Merrill received her Ph.D. in engineering risk analysis from Stanford University and her M.S. and B.S. degrees (with highest distinction) from the University of Virginia.


G. Brian Estes is the former director of construction projects, Westinghouse Hanford Company, where he directed project management functions for construction projects in support of operations and environmental cleanup of DOE’s Hanford nuclear complex. Prior to joining Westinghouse, he completed 30 years in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps, achieving the rank of rear admiral. Admiral Estes served as commander of the Pacific Division of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command and as commander of the Third Naval Construction Brigade, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He supervised more than 700 engineers, 8,000 Seabees, and 4,000 other employees in providing public works management, environmental support, family housing support, facility planning, and design and construction services. As vice commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Admiral Estes led the total quality management transformation at headquarters and two updates of the corporate strategic plan. Admiral Estes directed execution of a $2 billion military construction program and a $3 billion facilities management program while serving as deputy commander for facilities acquisition and deputy commander for public works, Naval Facilities Engineering Command. He served on the committee that produced the recent NRC report Improving Project Management in the Department of Energy, and has served on a number of other NRC committees. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Maine and an M.S. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois, and he is a registered professional engineer in Illinois and Virginia.


William A. Fife is corporate vice president and leader of DMJM Harris’s aviation practice. He has 30 years of experience in the management of large construction projects, gained primarily in the Aviation

Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
×

Project Management and Technical Service Division of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As general manager of that division, Mr. Fife was responsible for all project management, planning, technical, and support services related to the Aviation Department’s capital and operating programs. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers–Air Transport Division, a U.S. representative for the Airports Council International, and a member of the American Association of Airport Executives. Mr. Fife is a co-chair of the Airport Peer Review Group for airports in the United States and Canada, including Boston, Washington, D.C. (Reagan National, Dulles), Miami, Toronto, Montreal, Las Vegas, and others. He has been a guest lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of California, Berkeley; Manhattan College; Columbia University; and other colleges and universities. Mr. Fife holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Manhattan College, an M.S. in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of New York, and an M.P.A. from Long Island University.


Chris T. Hendrickson is the Duquesne Light Company Professor of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. His research, teaching, and consulting are in the general area of engineering planning and management, including design for the environment, system performance, project management, finance, and computer applications. He has coauthored two textbooks, Project Management for Construction and Transportation Investment and Pricing Principles and two monographs, “Knowledge Based Process Planning for Construction and Manufacturing” and “Concurrent Computer Integrated Building Design.” Dr. Hendrickson is editor of the Journal of Transportation Engineering. He has been a recipient of the Fenves Systems Research Award (2002), AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellowships (2000-2002), a Lucent/NSF Industrial Ecology Fellowship (1998), the ASCE Frank M. Masters Transportation Engineering Award (1994), the Outstanding Professor of the Year Award of the ASCE Pittsburgh Section (1990), the ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Award (1989), the Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1987), and a Rhodes scholarship (1973). Dr. Hendrickson holds a B.S. and an M.S. from Stanford University, an M.Phil. in economics from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Linda K. Nozick is a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, where she also serves as a director of graduate studies for systems engineering. Prior to her teaching at Cornell, she was a visiting professor in operations research at both the Naval Postgraduate School and General Motors Global Research and Development. She is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and the CAREER Award from NSF. She has published extensively on issues in transportation, optimization, and decision making under uncertainty. Dr. Nozick was a member of the NRC Committee on Renewal of Department of Energy Infrastructure. She is a member of numerous professional organizations dealing with operations research and transportation research. Dr. Nozick has a B.S. in systems analysis and engineering from George Washington University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.


Gary H. Sanders is project manager for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at the California Institute of Technology. Prior to assuming management of the TMT, he managed construction of the Laser-Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory at Caltech. He served as an experimental high-energy physicist and program manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory and has been involved in high-energy physics at other national and European laboratories. Dr. Sanders is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Scott B. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Security Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Prior to taking up this post in October 2006, he was the chief executive officer for Western Research Institute, a scientific and technical organization specializing in energy, environmental, and highway materials research for clients in government, business, and industry. He had been at WRI since

Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
×

February 1999. He served in the U.S. Army, retiring in 1989 as a major general and having completed tours of duty as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, commanding general of the Europe Engineer Division (Frankfurt, Germany), commanding general of the North Central Engineer Division (Chicago), assistant commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division (Fort Ord, California), commander of the Huntington Engineer District (West Virginia), and commander of an engineer battalion in the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. Immediately upon his retirement from the Army, General Smith directed the environmental, health, and safety program for the Coors Brewing Company. He holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy, an M.S. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois, and an M.P.A. from Pennsylvania State University

CONSULTANT

Lloyd A. Duscha retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1990 as the highest-ranking civilian, serving as deputy director, Engineering and Construction Directorate, at headquarters. Prior to that, he served in numerous Corps of Engineers executive management positions involving design and construction of civil works and military projects. After retirement, Mr. Duscha was an engineering and management consultant to various private sector clients, national and foreign government agencies, and the World Bank. He was principal investigator for the NRC report Assessing the Need for Independent Project Review in the Department of Energy, was a member of the committee that produced the NRC report Improving Project Management in the Department of Energy, and served on the succeeding committees on oversight and assessment of DOE project management. He has served on numerous other NRC committees for the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment, as well as for the Naval Studies Board and the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. Currently, he serves on a National Academy of Public Administration panel reviewing the organization and management of the Environmental Management Program at DOE. He also served on the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment and was vice chair for the U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology. Other positions held were president, U.S. Committee on Large Dams; chair, Committee on Dam Safety, International Commission on Large Dams; executive committee, Construction Industry Institute; and the board of directors, Research and Management Foundation of the American Consulting Engineers Council. He is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Society of American Military Engineers. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota, which awarded him the Board of Regents Outstanding Achievement Award. Mr. Duscha is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
×
Page 35
Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
×
Page 36
Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
×
Page 37
Suggested Citation:"A Biographies of Committee Members and Consultant." National Research Council. 2007. Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U.S. Department of Energy Projects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11887.
×
Page 38
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Peer review is an essential component of engineering practice and other scientific and technical undertakings. Peer reviews are conducted to ensure that activities are technically adequate, competently performed, and properly documented; to validate assumptions, calculations, and extrapolations; and to assess alternative interpretations, methodologies, acceptance criteria, and other aspects of the work products and the documentation that support them. Effective peer reviews are conducted in an environment of mutual respect, recognizing the contributions of all participants. Their primary objective is to help the project team achieve its goals. Reviews also contribute to quality assurance, risk management, and overall improvement of the management process.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conducts different types of peer reviews at the different stages of a project, including reviews to assess risks and other factors related to design, safety, cost estimates, value engineering, and project management. Independent project reviews (IPRs) are conducted by federal staff not directly affiliated with the project or program and management and operations (M&O) contractors. External independent reviews (EIRs) are overseen by the Office of Engineering and Construction Management and conducted by contractors external to the department. EIRs are the primary focus of this report. However, the committee found that, in many cases, IPRs are explicitly used as preparation for or as preliminary reviews prior to EIRs. Thus, because IPRs are integral to the review process in DOE, they are also discussed because they might have an effect on EIRs.

In October 2000, DOE issued Order 413.3, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets (DOE, 2000). The order established a series of five critical decisions (CDs), or major milestones, that require senior management review and approval to ensure that a project satisfies applicable mission, design, security, and safety requirements: approve mission need, approve alternative selection and cost range, approve performance baseline, approve start of construction, and approve start of operations or project closeout.

Assessment of the Results of External Independent Reviews for U. S. Department of Energy Projects summarizes the results.

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