United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs

Washington, DC 20555

Phone 301-415-8200 Fax 301-415-2234

Internet:opa@nrc.gov

No. 96-172 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Monday, December 2, 1996)

NRC ANNOUNCES MAJOR REORGANIZATION

The U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has announced

a reorganization of functions to improve the agency's ability to

perform its mission of protecting public health and safety.

At the same time, the Commission also has named several new

senior staff managers.

NRC Chairman Shirley Ann Jackson ˇ joined by Commissioners

Kenneth C. Rogers, Greta J. Dicus, Nils J. Diaz and Edward

McGaffigan Jr. ˇ announced the changes today. The new

organization will take effect on January 5.

In an address to the staff today, Chairman Jackson said the

Commission undertook this reorganization after carefully

evaluating the present NRC staff structure and after gaining

insights from various self-assessments conducted during the past

year. She said the Commission believes the new structure will

form the basis for implementing decisions arising from the

agency's strategic assessment and rebaselining initiative.

Chairman Jackson also announced the forthcoming retirement

in January of James M. Taylor, the present Executive Director for

Operations; James L. Milhoan, Deputy Executive Director for

Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Regional Operations and Research; and

Stewart D. Ebneter, Regional Administrator, NRC Region II.

Named to succeed Mr. Taylor is Leonard J. (Joe) Callan, who

has been administrator of NRC's Region IV for nearly three years

and who has more than 16 years' service with the NRC in both

headquarters and regional assignments.

Under the new organization, the Executive Director for

Operations (EDO), the chief staff official, will continue to

report directly to the Chairman and will have three, rather than

two, deputies. Also reporting to the Chairman will be the

agency's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the Chief Information

Officer (CIO), both new positions. (At present, the EDO is also

the Chief Financial Officer.) The EDO, the Chief Financial

Officer, and the Chief Information Officer will constitute an
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executive council which will establish a comprehensive agencywide foundation for accomplishing the agency's overall mission.

Named to the new deputy EDO positions are:

 Hugh L. Thompson Jr., Deputy Executive Director for

Regulatory Programs. Reporting to Mr. Thompson will be

the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation; Office of

Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards; the Regional

Administrators; and the Office of State Programs. Mr.

Thompson is the current Deputy Executive Director for

Nuclear Materials Safety, Safeguards and Operations

Support.

 Edward L. Jordan, Deputy Executive Director for

Regulatory Effectiveness, Program Oversight,

Investigations and Enforcement. Reporting to Mr.

Jordan will be the Office of Nuclear Regulatory

Research; Office for Analysis and Evaluation of

Operational Data; Office of Investigations; and Office

of Enforcement. Mr. Jordan is currently Director of

the Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational

Data.

 Patricia G. Norry, Deputy Executive Director for

Management Support. Reporting to Mrs. Norry will be

the Office of Administration, Office of Personnel, and

the Office of Small Business and Civil Rights. Mrs.

Norry now heads the Office of Administration.

The Chief Financial Officer will be responsible for the

agency-wide financial operations and planning, including the

Office of the Controller, while the Chief Information Officer

will be responsible agency-wide for information management,

including the Office of Information Resources Management.

Appointments to the CFO and CIO positions will be announced soon.

Chairman Jackson and the Commission announced the

appointment of Samuel L. Collins as the new Director of the

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Mr. Collins, the present

Deputy Regional Administrator of NRC Region IV, will succeed

William T. Russell, who retired in September.

Successors to Mr. Callan, Mr. Jordan, Mrs. Norry, Mr.

Collins and Mr. Ebneter will be named later.

###

EDITORS: Attached are biographical sketches of the newly

appointed officials, as well as those of Mr. Taylor,

Mr. Milhoan and Mr. Ebneter.
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This announcement and attachments, as well as the text

of Chairman Jackson's statement to the NRC staff, has

been posted on the Internet at this address:

http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/newsrel/htm.

L. JOSEPH CALLAN

L. Joseph Callan is administrator of the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission's Region IV, which is headquartered in Arlington,

Texas.

He was appointed to this position in January 1994 after

spending more than six years as a senior manager in the regional

office.

After he joined NRC in 1979, he was assigned as a resident

inspector at the Arkansas Nuclear One plant near Russellville,

Arkansas, and later was named senior resident inspector there.

In 1984, he became chief of the performance appraisal section,

operating reactors program branch, in the Office of Inspection

and Enforcement in NRC headquarters. Later, he was named acting

chief of the diagnostic evaluation and incident investigation

branch in the NRC Office for Analysis and Evaluation of

Operational Data.

Mr. Callan came to Region IV in a managerial capacity in

August 1987, when he was appointed director of the Division of

Reactor Projects, which oversees NRC resident inspectors at

nuclear power plants. He later headed the region's other two

technical specialty organizations ˇ the Division of Reactor

Safety and the Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards. At

the time of his appointment as regional administrator, Mr. Callan

had been director of the latter division since October 1991.

Mr. Callan is a 1969 graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy and

completed graduate courses in nuclear engineering at North

Carolina State University in 1970. During his 10 years as a Navy

officer, he served on two submarines and was an instructor at one

of the Navy's nuclear power training sites.
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EDWARD L. JORDAN

Mr. Jordan is a graduate in physics and mathematics from

Northwestern State University of Louisiana, with graduate studies

in nuclear engineering and physics at Southern Methodist

University and Texas Christian University.

Mr. Jordan first joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1969, as

a reactor inspector in the Region III office in Chicago. Since

that time he has held positions of increasing responsibility in

inspection, enforcement, engineering, events evaluation, and

quality assurance. Mr. Jordan's earlier experience was in

reactor design, operations and testing at the General Dynamics

Nuclear Aerospace Research facility at Fort Worth, Texas.

Mr. Jordan is currently the Director of the Office for Analysis

and Evaluation of Operational Data, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory

Commission, Washington, D.C. Mr. Jordan's responsibilities

include management of the NRC prompt response to events and

incidents, analysis, and evaluation of operational experience and

safety data associated with NRC licensed activities, management

of programs for investigation of incidents, plant safety

performance, and development and implementation of appropriate

technical training for NRC staff. Mr. Jordan is the Chairman of

the NRC Committee to Review Generic Requirements.

Mr. Jordan is a member of the American Nuclear Society.
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HUGH L. THOMPSON JR.

Hugh L. Thompson Jr. since 1989 has been NRC Deputy

Executive Director for Nuclear Materials Safety, Safeguards and

Operations Support. Before his appointment to that position, he

had served for two years as director of the Office of Nuclear

Material Safety and Safeguards.

Since joining the Atomic Energy Commission, NRC's

predecessor organization, in 1972, Mr. Thompson has held a number

of progressively responsible positions on the Commission staff.

He was technical assistant to former NRC Chairman Marcus Rowden

and to former Commissioner Peter Bradford. He also held several

managerial positions in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation,

including director of the planning and program analysis staff,

director of the Division of Human Factors Safety, director of the

Division of Licensing, and acting director of the TVA projects

staff.

Before joining the Commission, Mr. Thompson was a senior

nuclear engineer with the Alabama Power Company and served as an

officer in the Navy's nuclear power program. A graduate of the

U.S. Naval Academy, he holds a master's degree in nuclear

engineering from Georgia Tech, and earned a law degree at George

Washington University. He is a member of the District of

Columbia Bar.
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PATRICIA G. NORRY

Patricia G. Norry was named Director, Office of Administration of

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in July 1982. In this

capacity she has been responsible for the provision of

centralized administrative services to the NRC in the areas of

procurement, property management, facilities support, rulemaking

support, Freedom of Information Act requests, publications

services, local public document rooms, and security.

Mrs. Norry joined the Atomic Energy Commission (NRC's

predecessor agency) as Staff Assistant to Chairman Glenn T.

Seaborg and served in positions of increasing responsibility. In

1978 she was named the Deputy Director of the NRC's Office of

Administration.

Mrs. Norry also served as a member of the NRC Three Mile Island

Special Inquiry Staff in 1979.

Mrs. Norry currently serves on the NRC's Executive Resource

Board, Executive Development Committee and the Small Agency

Council Executive Board. She has also served as Chair of the

NRC's Performance Review Board.

In 1984 and 1991, she was the recipient of the Meritorious

Service Executive award, the second highest award of the Federal

Government's Senior Executive Service.

Mrs. Norry is a graduate of Seton Hill College and of the George

Washington University Graduate Study Program in Clinical

Psychology. She also completed the National Institute of Public

Affairs One Year Fellowship for Graduate Study in Public

Administration at Stanford University.
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SAMUEL J. COLLINS

Samuel J. Collins is Deputy Regional Administrator for

Region IV of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a position to

which he was named in June 1995. In this role, he is responsible

to assist the Regional Administrator in the conduct of all

functions assigned to the region by the NRC program offices for

activities in the states of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,

California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana,

Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon,

South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. In addition

to its main office in Texas, the region has a field office in

Walnut Creek, California.

A graduate of Maine Maritime Academy, Mr. Collins first

joined NRC in 1980 as a resident inspector at the Vermont Yankee

nuclear plant near Brattleboro, Vermont. He was appointed senior

resident inspector at the Yankee Nuclear Power Station, near

Rowe, Massachusetts, in 1983.

In 1984, he was named a reactor projects section chief in

the NRC Region I office at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and

became a branch chief there in 1985. The following year, he was

detailed as the deputy director of the Region I Division of

Reactor Projects, and received the permanent appointment and was

named to the Senior Executive Service in 1987.

He was transferred to the NRC Region IV office in Arlington,

Texas, in November 1989, becoming director of the Division of

Reactor Projects. In September 1991, he was named director of

the Division of Reactor Safety, which is responsible for

engineering specialty inspections at nuclear power plants in the

Region. In February 1994, he was appointed director of the

Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards. This division

provides inspections and technical evaluation in the areas of

health physics, emergency planning, geology, hydrology, incident

response, environmental monitoring, radiological measurements,

and safeguards at licensed facilities. It also implements

materials and safeguards licensing programs.

Before beginning his NRC career, Mr. Collins spent nine

years with Tenneco Corporation at Newport News Shipbuilding

Company, working in various Navy nuclear reactor design and test

engineering posts and as a project manager.

Mr. Collins, his wife, Meg, and their son, Sean, and

daughter, Leela, live in Arlington, Texas.
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JAMES M. TAYLOR

James M. Taylor was named Executive Director for Operations

of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December

1989. The Executive Director for Operations is the chief staff

official of the NRC managing the day-to-day health and safety

mission and operations of the agency and reporting directly to

the Commission.

In June of 1991, Mr. Taylor was designated the NRC's Chief

Financial Officer with responsibility to implement the

requirements of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. He

also oversees all accounting, budgeting and other financial

management activities of the agency.

Mr. Taylor was named Deputy Executive Director for Nuclear

Reactor Regulation, Regional Operations and Research in January

1989. Since April 1987, he had served as Deputy Executive

Director for Regional Operations and Acting Deputy Executive

Director for Operations.

He joined the NRC in May 1980 and since then has served in

positions of increasing responsibility, becoming Deputy Director

of the Office of Inspection and Enforcement in October 1983 and

Director of that Office in January 1985.

In 1989 and in 1994, he received the Distinguished Senior

Executive award, the highest award of the Federal Government's

Senior Executive Service.

Immediately prior to joining the NRC staff, he served in the

Office of Naval Reactors as Associate Director of the Department

of Energy's High Speed Submarine Projects, after earlier serving

20 years as an engineering duty officer in the U.S. Navy Nuclear

Power Program.

Mr. Taylor is a 1956 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy

where he earned a Bachelor's of Science degree. In 1961, he

earned a Master of Science and Engineer's degree from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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JAMES L. MILHOAN

James L. Milhoan is NRC Deputy Executive Director for

Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Regional Operations and Research, a

position he assumed in January 1994.

Mr. Milhoan is a graduate of West Texas State University,

where he received a bachelor of science degree in mathematics.

He earned a master's degree in nuclear engineering at the

University of New Mexico.

He joined NRC's predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy

Commission, as a nuclear engineer in 1972 after service as a

naval officer aboard a Polaris submarine. Since then, he has

served in a variety of progressively responsible positions. Mr.

Milhoan was a senior nuclear engineer in the Office of Standards

Development, senior policy analyst in the Office of Policy

Evaluation, a section chief in the Office of Inspection and

Enforcement, and a branch chief in the Office of Nuclear Reactor

Regulation. He also served as technical assistant to former

Chairmen John Ahearne and Kenneth Carr.

In 1987, he was assigned to NRC Region IV in Arlington,

Texas, where he served as director of both the Division of

Reactor Safety and the Division of Reactor Projects. Later he

was named deputy regional administrator of NRC Region II in

Atlanta, and, a few years later, administrator of Region IV.
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STEWART D. EBNETER

Stewart D. Ebneter has been administrator of NRC Region II

since January 1989. The region, which has offices in Atlanta,

encompasses 10 southeastern states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin

Islands.

Mr. Ebneter joined the Atomic Energy Commission, NRC's

predecessor agency, in December 1973 as a reactor inspector in

Region II. Later, he was a non-destructive test engineer in

Region II and then was chief of the Engineering Inspection Branch

and of the Engineering Branch in Region I.

In January 1985, he was appointed director of the Region I

Division of Reactor Safety. He also served as director of the

Office of Special Projects in NRC headquarters before returning

to a senior position in Region I. At the time of his appointment

to the Region II administrator post, he was director of the

Region I Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards.

Mr. Ebneter received a bachelor of science degree in

electrical engineering from Tri-State University in 1959 and a

master's degree in business administration from Athens State

College in 1971.