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. 97-100 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Tuesday, July 1, 1997)

DR. B. JOHN GARRICK ELECTED ACNW CHAIRMAN

DR. GEORGE M. HORNBERGER, VICE-CHAIRMAN

Dr. B. John Garrick has been elected Chairman, and Dr.

George M. Hornberger, Vice-Chairman, of the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW).

The ACNW is a part-time advisory group established by the

NRC in 1988 to provide independent technical review and advice on

the disposal of nuclear waste, including all aspects of nuclear

waste disposal facilities, as directed by the Commission. This

advice covers activities related to licensing, operation, and

closure of high-level and low-level radioactive waste disposal

facilities and associated rulemakings, regulatory guides, and NRC

staff technical positions. The ACNW also reviews performance

assessment evaluations of waste disposal facilities.

Dr. Garrick was appointed to the ACNW on March 6, 1994. He

was born in Eureka, Utah. He received his B.S. in physics from

Brigham Young University in 1951, and received his M.S. in

engineering and Ph.D. in engineering and applied science from the

University of California in 1962 and 1968, respectively. In 1954

he was selected via national competition to attend the

prestigious United States Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge

School of Reactor Technology to do graduate work in nuclear

science and technology.

Dr. Garrick retired as President and Chief Executive Officer

of PLG, Inc. an international engineering, applied science, and

management consulting firm. He continues as a member of the

Board of Directors and advisor to the firm. A physicist and

engineer, he has pioneered risk assessment methods in many fields

including nuclear energy, space and defense, and chemical,

petroleum, and transportation.

His accomplishments include Ph.D. thesis on unified systems

safety analysis that first advocated what is now known as

probabilistic risk assessment (PRA); the building of the first

consulting team to perform the initial comprehensive and
quantitative risk assessments for the commercial nuclear power

industry; major contributions to the analytical methods and

thought processes employed in PRA; and being a prime mover in

elevating risk assessment to a science and engineering discipline

that has had a major impact on management culture and the

performance of large, complex engineered systems.

Among Dr. Garrick's honors are: election to the National

Academy of Engineering in 1993, President of the Society for Risk

Analysis 1989-90, recipient of that Society's most prestigious

award, the Distinguished Achievement Award in 1994, and,

currently, Vice Chairman of the National Research Council's Board

on Radioactive Waste Management. He is a Fellow of three

professional societies: The American Nuclear Society, the

Institute for the Advancement of Engineering, and the Society for

Risk Analysis.

Dr. Hornberger was appointed to the ACNW on September 23,

1996. He was born in Ashland, Pennsylvania. He received his

B.S. degree in 1965 and his M.S. degree in 1967 from Drexel

University. In 1970, he was awarded a Ph.D. in hydrology from

Stanford University.

Dr. Hornberger is the Ernest H. Ern Professor of

Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, whose

faculty he joined in 1970. His current research interests

include work involving catchment hydrology and hydrochemistry and

the transport of colloids in geological media. He has also

served as a visiting professor at Stanford and the United States

Geological Survey (USGS). He currently serves as Chairman of the

Commission on Environment, Geosciences, and Resources for the

National Research Council.

A member of the Geological Society of America and the

American Geophysical Union (AGU), Dr. Hornberger won the Robert

E. Horton Award (Hydrology Section) from the AGU in 1993. He was

elected as a Fellow of the AGU in 1994 and the American Women in

Science in 1996. In 1995, he received the John Wesley Powell

Award from the USGS, and was elected to membership in the

National Academy of Engineering in 1996.

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