1 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

+ + + + + 

BRIEFING ON PROJECT AIM 2020 

(Public Meeting) 

+ + + + + 

TUESDAY 

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 

+ + + + + 

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 

+ + + + + 

The Commission convened in the 

Commissioners Hearing Room at the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 

Pike, at 9:30 a.m., Stephen G. Burns, Chairman, 

presiding. 

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

STEPHEN G. BURNS, Chairman 

JEFF BARAN 

WILLIAM C. OSTENDORFF 
 2 

NRC STAFF: 

FRED BROWN, Senior Advisor, Office of the 

 Executive Director for Operations 

MIRIAM L. COHEN, Chief Human Capital Officer 

KRISTIN DAVIS, Chief, Outreach and Recruitment, 

 Operations Branch, Office of the Chief Human 

Capital Officer 

BRAD JONES, Acting General Counsel 

RICH LAUFER, Acting Secretary 

MARK A. SATORIUS, Executive Director for Operations 

MAUREEN WYLIE, Chief Financial Officer 

 
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 9:28 a.m. 

3 CHAIRMAN BURNS: So good morning, 

4 everyone. The Commission will receive a briefing 

5 today, to update the progress on the implementation of 

6 Project AIM 2020. It's an important effort for the 

7 agency. 

8 As we've said before, we're committed to 

9 right-sizing the agency and looking at making our 

10 operations effective and efficient under the -- with the 

11 resources that we have, and the Project AIM is one way 

12 we're trying to manage that change and that challenge. 

13 So we look forward this morning, hearing 

14 from the staff this morning on the progress on the 

15 implementation of Project AIM strategies, including the 

16 proposed plan for rebaselining the work of the agency 

17 and the Strategic Workforce Planning effort. 

18 We'll also hear remarks at the end of the 

19 meeting from the National Treasury Employees Union. 

20 But first, any other Commissioners like to make opening 

21 remarks? I'll turn it over, then, to Mark Satorius. 

22 MR. SATORIUS: Thank you, Chairman. Good 

23 morning Chairman and Commissioners. Staff is looking 

24 forward to this opportunity for briefing the Commission 

25 on the progress that we've made on Project AIM 2020 

26 implementation. 
 4 

1 In today's meeting -- next slide, please. 

2 In today's meeting, Maureen and I will be discussing the 

3 background and progress on implementation of the 

4 Project AIM strategies. Fred Brown will describe how 

5 we plan to conduct the rebaselining of agency 

6 activities, and Kristin Davis will provide an update on 

7 Strategic Workforce Planning, and we'll close the 

8 meeting with some next steps. 

9 Next slide, please. Just go to the next 

10 one, please. This is our first meeting with the 

11 Commission since you issued the Staff Requirements 

12 Memorandum or SRM related to Project AIM. That SRM 

13 contained direction to the staff, that we are tracking 

14 as 19 discrete tasks. 

15 All of the tasks now have project 

16 management or approaches, and we are currently actively 

17 working to complete nearly all of them. Only tasks that 

18 are sequenced by resource availability or contingent on 

19 decisions from currently ongoing tasks have not been 

20 started. 

21 We've devoted a lot of time and attention 

22 on Project AIM over the last three months, and look 

23 forward to working it hard over the next several months. 

24 All of this, of course, while assuring that we're not 

25 in any way distracting our staff from our safety and 

26 security mission. 
 5 

1 Since you issued the SRM, we have completed 

2 two tasks and three deliverables have been provided to 

3 the Commission. Those deliverables are first, the 

4 overall implementation plan. Second, an evaluation of 

5 the recommendations received from Ernst & Young, which 

6 is the last component of the overhead benchmarking task, 

7 and third, the plan for the integrated agency 

8 prioritization and rebaselining of agency activities, 

9 which is the first of three deliverables under that 

10 task. 

11 We are making great progress on a number of 

12 other tasks, two of which we will highlight later today 

13 during Fred and Kristin's presentations. Maureen and 

14 I would like to take the next ten minutes or so to provide 

15 an overview of some of the other work that's underway. 

16 Next slide, please. Managing change will 

17 likely be the greatest challenge that the NRC leadership 

18 team faces with Project AIM. We will have to cope with 

19 uncertainty in the fiscal environment, which calls for 

20 a rapid change from several of our external 

21 stakeholders. We need to accomplish today's safety and 

22 security work of the agency, develop more efficient 

23 processes for our core workload, and transition the 

24 staff to the new processes. 

25 Parts of the agency will be further along 

26 the change path than others. We will need to quickly 
 6 

1 learn lessons and apply those lessons as we move 

2 forward. Effective implementation of Project AIM will 

3 also require the agency and all of us, as individuals, 

4 to be more open to taking some risks, not with safety 

5 or security, or with the processes and procedures we 

6 have developed over time. 

7 Innovation is not born in a static 

8 environment, but in places where people can question the 

9 status quo. The NRC can be that place if we are open 

10 to change and innovating together. We also recognize 

11 that anxiety and fear of the unknown are likely to grow. 

12 It is therefore paramount that we adapt our behaviors 

13 and practices in a manner that best positions us to 

14 effectively respond to the shifting environment in 

15 which we must operate. We are asking our employees to 

16 join with us, as we seek to change what work they do and 

17 how they do it. We need their skills, creativity and 

18 trust to allow us to accomplish the regulatory work of 

19 the agency at the same time. 

20 One of our greatest strengths as an agency 

21 is our commitment to open and collaborative work 

22 environments. We should use collaboration to clear 

23 obstacles to change. The way in which leaders 

24 communicate with their employees is crucial to the 

25 success of building a desire to participate in change. 

26 The way in which a leader or a supervisor 
 7 

1 reacts to employees in response to organizational 

2 transformation can help us mitigate anxiety and fear. 

3 NRC senior leaders will ensure the success of Project 

4 AIM tasks, taking ownership of the implementation and 

5 being accountable for both change and project 

6 management. 

7 Such support has been through leadership 

8 retreats, small team engagements and other case-by-case 

9 requests for innovations. The Office of the Chief 

10 Human Capital Officer or OCHCO has and continues to 

11 provide resources that will help our senior leaders, 

12 managers, supervisors and staff level employees 

13 transition through periods of change, by providing them 

14 with the necessary tools and resources to build change 

15 capacity. 

16 As we address the challenges presented by 

17 transformational change, OCHCO will continue to offer 

18 executive leadership seminars, that help us to 

19 strengthen our ability to manage change. Accordingly, 

20 the next executive leadership seminar will focus on 

21 trust leadership, a key component to building the desire 

22 to participate in change, and to actively manage 

23 resistance to change. This seminar is scheduled to 

24 take place on September the 21st. 

25 We've provided all supervisors with a brief 

26 guide to managing change. This guide highlights 
 8 

1 effective strategies for supervisors, to deliver key 

2 messages about Project AIM to their direct reports, and 

3 highlights the key roles of a supervisor in making 

4 change successful, providing a summary of supervisory 

5 behaviors that promote or detract from change 

6 initiatives, and list training resources available at 

7 the agency, both instructional and online, in addition 

8 to reading materials on managing change and difficult 

9 conversations. 

10 In the supervisor's toolbox, which is an 

11 online resource for managers and supervisors, we have 

12 provided various tools on how managers and supervisors 

13 can facilitate difficult conversations around various 

14 topics, to include adapting to change and transitioning 

15 into new organizations. 

16 We continue to stress to employees that we 

17 are here to support them in their development, as NRC 

18 skills and staffing needs change. We need everyone to 

19 continue skill development, which helps us to enhance 

20 their technical ability as well as hone their ability 

21 to successfully lead others during periods of change. 

22 Finally, the Employee Assistance Program 

23 or EAP is a resource that can help employees navigate 

24 through uncertain times. Employees are able to 

25 schedule a visit with an EAP counselor, to seek guidance 

26 or discuss any concerns they may have related to 
 9 

1 impending changes. 

2 Next slide, please. Effective change 

3 management takes strong collaboration and 

4 communications. To keep the staff informed and 

5 involved, myself, the deputy EDOs and Project AIM staff 

6 have been speaking at all hands meetings with the staff, 

7 as well as all executives and supervisors, to discuss 

8 the need for change and the Project AIM tasks. 

9 Maureen has been involved in these 

10 discussions where possible, to provide an overview of 

11 the federal budget environment, and has presented a 

12 compelling case that NRC's budget will be under 

13 significant pressure. NTEU is partnering on selected 

14 AIM projects and tasks, and participating in meetings 

15 of the OEDO Project AIM team, to ensure open and 

16 effective communications regarding the project. 

17 Myself, along with Maureen and the deputy 

18 EDOs have met with senior agency leaders on several 

19 occasions, to establish our clear expectation for their 

20 involvement and ownership of Project AIM. While we've 

21 established a high level of direction and criteria for 

22 each of the individual Project AIM tasks, the lead 

23 offices develop and own the implementation guidance for 

24 that direction and criteria. 

25 By using a combination of the AIM, Project 

26 AIM steering committee and our normal reporting lines, 
 10 

1 we carefully monitor progress in each of the tasks, and 

2 the degree of ownership and involvement of each of the 

3 agency's senior managers. 

4 Our efforts to manage change and maintain 

5 and open and collaborative environment will continue to 

6 be involved throughout the implementation of the 

7 recommendations. We need to lead the staff through 

8 this changing environment. 

9 We'd like to now change the tempo a little 

10 bit and talk about the status of a few projects that have 

11 already been started. So I'll turn to Maureen and 

12 she'll address a number of those. 

13 MS. WYLIE: Thank you, Mark. Now the next 

14 slide, please. Thank you very much. May I have the 

15 next slide. Okay. So as you're aware, over the last 

16 15 years, our agency has undergone radical change in its 

17 budget environment. We have been as high as 4,000 

18 full-time equivalents. We're currently at just under 

19 3,700 and we see clouds in the budget environment and 

20 likely reduced FTE and dollars in the future. 

21 Both the Congress and the administration 

22 are very focused on an efficient government that 

23 delivers cost effective services to individual 

24 citizens, industrial sectors. All of that applies to 

25 us in terms of our regulatory services. 

26 We want to be proactive in presenting a 
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1 budget that articulates our commitment to more 

2 efficient budgeting, and an organizational structure 

3 that is optimized and appropriately sized, so that we 

4 have sufficient personnel to perform our mission, and 

5 be an effective regulator, but also be accountable to 

6 the American people in terms of our efficiency and 

7 effectiveness. 

8 So we have already begun taking actions to 

9 limit our full-time equivalent utilization to 3,600 in 

10 2016. That's important, so that we can transition 

11 toward our target of 3,400 FTEs in 2020. As we've 

12 articulated in the past, that target will vary depending 

13 on where we are in terms of our implementation. We 

14 intend to reset that target once we've completed the 

15 rebaselining activity in 2016. 

16 The agency plans to use two primary 

17 strategies to help meet the 3,600 target. The first is 

18 to greatly reduce the number of vacancies that we 

19 advertise externally, and then the other is to request 

20 authority for early buyout opportunities for our staff. 

21 Not filling vacancies externally allows us 

22 to use attrition to achieve our goals, with the least 

23 disruption to our employees. As we vacate positions, 

24 offices and regions are asked to carefully examine the 

25 work associated with those vacancies, to determine the 

26 best way that the work can be accomplished, including 
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1 whether that work can be ceased. 

2 The agency will fill an increasing number 

3 through internal reassignments, solicitations, 

4 rotations, additional training and redistribution of 

5 work. I expect, frankly, that there will be very few 

6 positions that will be advertised on the outside. 

7 This approach will allow us to take full 

8 advantage of that attrition effort, while we take a 

9 fresh look at how we need to accomplish our work. We 

10 are in the process of formally requesting from OPM 

11 authority to offer voluntary buyouts and early outs in 

12 two groups of employees at headquarters and at the TTC 

13 in Chattanooga, supervisors at the GG-15 level, and that 

14 does not include team leaders, and employees performing 

15 corporate support functions. 

16 A third group will include senior project 

17 managers at the GG-15 level in NRR, NRO and NMSS. We 

18 believe that this additional offering will allow us to 

19 proceed with a better mix of grades, and a somewhat 

20 smaller number of project managers, which will be 

21 appropriate as we reduced our workload in the future. 

22 We are also making substantial progress on 

23 reducing overhead. Last spring as you're aware, we 

24 contracted with EY to benchmark our overhead functions 

25 and our calculations with similarly sized agencies. 

26 That result was provided to the Appropriation 
 13 

1 Committees on the 1st of May, as required. 

2 Based on the insights from this assessment, 

3 we've provided to you in the FY '17 budget process a 

4 restructuring of our overhead, to make it more 

5 consistent with practices across the federal 

6 government. In addition, we have also assessed the 

7 recommendations that EY made to us in terms of their 

8 feasibility for implementation, and we believe that 

9 we'll be able to take significant additional 

10 reductions. 

11 Their recommendations include moving our 

12 transactional workload to a shared service provider; 

13 further centralization of financial management, human 

14 resources and IT; data center consolidation and IT cost 

15 management practices; a review of our IT security and 

16 physical security spending, to make sure that it is as 

17 effective as it can be; and other smaller 

18 recommendations. 

19 That assessment of their recommendations 

20 was provided to you on the 28th, and we will consider 

21 these items not just for the headquarters, but as we also 

22 work on the consolidation of regional corporate 

23 support. 

24 Another one of the approved Project AIM 

25 recommendations is to improve the transparency and to 

26 simplify how the NRC calculates fee, and to improve the 
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1 timeliness of when we communicate those fee changes. 

2 We've made some progress in this area already in the FY 

3 '15 Fee Rule. 

4 We had a large public meeting in April and 

5 a smaller public meeting in May with industry 

6 stakeholders, to improve transparency, not only to 

7 discuss how we do the calculations, but to articulate 

8 the FY '15 budget and the workload drivers that then 

9 apply to fee. 

10 We intend to do another meeting this year 

11 that will also focus on improvements in the fee billing 

12 process itself, and we will also be providing additional 

13 clarity and transparency to work papers. Finally, we 

14 also hope to automate some steps of the '16 Fee Rule. 

15 This requirement in the Project AIM SRM 

16 actually drives us toward improvement in the '17 Fee 

17 Rule. But our intent is to provide continuous 

18 improvement around fee calculations, transparency and 

19 timing. 

20 We also plan to have a briefing, a public 

21 meeting with industry about our new CAC codes, the Cost 

22 Activity Codes, which are replacing our Technical 

23 Assignment Codes. We are going to simplify that 

24 process for non-fee billing at the beginning of '16, and 

25 we'll be working on fee billing throughout the year in 

26 2016. 
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1 Our commitment is that whatever structure 

2 we use for fee billable TACs is that there will be no 

3 impact on the ability of our licensees to understand 

4 what we're providing to them. Mark. 

5 MR. SATORIUS: Thanks. Thanks Maureen, 

6 and the last Project AIM recommendation that I'd like 

7 to highlight is that we are now actively improving the 

8 licensing by strategically making improvements now. 

9 The staff has dedicated resources to complete actions 

10 that are over a year old, to eliminate the backlog; 

11 increase the focus on actions that are nine to 12 months 

12 old, to ensure they are completed in less than a year 

13 and do not become a part of the backlog; and to ensure 

14 -- and ensuring that no actions take longer than two 

15 years to complete. 

16 We've also established additional metrics 

17 to drive our performance. As of July, we've reduced the 

18 backlog from 112 actions to 57 actions, a 50 percent 

19 decrease since initiating the strategy in November 

20 2014. In addition, performance in completing 

21 licensing actions in less than one year has improved 

22 overall since implementing the staff's effort in this 

23 area. 

24 This timeliness metric had declined to 83 

25 percent last spring. Around that time, we initiated 

26 initial improvement efforts and the allocation of 
 16 

1 additional resources to the operating reactor business 

2 line. By July, timeliness had increased to 90 percent, 

3 with our annual average performance in FY '15 currently 

4 at 87 percent of actions completed in less than one year. 

5 So with that, I'll turn over the presentation to Fred. 

6 MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mark. My first 

7 slide, please. I'd like to start by talking about a 

8 couple of guiding principles. The next slide, please, 

9 that don't apply just to rebaselining and common 

10 prioritization, but to all the tasks. 

11 So first is transparency. Mark mentioned 

12 the overall implementation plan that we've provided to 

13 you. Each of our monthly updates now tracks that. All 

14 of those documents will be publicly available in ADAMS, 

15 so that not only the Commission but external 

16 stakeholders can see what we're doing, what our 

17 milestones are and that we're meeting those working 

18 towards our end dates. 

19 The next thing is engagement as well as 

20 partnering. Mark mentioned that we're partnering with 

21 the NTEU. There's a tremendous amount of engagement 

22 with senior managers, line managers, subject matter 

23 experts and the staff that's occurring throughout the 

24 tasks, and I can say with a great deal of satisfaction 

25 that the dedication of the mission, the commitment to 

26 this difficult environment and seeing us successfully 
 17 

1 through it has been outstanding across the board. 

2 So on the next slide, I'll move to a 

3 discussion of common prioritization and rebaselining. 

4 It's really not that complex conceptually. We start by 

5 identifying what the work we do is and obviously we know 

6 the rules that we're -- rulemaking that we're doing, the 

7 licenses we issue, the oversight we provide. 

8 We're actually going a level deeper into 

9 how we produce those products. What are our internal 

10 processes and procedures, because that's where we need 

11 to find efficiencies going forward, to be able to 

12 produce the same products at a lower cost in the future. 

13 Once we've established that level of detail 

14 in what we're doing, we're prioritizing using the 

15 mission of the agency, the principles of good regulation 

16 and our values as the basis for prioritizing across all 

17 of the work of the agency, and from that we'll move into 

18 the shed process, both immediate, near term and 

19 longer-term, and continuing improvement, which I'll 

20 mention starting on my next slide. 

21 For our approach, we do want to find 

22 immediate gains. So for efficiency improvements, 

23 we're looking for those areas that we know what we do 

24 now, and we have a definitive alternative that we can 

25 put in place in the near term to achieve efficiency gain, 

26 in some cases within our authority to do and some cases 
 18 

1 requiring Commission approval. 

2 Anything where we see the opportunity for 

3 process improvement, but where we'll have to do an 

4 in-depth business process reengineering or a more 

5 in-depth review to find the alternative, will not be 

6 handled through rebaselining, but it will be identified 

7 and tracked through Project AIM 2020. So while you 

8 directed us for rebaselining to focus primarily on 

9 fiscal year 2017, there's a longer term aspect of this 

10 as well. 

11 Referring or talking a little bit about 

12 expectations, guidance and criteria, Maureen and Mark 

13 and the Steering Committee gave me some pretty clear 

14 direction on how aggressively to pursue rebaselining 

15 and common prioritization. We spent the last month 

16 engaged with the offices and a working group, to develop 

17 the implementing guidance to do that. The benefit of 

18 doing that is that the offices own the guidance. 

19 They're the ones that will be implementing 

20 it. They'll have a much better idea of how to proceed 

21 starting next week, as we really get into the nuts and 

22 bolts of rebaselining and common prioritization. 

23 Throughout this, we're leveraging the 

24 input of our stakeholders. We're in the third week of 

25 a one month comment period that was applicable both to 

26 the staff, who we've requested provide us with ideas of 
 19 

1 what we can do less of and improve our efficiency, as 

2 well as the public. 

3 So I personally received between 40 and 50 

4 recommendations from the staff, and in a public meeting 

5 this week or last week, we received about 20 suggestions 

6 from the industry and we look forward to many more in 

7 the remaining week of the comment period. 

8 So on the next slide, for objectives, 

9 really we can think about this project in kind of three 

10 areas. The first is an add shed procedure that we will 

11 have finished in early December. It will improve our 

12 agility going forward and our effectiveness in looking 

13 at new work or emergent work as it comes in the door. 

14 We use the same prioritization scheme that 

15 we've used for existing work, and we'll be better able 

16 to see whether we should shed existing work to take the 

17 new work on, and if so, what the consequences of that 

18 will be. So more foresight in addressing new work. 

19 Three things in budget space efficiency 

20 space. The quick savings within fiscal year '16 for the 

21 things within the staff's control, to stop doing as soon 

22 as we identify meaningful alternatives. And then 

23 consistent with the staff requirement memo, a lot of 

24 focus on fiscal year '17, the implementation plan for 

25 the current estimates. 

26 So no later than early April, we'll be 
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1 identifying for your consideration changes for fiscal 

2 year '17, and that information, those insights will be 

3 available to the staff in the development of the fiscal 

4 year '18 budget proposals in your deliberations on 

5 fiscal year '18. 

6 And then longer term for those process 

7 improvements that we don't know what the answer is yet, 

8 but we know there's an opportunity those would typically 

9 we would expect see change in fiscal years '19 and '20. 

10 Then the final output goes into the area 

11 that Kristin will be talking about in just a minute, 

12 iterations of Strategic Workforce Planning as we 

13 identify our work going forward. 

14 So my final slide, while I'm confident and 

15 optimistic with where we're at, I would be remiss not 

16 to mention that there are some challenges in doing this. 

17 We generally like a lot of specificity in our guidance 

18 and criteria and direction, given the variance across 

19 our business lines and the fact that we're also looking 

20 at all of our corporate activities. 

21 We found that an informed, intelligent 

22 approach with flexibility is going to get us better 

23 results than a rigid do this, this, this. Also in terms 

24 of the rigor and resource expenditure. I think just as 

25 we look at our internal processes for licensing and 

26 oversight and rulemaking, we see a point of diminishing 
 21 

1 return, where we can get 90 percent of the benefit with 

2 maybe 70 percent of the effort. 

3 I think the same applies for this activity. 

4 So our goal is to give you a high quality recommendation 

5 in a very timely way, without diverting the staff from 

6 its core mission in the coming months. But it will not 

7 be perfect. It will be very good. Finally, I would be 

8 remiss not to acknowledge that we're a risk-adverse 

9 organization. It's the nature of what we do. 

10 So changes and giving things up are 

11 difficult, but I think the staff is engaged very 

12 aggressively in finding ideas for more efficient 

13 operation going forward. So I'm realistically 

14 optimistic and hope to be able to provide you a lot of 

15 good updates, all of which show that we're meeting our 

16 milestones going forward. With that, I'll turn it to 

17 Kristin. 

18 MS. DAVIS: Thank you Fred and good 

19 morning. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to 

20 update you on the status of Strategic Workforce 

21 Planning. The last time we spoke about this initiative 

22 was at the Commission briefing on human capital and 

23 equal employment opportunity back in July. That 

24 briefing centered on change and our overall vision of 

25 moving the agency into the future. 

26 Since that time, we have taken several 
 22 

1 steps to make that vision a reality. Before I speak 

2 about the status of activities which are underway, I 

3 wanted to take some time to focus on the goal and the 

4 objectives of workforce planning, as well as our defined 

5 process for implementing them. 

6 Next slide, please. Simply stated, the 

7 overall goal of workforce planning is to ensure that the 

8 right people with the right skills are in the right place 

9 at the right time. More specifically, to achieve this 

10 goal, we must be able to analyze the current agency 

11 workforce, define a desired future state agency 

12 workforce, compare the two to identify staff surpluses 

13 and gaps, and develop and implement strategies to 

14 alleviate those surpluses and gaps. 

15 Although the process seems 

16 straightforward, I believe that anyone who has done it 

17 will agree it can be very challenging. So if it's that 

18 challenging, I think it's important for us to remember 

19 why we're doing it. 

20 We do workforce planning in order to 

21 successfully make current and future staffing decisions 

22 that are based on our organizational mission, strategic 

23 direction and objectives, budgetary resources and a 

24 known set of desired workforce skills and competencies. 

25 Workforce planning keeps us focused on our 

26 long term objectives, and provides a road map to execute 
 23 

1 strategies to meet those objectives. At the same time, 

2 it helps us to avoid short-term decisions that may 

3 result in long-term problems. 

4 Like the famous quote paraphrased from 

5 Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, "If you don't know 

6 where you're going, any road will get you there." 

7 Workforce planning ensures that we know where we want 

8 to go. 

9 Next slide. So how do we take our goal and 

10 objectives and actually create that path forward? We 

11 begin by defining the Strategic Workforce Planning 

12 process model, to methodically move us in the right 

13 direction. As I researched various models, I found 

14 very little difference between them. Some looked 

15 slightly different. They have five, seven, nine even 

16 eleven steps. 

17 But that doesn't seem very important, as 

18 the basic steps and the basic processes are much the 

19 same. I believe the key lies in implementation. 

20 Regardless of which model you follow, you must be able 

21 to implement. So the model we're using is based on the 

22 Office of Personnel Management model, but refined to 

23 better meet our needs. 

24 Our model actually has seven steps, which 

25 you can see on the slide, but they may be a little 

26 difficult to read. So they are strategic alignment, 
 24 

1 analyzing our current workforce, determining our future 

2 workforce needs, determining gaps and surpluses, 

3 developing an action plan and executing that action 

4 plan. Of course, we will continue to monitor, evaluate 

5 and revise our process, as the environment changes or 

6 as course corrections are required. 

7 So where are we now? As we look at the 

8 workforce planning process model, the activities 

9 involved in Step 1 have for the most part already been 

10 done as part of the Project AIM 2020 effort completed 

11 earlier this year, and they continue to be done as part 

12 of implementation efforts. 

13 This gives us a framework and a long-term 

14 forecast to execute our agency mission and achieve 

15 leadership alignment. 

16 Next slide, please. We have built upon the 

17 work already done by developing a project plan and a 

18 communications plan to outline our workforce planning 

19 project activities. I think it's important to note 

20 that our communications plan activities align with the 

21 bigger picture Project AIM communications plan. 

22 This ensures that stakeholders are kept 

23 informed, and that we are delivering a consistent 

24 message across the many AIM initiatives. 

25 So Step No. 2 is where our real work begins, 

26 as we work to understand our current workforce. We have 
 25 

1 approached this task by analyzing office staffing 

2 plans, to determine where we have surplus resources or 

3 potential resource gaps. 

4 From there, we are asking offices to inform 

5 these surpluses and gaps with an understanding of how 

6 their resources may potentially evolve over time. For 

7 example, if an office currently shows a surplus of five 

8 individuals in a particular work area, that office may 

9 have imminent reorganization plans, and may also know 

10 of a couple of losses, which could reduce that surplus 

11 from five down to two. 

12 Later efforts would then focus on the two 

13 instead of the initial five. Once this effort is 

14 complete, the agency will have a better understanding 

15 of the overall magnitude of our surplus and/or gap 

16 situation. The time line for completing this part of 

17 the effort is November. 

18 Next slide, please. At the same time we 

19 are working to define our desired future workforce. 

20 The Project AIM 2020 report detailed at a high level 

21 expected workload changes over the next five years. 

22 The challenge for us is translating these workload 

23 shifts into office-specific workload adjustments and 

24 resource needs. 

25 We will be asking the business line leads 

26 and offices to analyze these shifts, to determine how 
 26 

1 their resources may be impacted. Once the current and 

2 future workforce requirements have been determined, we 

3 will be able to identify areas where we have not only 

4 short-term surpluses and gaps, but long term as well. 

5 At this point, we will identify possible 

6 strategies that could be implemented, to align the 

7 workforce to our current -- our current workforce to our 

8 future workforce needs. It is expected that these 

9 strategies will include a host of options, such as 

10 retraining, redefining positions and even hiring, to 

11 name just a few. 

12 I envision that each situation will require 

13 an evaluation of the strategies best suited to meet that 

14 particular need, and implementation of those strategies 

15 will take place in the appropriate forum. As you can 

16 see, we still have a lot of work to do. 

17 Next slide. So I would like to leave you 

18 with a few key messages which are crucial to the success 

19 of workforce planning. First and foremost, strategic 

20 workforce planning is not easy. I already mentioned 

21 that translating the high level workload shifts into 

22 more specific adjustments is a challenge. 

23 In addition, I believe that aligning 

24 workforce planning with the other Project AIM 

25 initiatives may be a challenge as well. There are 

26 several other efforts underway which will not be 
 27 

1 completed by the time this workforce planning project 

2 concludes. The results of these other activities and 

3 initiatives, things rebaselining and Centers of 

4 Expertise, could dramatically impact the workload and 

5 resource needs of a particular business line in the next 

6 few years. So strategic workforce planning will not be 

7 exact. 

8 I think it's important for everyone to 

9 understand that workforce planning and working our way 

10 through the steps of this model is not a one and done 

11 activity. These other initiatives, plus unknown 

12 changes to our environment and evolution of our 

13 resources, will require that workforce planning be a 

14 repeatable process, that can continue to inform our 

15 agency needs well into the future. 

16 I would like to thank you again for this 

17 opportunity to update you on the status of workforce 

18 planning, and to assure you and the staff that we are 

19 aware of resource constraints across the agency, and we 

20 are working to define a modest and repeatable path 

21 forward that can be accomplished within those available 

22 resources. 

23 I will now turn the briefing back over to 

24 Mr. Satorius and Ms. Wylie. 

25 MS. WYLIE: Thank you, Kristin. As we 

26 close, Mark and I would like to highlight some upcoming 
 28 

1 milestones. In mid-September, the offices will start 

2 the actual work on common prioritization and 

3 rebaselining. In addition, we'll complete four 

4 additional tasks by early December. 

5 First, the staff has evaluated the 

6 acquisition process, to clarify roles and 

7 responsibilities of the contracting officer's 

8 representatives' standardization processing, 

9 improving quality and process time. As a result, the 

10 core process standardization initiative 

11 recommendations report will be completed on the 1st of 

12 October. Mark. 

13 MR. SATORIUS: Second, the staff is 

14 reexamining the processes and practices associated with 

15 NRC's assessment of the risk to its information systems 

16 in accordance with the Federal Information Security 

17 Management Act or FISMA. We will complete the report 

18 with recommendations by October the 16th. 

19 MS. WYLIE: Third, by November 9th, the 

20 evaluation and recommendations related to the NRC 

21 Centers of Expertise will be completed and submitted to 

22 the Commission for review and approval. 

23 MR. SATORIUS: And finally by December the 

24 8th, the Commission will receive an add shed procedure, 

25 including common prioritization lists. This will make 

26 a total of six out of the 19 tasks completed by the end 
 29 

1 of the calendar year. 

2 As we continue to make progress on the 

3 implementation of Project AIM, and on a very aggressive 

4 schedule, I want to reiterate that the NRC remains fully 

5 focused on accomplishing the agency's safety and 

6 security mission. 

7 As we have recently observed in several 

8 real responses and emergent exercises, along with 

9 inspections with significant findings, progress in 

10 licensing and briefings for the Commission and the 

11 performance of NRC employees remains at a high level in 

12 accomplishing our mission. So we're happy to answer 

13 any questions that you may have now. 

14 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Okay, thank you, and we 

15 begin this morning with Commissioner Baran. 

16 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you. Thank 

17 you for your presentations and all the work you're doing 

18 on the various activities involved with Project AIM. I 

19 want to start and take just a few minutes to talk about 

20 accountability and governance of this process. 

21 Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts 

22 here with Project AIM, and I want to make sure that at 

23 this table, we all have a common understanding of who's 

24 responsible for what. To execute Project AIM, there's 

25 a Steering Committee that's co-chaired by Mark and 

26 Maureen. We have a Project AIM team to provide support 
 30 

1 for the effort. 

2 Office directors and regional 

3 administrators obviously are going to play a role in 

4 providing the oversight and support and other 

5 activities. Mark and Maureen, can you just take a few 

6 minutes and talk about how these structures and these 

7 folks interact, how they're going to work together, and 

8 ultimately who has responsibility for ensuring that 

9 each Project AIM initiative is successfully 

10 implemented? 

11 MR. SATORIUS: Well, I'll start. Maureen 

12 and I have responsibility for those activities, and we 

13 take it to heart and spend quite a bit of time working 

14 towards that end. 

15 I'll just say as we were trying to 

16 establish, even while the Commission was still 

17 discussing how the SRM should look like, we were already 

18 thinking about what level of governance should we have. 

19 What should we have to make sure that -- 

20 We wanted the line organization to have, to 

21 have a stake in it, and they are those that are best 

22 suited to run projects and programs. So if we are 

23 relying on the line organization to lead that effort, 

24 that governance should probably be through the DEDOs 

25 that each of the line organizations report to. 

26 So that's the reason why we have all those 
 31 

1 members on the Steering Committee, is to use our current 

2 hierarchical type of reporting governance to be sort of 

3 the starting point for Maureen and I to be able to take 

4 responsibility. I don't know if you wanted to add 

5 anything. 

6 MS. WYLIE: Sure, thank you. We also 

7 tried to learn lessons of previous activities. We 

8 wanted to me sure that those that best understood what 

9 the work needed to be and how perhaps the work process 

10 is needed to change, would have control over that. 

11 We discussed this in senior leader 

12 meetings. We got very robust feedback from the office 

13 directors. You know, my name is on the paper for this 

14 type of process. I need to have ownership of that. So 

15 we actually reconfigured how the Steering Committee 

16 would work, to ensure that office directors would have 

17 the control they thought was necessary. 

18 So of course Mark and I are accountable, but 

19 we also want to make sure that the people who own the 

20 work have a true stake in it. The Project AIM team is 

21 intended to facilitate the work. It is not or perhaps 

22 to her the cats, as Fred seems to do quite ably. 

23 But the idea is to make sure that everybody 

24 has the same access to resources and support for project 

25 management, for integration, so that we get people who 

26 are very familiar with the Project AIM recommendations 
 32 

1 out there, available, working with the team, to make 

2 sure that we get overall a very high level of product. 

3 And Fred really serves as a focal point. 

4 You can have everybody accountable for their piece, but 

5 you still need to have one person whose job it is to see 

6 both the big picture and the small detail, and Fred's 

7 been handling that effort quite ably for us. 

8 MR. SATORIUS: Fred, is there anything you 

9 want to add, since you are that focal point for much of 

10 this? 

11 MR. BROWN: I'll stop while I'm ahead sir. 

12 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Well, thank you for 

13 that. I think that's helpful, and so with respect to 

14 -- if we take kind of an example here on rebaselining, 

15 it sounds like, and you correct me if I'm wrong, you 

16 talked about this at some length Fred. 

17 What's happening at this stage is or what 

18 will be happening in the coming weeks is with the input 

19 from line management and office directors and regional 

20 administrators, a common process, criteria are being 

21 set up, that would then be applied all across the agency, 

22 and it's going to be general enough to allow for that, 

23 but specific enough to actually be useful and provide 

24 some guidance. 

25 And then it's going to kind of aggregate up 

26 as -- as the lines and the offices do this rebaselining 
 33 

1 look. Is that right? 

2 MS. WYLIE: That's correct. 

3 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Let me turn to 

4 something else, which is, you know, over the past month 

5 or so, there have been a number of all hands meetings, 

6 as Mark mentioned, agency-wide announcements that 

7 talked about early retirement options, buyouts and 

8 potential reductions in force. 

9 I just want to take a minute and give you 

10 all a chance to talk with the folks who are here, talk 

11 with our employees who may be watching this online or 

12 might be watching it later tomorrow. You know, what 

13 should they know about the status of these possibilities 

14 at this point, because some of these things are scary 

15 or they create a lot of uncertainty. 

16 What do people need to know? What's the 

17 latest information about these possibilities? 

18 MR. SATORIUS: Well I think one thing that 

19 -- and we struggled with this over time, because as we 

20 learn more, we learn that there's a lot that we don't 

21 know and a lot of things that are in the air. We 

22 probably are not going to know what our budget situation 

23 looks like until October the 1st at the earliest. 

24 So I think the thing that we're trying to 

25 do with some of our communications with our staff is to 

26 -- is to give them some indication that there are 
 34 

1 vulnerabilities out there, and we put together an EDO 

2 Update that kind of went through those vulnerabilities. 

3 But that it's not set in stone or anything, that we just 

4 don't know. 

5 We've been working a lot with our first line 

6 supervisors at the branch level and the second line 

7 supervisors at the division level. I think one of the 

8 things I said you need listen to your people and put your 

9 finger on the pulse of what's going through their 

10 minds, and lead them through this change in these 

11 turbulent times. 

12 So we've taken multiple approaches to try 

13 and be open and transparent to the extent that we can, 

14 with the caveat that we really don't know a lot of 

15 details. 

16 MS. WYLIE: And government employees in 

17 general have had five years of uncertainty. It's very 

18 challenging to try to read tea leaves. So part of what 

19 I've been trying to do as I go around and talk to all 

20 employees meetings is to ask them to try. There is 

21 uncertainty, it could be any one of a number of 

22 alternatives, long CRs, short CRs. 

23 So it's very challenging for a workforce 

24 that is as focused as ours to be in this period of 

25 ambiguity. We also want people to have enough warning, 

26 so they can make their own decisions in a timely way. 
 35 

1 That's one of the reasons we put out the EDO Update, to 

2 talk about early outs and buy outs before we had gone 

3 through the process. 

4 These are challenging decisions to make. 

5 You need time to air them with your family. You need 

6 time to consider what that next opportunity might be. 

7 So even in uncertainty, the advantage we're trying to 

8 give employees is as much information as we have, when 

9 we have it, so they have as much time as they can have 

10 to consider it. 

11 COMMISSIONER BARAN: With respect to the 

12 early outs and buy outs, at what stage do you think we'll 

13 have a better sense of whether we're authorized to do 

14 that? 

15 MR. SATORIUS: I think in a couple of 

16 weeks. 

17 COMMISSIONER BARAN: And just kind of in 

18 closing, I think the basic assumption everyone has, that 

19 as we go through this effort to identify efficiencies, 

20 reduce the number of FTEs ultimately we're carrying, 

21 taking a hard look at resources and expenditures and 

22 priorities, and everyone I think said it. We've got to 

23 keep our eye on the ball, which is our main mission, of 

24 protecting health and safety, and I know everyone's 

25 committed to doing that. 

26 Talk to me a little bit, talk with us a 
 36 

1 little bit about how do you make sure that happens? You 

2 know, it's easy to say yeah, we're going to keep our eye 

3 on the ball, we're going to keep focus on the right 

4 things. But now I've got all these additional 

5 responsibilities I didn't have before to rebaseline and 

6 contribute to these processes. 

7 How are we going to do it? How are we going 

8 to make sure it happens? 

9 MS. WYLIE: Well, the first place I think 

10 you start is you take an extra effort to outreach to 

11 those who are closest to our staff members, know what 

12 makes them tick, know them as individuals, and can lead 

13 them through the branch chiefs. This is a key place for 

14 the branch chiefs, the first line supervisors. They're 

15 the closest to our staff, can keep them focused on what's 

16 important, our safety and security mission. 

17 So and if we think we're -- as a leadership 

18 team, if we think we're communicating enough about that, 

19 we need to communicate even more. 

20 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you. Thanks, 

21 Mr. Chairman. 

22 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Thanks. I just had -- 

23 I've said a couple of instances I've had to talk to 

24 various offices or employee groups in the agency, and 

25 perhaps an advantage or disadvantage for me from a long 

26 period of time at the agency beforehand, is that I still 
 37 

1 remember some things but not before I came back. 

2 But one of the things that's sort -- the era 

3 that we are in actually struck me as -- it strikes me 

4 this is very much like the early 90's for this agency, 

5 and I say that because in the early 90's, you had all 

6 but a few plants that were in the current fleet coming 

7 to -- had received their operating license. 

8 Actually I think Watts Bar I was one of them 

9 that had not gotten there and we're looking at the final 

10 decisions on Watts Bar II, as I speak. So you're at the 

11 end of the building of the fleet, like you are here right 

12 now. We have some uncertainties about new 

13 construction. 

14 You had the very early generation of 

15 reactors, some of the things like Maine Yankee or Yankee 

16 Rowe coming to a point, although maybe a little later 

17 in that decade coming to closure. So you had a 

18 decommissioning of fleet, as we see today. 

19 We came -- we're coming to the end of the 

20 implementation of the post-TMI requirements, as we are 

21 today with a lot on a faster track, I would argue, with 

22 the Fukushima-Daiichi requirements. So as I say, 

23 there's a lot of feel for me, in terms of memory, in terms 

24 of where we are today, of the early 90's. 

25 What this is, is this transition point in 

26 terms of thinking about workload, thinking about what 
 38 

1 the agency needs to be focused on. Now a lot of the 

2 context we talked about, we were talking about Project 

3 AIM here in the context of what we see as sort of the 

4 handwriting on the wall, a smaller resource 

5 availability from the standpoint of what we expect the 

6 Congress to appropriate, and needs in terms of where 

7 workload is in certain areas. 

8 But one of the things I also want to 

9 emphasize, I think with respect to Project AIM, is that 

10 even if this were in a glide path up, there are things 

11 here that we are doing that we need -- we should be doing 

12 in any event. The question, for example, particularly, 

13 you know, we faced a lot of questions on our fees and 

14 how we're calculating our fees. 

15 The question of TAC codes that goes back to, 

16 I think, probably when I was deputy general counsel, in 

17 terms of the multiplicity or the ever-proliferating 

18 number of TACs, and how we track budget expenditures. 

19 So there are a lot of -- there are a number of things, 

20 and I don't mean to pick on the CFO on that. 

21 I think they're the same way, how we 

22 integrate across offices, in terms of licensing, 

23 accomplishing those types of work. There's a lot of 

24 things there, that apart from the environment we have 

25 here in terms of the resource constraints, that are not 

26 only good things to do, but things we should be doing, 
 39 

1 in terms of the effectiveness of the agency and then the 

2 responsibility in terms of its resources. 

3 So and again, I wanted to just start out 

4 making that emphasis with respect to how having -- how 

5 I see in terms of us going forward with AIM. And partly 

6 this -- and again to emphasize too is that one of the 

7 things that we, you know, it's hard to do. 

8 It's hard to do when we don't know, you 

9 know, all the forecasts and the industry has got to -- 

10 and I know we engage with the industry and I think they 

11 do the best they can, in terms of looking at the 

12 environment in which they are, which they find 

13 themselves, in terms of understanding what our workload 

14 will be. 

15 And that, you know, again that helping -- 

16 helps us go forward. But you know, as I say, I think 

17 as we've heard from all the speakers, it is a challenging 

18 time. I think in some respects it gives us great 

19 opportunity to look at things and look at how we can do 

20 -- how we can do better, how we can integrate across the 

21 agency better and the like. 

22 A couple of questions I had, and I may put 

23 this to Kris, in the context of the Strategic Workforce 

24 Planning. It's really an OCHCO question and maybe also 

25 a CFO question. Maureen made the point in terms of the, 

26 you know, potential hiring in the coming years, you 
 40 

1 know, a smaller window or smaller opportunities, all 

2 that. 

3 One of the concerns I have, and having gone 

4 through this in the general counsel's office, where one 

5 of the -- where a real challenge was where we weren't 

6 hiring in the 90's and we paid for it in the mid-2000's, 

7 was the continued pipeline. Again, and maybe you can 

8 speak, Kris, to the entry level program, the NSPDP. 

9 Here I've got the acronym, but I won't be able to pull 

10 out of my brain the Nuclear Safety Professional 

11 Development Program there. 

12 What do we do to continue fostering and 

13 using that, because again, one of the things I see is 

14 we're in a generational shift, and I hear this. I heard 

15 this at Penn State when I was there last week. I heard 

16 this going out to plants. 

17 How do we continue basically nurturing 

18 those programs, because the need for in the context of 

19 our workforce, the need to continue to grow staff who 

20 are going to be here or who may be here 20 years from 

21 now, when I certainly don't plan to be here? How do we 

22 do that in the context of Project AIM and the Strategic 

23 Workforce Planning? 

24 MS. DAVIS: I think that's actually 

25 something that we struggled with a little bit in 

26 outreach and recruitment as well. As the agency's 
 41 

1 trajectory is going down, how do we ensure that we have 

2 that pipeline of people into our future? 

3 What we're doing is we are still continuing 

4 on with the NSPDP and the summer program. The vacancy 

5 announcements actually opened last week, and that will 

6 inform who we hire into the NSPDP in fiscal year '16. 

7 For fiscal year '15, we just hired I think it's 25 

8 individuals. 

9 So we're looking at about the same number 

10 for fiscal year '16 in our projection. That will be 

11 informed better as we continue on with rebaselining and 

12 Centers of Expertise, etcetera. So that number could 

13 go up or down a little bit. 

14 I think that what we're going to focus on 

15 though is where we see potential long-term gaps. The 

16 NSPDP program is a significant way to fill those gaps. 

17 If the gap is five years out, you have five years to get 

18 somebody up and trained. So instead of hiring all 

19 full-performing professionals, you would be growing 

20 your own, to ensure that as we attrit in the agency, that 

21 we're able to keep up with that in our critical skill 

22 needs at the same time. 

23 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Thanks. Maureen. 

24 MS. WYLIE: One of the challenges that I 

25 think all federal agencies had in the 90's is that the 

26 contraction was so rapid that it ended up being sort of 
 42 

1 a cutting off of hiring, rather than an opportunity to 

2 restructure your work and make changes in an 

3 organization at all levels. So essentially thinning 

4 rather than just pruning. 

5 The request that we have for early outs and 

6 buyouts is targeted at the upper end of the agency. So 

7 it increases our knowledge management challenge, and 

8 we're cognizant of that. But it's -- the easiest thing 

9 to do is simply stop hiring. It's actually healthier 

10 for our organization's long-term effectiveness to try 

11 to make that organizational change at the upper levels, 

12 and not just cut off hiring completely at the bottom. 

13 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Okay, thanks. All 

14 right. Without, you know, sort of maybe prejudging any 

15 type of thing, maybe you could describe some of the 

16 suggestions or ideas that you've heard from the public 

17 meetings that we've had so far. I recognize this is 

18 still works in progress and how they fit in, but it may 

19 be interesting just to hear what kind of ideas we're 

20 getting from employees, as well as from outside the 

21 agency. 

22 MR. BROWN: Yes sir. So kind of two bins. 

23 One are specific activities that we should defund or 

24 stop doing, so they're -- especially from the public 

25 there were a number of rulemaking activities that they 

26 questioned the benefit of the resource expenditures. 
 43 

1 So specific activities and then a process 

2 activities as well. Ironically, there's some overlap 

3 between what we heard from staff and what we heard from 

4 the industry. Three that come to mind in the area of 

5 regulatory guidance with a five-year update for all of 

6 our reg guides, which is the process that we currently 

7 have in place. 

8 Both the staff and the external -- and 

9 external stakeholder commented that that might not be 

10 the best use of resources and it might create other 

11 inefficiencies. An area that's a little -- needs more 

12 review before there's certainly any decision, but risk 

13 tools. The SPAR model that we use to validate, 

14 independently validate the outputs of licensees PRAs. 

15 There's been suggestions that we may not 

16 need to continue to spend the resources for that 

17 independent validation, given the quality of the 

18 licensee's tools, and that's come both internally and 

19 externally. And then a third area in the operating 

20 reactor oversight arena, the idea of giving credit for 

21 facilities that have had a long, successful area in a 

22 given baseline inspection program. 

23 Maybe cutting back the baseline to 

24 recognize that extended period of good performance has 

25 been mentioned both internally and externally. So 

26 specific activities like rulemakings, as well as 
 44 

1 process changes are both coming up. 

2 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Okay. Thanks very much. 

3 Commissioner Ostendorff. 

4 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Thank you, 

5 Chairman. Thank you all for your presentations. I'm 

6 going to add a note to, similar to the Chairman's 

7 comments about the environment to just make a couple of 

8 comments. 

9 I heard from presenters here at this panel 

10 the phrase "clouds in the budget environment." I heard 

11 "a challenging or difficult environment" phrase being 

12 used. A little bit more doom and gloom than I would use 

13 to characterize the situation, just as a Commissioner. 

14 I think there's been radical changes in the 

15 environment, what's happened in the industry, and I just 

16 don't want our staff or the public to think that this 

17 is a bad news environment for us as an agency. I think 

18 it's a great opportunity to make an even really good 

19 agency even better, and that we need to use this 

20 opportunity to do just that. 

21 What was not mentioned that I feel 

22 compelled, since this is a public meeting to mention, 

23 is that the environment has changed significantly on the 

24 industry side. When I got here almost 5-1/2 years ago, 

25 there were 26 reactor applications being reviewed in 

26 NRO. 
 45 

1 That number's down to like 10 or less. 

2 There's significant staff work that Cathy Haney and team 

3 were working with in NMSS with Yucca Mountain licensing. 

4 The number of operating reactors was 104 compared to 99 

5 today. So many fact of life changes that are 

6 appropriately causing us to take a fresh look at how we 

7 do business, what the proper sizing is. 

8 Even in the absence of any Congressional 

9 interest or quote, I'll use your phrase not mine, 

10 pressure, we ought to be doing this anyway. I do not 

11 see this as being something that is being driven by 

12 external forces. I think it's being driven internally 

13 for the right reasons. 

14 I know Mark, you and I sat down in your 

15 office, the three months that you took over GDO, this 

16 December of 2013, the first week. I remember we talked 

17 about this, and what is the correct size of the agency 

18 going forward. We had long talks and this predated the 

19 establishment of Project AIM. 

20 And when I look at some of the efforts that 

21 have occurred in my time as a Commissioner, I guess I'm 

22 very optimistic that the staff and the teams here will 

23 use this in a very constructive fashion, to make this 

24 agency even better. 

25 So I felt compelled because of a little bit 

26 of the tone of the panel here first to make a comment, 
 46 

1 similar to what the Chairman had said about let's look 

2 at deficiencies. There's been good reasons to be 

3 optimistic. I've seen, as Mark mentioned, the decrease 

4 in licensing backlog in NRR. I met with Bill Dean the 

5 week before last, had a really good discussion with him 

6 on that topic, and real progress has been made already, 

7 separate and distinct from Project AIM. 

8 I look at Glenn Tracy's very frugal and 

9 agency-wide look at shifting personnel from NRO to NRR 

10 to help with Fukushima action items, and I see the strong 

11 NMSS-FSME leadership result in, I think, a successful 

12 merger. So I think we need to look at this maybe also 

13 in a very positive light as we go forward. 

14 Twenty-five years ago, when I was working 

15 between my executive officer and commanding officer 

16 tours in the Department of the Navy at a senior personnel 

17 planning job for the nuclear Navy, and we significantly 

18 changed, because the Cold War was ending, the number of 

19 nuclear operators. We moved from 100 attack submarines 

20 in 1992 to probably around 53 or 54 today. 

21 Nobody would argue that the attack 

22 submarine force today in the Navy is worse than it was 

23 in 1992. I'd argue it's far better, and we're not 

24 talking about changes along those magnitudes here at the 

25 NRC. Navy had 975 ships in 1972. That number is 275 

26 plus or minus three today. Navy is extremely strong. 
 47 

1 So I just think messaging, and Commissioner Baran was 

2 hitting his in some of his comments. 

3 I think there's a great opportunity here, 

4 and that we should not pass that up. Kristin, I want 

5 to get a question or two in your area, because I think 

6 quite frankly what you and Miriam and Jennifer are doing 

7 in OCHCO are perhaps one of a more challenging parts of 

8 the Project AIM execution stage. 

9 I wanted to ask you in the context of what 

10 Fred is doing to orchestrate the rebaselining effort, 

11 how do you see the rebaselining effort as impacting your 

12 Strategic Workforce Planning gap analysis? Primarily 

13 the timing and the chicken and the egg type of problem 

14 here. 

15 MS. DAVIS: It does seem to be the chicken 

16 and the egg. I think that our initial part of the 

17 project on SWP will be concluded before the rebaselining 

18 effort is over. So that's why it's important that 

19 whatever process we institute, it be modest enough and 

20 repeatable enough, because when rebaselining is over, 

21 it will have to be done again, and then when Centers of 

22 Expertise, that analysis is done, it will have to be done 

23 and again and again and again. 

24 So most successful organizations do their 

25 workforce planning process annually. I see it as 

26 coinciding with perhaps your staffing plan approval 
 48 

1 process. You take your short-term operational look, 

2 you take your long-term strategic look at the same time. 

3 For us though, I think it's going to have 

4 to be done more frequently, as we go through these 

5 initiatives. 

6 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Okay. Let me 

7 stay with you Kristin and ask a separate, distinct 

8 question, and that is the ability to move personnel from 

9 one office to the other, and the transferability of 

10 skill sets. Can you comment at a high level on OCHCO's 

11 prospective philosophy on moving personnel from one 

12 area to another in the organization? Well, if Miriam 

13 wants to comment. 

14 MS. DAVIS: Thank you, Miriam. 

15 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: We love to have 

16 Ms. Cohen up here. 

17 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Miriam, just for the 

18 record, just identify yourself and position. 

19 MS. COHEN: Miriam Cohen, Chief Human 

20 Capital Officer. I think actually Commissioner, you 

21 actually acknowledged some of the good work that's 

22 already been done, between Glenn and Bill Dean's 

23 organization. We identified a need in one part of the 

24 organization and there were discussions about 

25 opportunities. 

26 There was active engagement with the union, 
 49 

1 and I think that those reassignments actually, you know, 

2 they were very effective. I think that the interesting 

3 thing about what we're going to do moving forward is, 

4 and I think when you listen to Kris' response to how do 

5 you deal with rebaselining in concert with Strategic 

6 Workforce Planning. 

7 I think you have to remember, and I think, 

8 you know, you and the Chairman have been here I think 

9 the longest, is that over time, the agency's critical 

10 skills actually have not changed that much. I mean if 

11 you go back in time, you look at the positions that we 

12 recruit most heavily for, they haven't changed since 

13 I've been, you know, in the organization. 

14 We will always need engineers, we will 

15 always need scientists. In those hard to fill 

16 positions where we haven't had the capacity, we've gone 

17 out through the graduate fellowship program, you know, 

18 to get expertise in PRA and some other disciplines. 

19 So I think actually we're in a position of 

20 strength, because I think wherever there are going to 

21 be overages identified, most of those people are going 

22 to be fungible with hopefully minimal training to the 

23 new jobs that will appear on the horizon. 

24 So I feel very confident that despite the 

25 timing on what finishes first, chicken, egg and that 

26 whole thing, I think that we just have to demonstrate 
 50 

1 more of our agility and flexibility in moving in a more 

2 timely manner. 

3 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Thank you, 

4 Miriam. This is not rocket science, and a lot of it 

5 involves communications and just talking to people, 

6 look them in the eye and say here's what we're doing and 

7 why, and here's how I'm going to help you to move forward 

8 constructively. 

9 Here are the tools, here's additional 

10 training we'll provide and so forth. But I -- having 

11 been in other jobs elsewhere before coming here, where 

12 I've seen similar, actually much more massive 

13 restructurings done than we're seeing here, it's -- it's 

14 not a Ph.D. dissertation type thing. It's pretty 

15 straightforward, exercising common sense, good 

16 judgment, but also proper leadership across the board. 

17 I'll stop there. Thank you. 

18 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Okay. Thanks 

19 Commissioner. Anything else. I want to invite Sheryl 

20 Burrows, the chapter president for the National 

21 Treasury Employees Union forward. 

22 MS. BURROWS: Good morning everyone. I'm 

23 Sheryl Burrows, president of NTEU Chapter 208. Chapter 

24 208 is the exclusive representative of the bargaining 

25 unit employees here at the NRC. I am joined today by 

26 Marie Schwartz, our executive vice president. 
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1 There has never been a greater need for 

2 partnership between NTEU and the NRC than there is now, 

3 with the development and implementation of Project AIM 

4 2020. It is critically important at this stage that the 

5 union and management are discussing the challenges that 

6 accompany an initiative of this magnitude. 

7 Implementation and impact, the union's 

8 focus, will be driven by the decisions that are made 

9 early in the planning stages of the initiative. NTEU 

10 established a working group to ensure that we are 

11 involved at this early, critical time. 

12 Our working group is composed of volunteer 

13 union members, who understand the importance of this 

14 initiative and have a keen interest in how Project AIM 

15 2020 will be implemented. All of our working group 

16 members have day jobs, yet they carve out time to review 

17 documents, listen to their colleagues' concerns, and 

18 attend the many required meetings. 

19 We appreciate and thank their managers, who 

20 recognize the importance of this work and support their 

21 employees' involvement in this partnership. 

22 NTEU should be partnering these 

23 activities, nonetheless, we appreciate that the Project 

24 AIM team, led by Fred Brown, has made genuine efforts 

25 to work with us, steering us to points of contact and 

26 useful information that the agency is developing, so 
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1 that NTEU is in a better position to contribute at the 

2 partnership table. 

3 A short time ago, the AIM team asked NTEU 

4 what activities we wanted to be involved with. The 

5 areas that we listed focus on the implementation and 

6 impact of the initiative. But NTEU is working with the 

7 Project AIM team in the offices at this earlier stage, 

8 because we know we cannot become involved too early. 

9 NTEU has focused and will continue to 

10 stress three components that should be actively 

11 addressed in those actions that the agency plans to take 

12 as a result of Project AIM. These are roles and 

13 responsibilities should be well defined and clarified; 

14 processes and procedures should be clearly defined, so 

15 that our employees have a clear understanding of how to 

16 accomplish their work effectively and efficiently; and 

17 finally training. 

18 Provide training that ensures our 

19 employees are equipped to do their current work, and 

20 also helps our employees to prepare for future of the 

21 agency and for their career development. 

22 NTEU also noted that at the public meeting 

23 on September 1st, several stakeholders offered comments 

24 specifically addressing roles and responsibilities and 

25 processes. These stakeholders also said that they'd be 

26 submitting additional comments when the public comment 
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1 period closes September 15th. 

2 From discussions at several meetings, NTEU 

3 knows that these three areas are being considered as the 

4 agency moves forward, but they must be specifically 

5 called out. For example, these components should be 

6 considered in the rebaselining and prioritization 

7 efforts which, as we heard this morning, are an integral 

8 part of everything that follows. 

9 NTEU believes that the who, what and how of 

10 rebaselining and prioritization efforts must be 

11 specifically called out, and included as part of every 

12 actionable item. These are too important to be left as 

13 implicit assumptions. 

14 The Project AIM 2020 report points out that 

15 employees are the agency's most important resource. 

16 NTEU could not agree more. In spite of these uncertain 

17 times, NTEU employees continue to be engaged as they 

18 accomplish the agency's safety mission. 

19 Impact and implementation, no matter how 

20 benign or malignant, is only acceptable when it's driven 

21 by strategic thinking that includes a focus on the roles 

22 and responsibilities, resources and training, while 

23 embracing our NRC values. 

24 This strategic focus ensures that no matter 

25 what the future brings, our employees will be prepared 

26 to engage this future. Going forward, it is vitally 
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1 important for NRC and the union to ensure that all 

2 employees are treated with the dignity and respect they 

3 deserve. Thank you. 

4 CHAIRMAN BURNS: Thanks, Sheryl. I 

5 appreciate the efforts of the union in this project. 

6 Well thank you again to the staff for the presentations 

7 this morning. This is the first of periodic briefings 

8 we will have. 

9 Unfortunately, Commissioner Svinicki was 

10 delayed in being able to get back to Washington, but I'm 

11 sure she'll look forward to the discussion at our next 

12 meeting, as we're always looking at our papers and all 

13 that. 

14 So again, I encourage both management and 

15 the staff to stay engaged on this, and I think as my 

16 colleagues have said, there's a lot of, you know, a lot 

17 of good work I think that we need to do for the agency 

18 in moving forward, and I appreciate all the efforts to 

19 do that. So with that, we're adjourned. 

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 

21 off the record at 10:44 a.m.) 

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