Geoffrey Beausoleil will retire in April as the local federal official for the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) production office, which oversees the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, he said in an email.
Separately, a senior DoE official tweeted Friday that Steve Erhart, a former policy manager in the office of the NNSA administrator, and briefly acting administrator himself in 2018, is leaving federal service.
It was my honor to present Steve Erhart the Secretary’s Exceptional Service Award for his 30+ years of service @ENERGY. I want to thank my colleague for his steadfast commitment to the DOE mission and wish him the best in his retirement. pic.twitter.com/RYlDFvbiht
— Mark W. Menezes (@DepSecMenezes) November 20, 2020
Erhart was the manager of the NNSA production office until 2015, when he moved to NNSA headquarters in Washington. At the end of his career, he was the chief human capital officer for all of the Department of Energy.
The NNSA is the semiautonomous DoE agency that runs civilian nuclear weapons programs, including the design, manufacture and upkeep of bombs and warheads.
Meanwhile, Beausoleil’s last day will be April 30, he wrote in his Nov. 19 note to federal employees and contractors of the two sites.
“There comes a time in everyone’s career when one realizes the length of runway behind them is quite long and that which is in front of them shorter,” Beausoleil wrote. “I have been in the forefront of national security operations for over forty years. While it has been a phenomenal ride, I find it is time for me to hang up my government spurs and ride off into the proverbial sunset.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, which features a photograph of Beausoleil in riding leathers on a motorcycle, the outgoing production office overseer’s DoE career started in 1991. Since then, he has worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Pantex Plant and the Sandia National Laboratory, among other sites.
According to Beausoleil’s farewell email, and in keeping with the typical process for higher-level government hires, the NNSA will first look for internal DoE candidates to fill the Production Office manager’s role.