EM Team Members Honored as MVPs for Achieving Cost Savings for DOE

Two members of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) team have been recognized for outstanding performance providing cost savings and added value to DOE last year.

Greg Long, a senior procurement specialist with Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC), EM’s cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory Site, was honored as the 2023 EM Strategic Sourcing MVP. Lisa Tanner, a small business liaison officer for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the management and operations contractor at Savannah River Site (SRS), was named the 2023 EM Small Business Advocate MVP.

“It is an honor and a privilege to be recognized among my fellow peers, mentors and colleagues in the industry,” Long said. “There are a lot of amazing people across the DOE complex who make just as much an impact by doing the same work at their respective sites."

DOE’s Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) presented the awards during a ceremony at its Spring Face-to-Face Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, earlier this spring.

The center is a strategic supply chain program dedicated to simplifying the buying process to enable savings for EM and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) contractors.

Each winner demonstrated outstanding performance and a commitment to strategic sourcing and small business programs while closely working with procurement professionals and suppliers in-house or across the DOE enterprise. The center’s EM and NNSA site advisory committees selected this year’s recipients for their exceptional expertise and demonstrated talent for collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

“Greg demonstrates exceptional professional expertise and talent for collaboration and knowledge-sharing,” said Shawna Southwick, IEC senior manager for Supply Chain Management. “His management and oversight of our supply chain processes and inventory ensures our project receives materials they need on time. That means our workforce gets what they need to continue to work safely.”

In fiscal year 2023, Long averaged 1,300 purchase orders, with 61% of the dollars spent going to small businesses. His effective use of a new auction system developed for the SCMC resulted in $792,000 of savings, representing 38% of IEC’s total savings in that fiscal year.

Tanner collaborated to improve the visibility and performance of the supplier onboarding process. She also noted the pending implementation of a supplier portal and risk assessment software.

“Our team is vital in supporting SRS missions, and I remain focused on the deployment of these tools for future onboarding efficiencies,” Tanner said.

Dave Dietz, SRNS Procurement senior director, said Tanner and the SRNS Supply Chain Procurement team are key in establishing the Supply Chain Center of Excellence by consistently assessing and evaluating supplier performance.

“Lisa also supports the ‘Small Business First’ policy by guiding our various buyer teams to consider small business suppliers whenever possible,” Dietz said. “These efforts have been extremely successful with some buyers awarding over 80% of work in any given month to small businesses.”

-Contributors: Mackenzie McNabb, Jessica Vasseur, Elisabeth Warn