As the next generation workforce grows, a large part of its success will come from learning institutional knowledge of longtime employees like Tony Hudson, a senior project manager at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management's (EM) Paducah Site who recently surpassed 50 years of service.
Office of Environmental Management
April 23, 2024
minute read time
At top, Tony Hudson poses with a photo of himself in the C-300 Central Control Building, where he once worked as a plant shift supervisor. The portraits show Hudson throughout his 50-year career at the Paducah Site.
PADUCAH, Ky. — As the next generation workforce grows, a large part of its success will come from learning institutional knowledge of longtime employees like Tony Hudson, a senior project manager at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management's (EM) Paducah Site who recently surpassed 50 years of service.
“My footprints have been everywhere in this plant,” Hudson said. “It has been the land of opportunity for me in a lot of ways. Working different jobs and staying at the same place has been the greatest part about it.”
Hudson currently supports EM with deactivation activities in the site’s former uranium enrichment facilities, utilities operations and disposition of R-114 refrigerant, an environmental hazard stored at Paducah. His experience moves these projects forward and helps advance the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office mission to accelerate cleanup, eliminate potential environmental threats, reduce the EM footprint and lower costs.
Read a related story in this EM Update issue about the ongoing removal and downsizing of convertors at Paducah’s C-333 Process Building.
Tony Hudson, right, and Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (ETAS) Senior Project Manager Michelle Jones, center, listen to ETAS Stabilization & Deactivation Project Manager Nathan Miller describe the equipment, systems and processes supporting the material-sizing area operations in the C-333 Process Building Segmentation Shop #2. ETAS is the Paducah Site’s technical support contractor.
Hudson was hired as a guard at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in January 1974. He said that job exposed him to multiple areas of the site and inspired him to pursue bigger and better opportunities.
He later moved to the uranium enrichment cascade, a complex network of pipes, motors, compressors, converters and other equipment used to provide enriched uranium, originally for nuclear security and later to supply commercial nuclear power plants. He worked there as an operator and was eventually promoted to supervisor.
In 1991, Hudson received a mechanical engineering degree at Southern Illinois University and began work in engineering positions at the site. But soon enough he received a call to become a plant shift superintendent, a position he accepted.
Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (ETAS) Paducah Project Manager Jolie Fleming, left, recognizes ETAS Senior Project Manager Tony Hudson for evaluating the appropriate boundary isolation points for the C-333 Unit Bypass characterization project. Hudson’s insight into all connecting systems supports decision-making and coordination of oversight. ETAS is the Paducah Site’s technical support contractor.
Hudson expressed pride over the site’s success throughout the years. Although he will not be working when cleanup is finished at Paducah, Hudson is enthusiastic about the future.
“I look for this to be a great place for people to feel good about having a job they can make a living with and contribute to the mission here at the Paducah Site,” Hudson said. “I enjoy seeing the continued deactivation and remediation work with the disposition of R-114 and the removal of equipment from the process buildings.”
Fifty years has given Hudson time to reflect on his career and assess whether he could have done things differently. He said he hopes those who are just beginning a career or want to start a career at the Paducah Site will consider a couple of things.
“Pay attention to how things work in your group, but outside of your group, too,” Hudson said. “This is a place where you can work in an area outside of what you’re doing right now. Learn your job and know what’s going on at the site so you can have other opportunities.”
-Contributor: Zachary Boyarski
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