After Guiding Startup of New Historical Park, Tracy Atkins Ends LM Career

Tracy Atkins, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management Manhattan Project National Historical Park program manager, turned a love for travel and a taste for adventure into a career that allowed her to pursue both.

That taste for adventure led her to trek to the base camp of one of the tallest mountains in the world – 26,545-foot Annapurna in Nepal in 2018 – to exploring the depths, and beaches, of the remote shores of the Republic of Palau island nation near Micronesia in the north Pacific in 2020. While the Annapurna ascent was a private adventure, visiting Palau was part of her job.

Atkins accepted a detail in 2019 with the Embassy Science Fellows Program, which identifies and provides technical assistance from the U.S. federal government to other nations.

“The Palau government is concerned about the impact from too many tourists on the integrity of their natural and cultural resources, including soil conservation,” she said. “I’m still working with them as a consultant, including supporting National Park Service staff to train Palau protected area staff how to protect their resources from too much tourism.”

Atkins, who retired from LM at the end of March, joined LM from the National Park Service in 2016 to manage the federally owned properties for DOE at the new historical park, also known as MAPR. DOE and NPS are jointly responsible for the park, which consists of significant Manhattan Project facilities at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington.

DOE manages, operates, maintains, and preserves the three Manhattan Project sites. NPS provides administration, interpretation, and education at the three park sites, and supplies technical assistance to support resource preservation.

“One of my most memorable experiences with LM came when we visited the three sites with the NPS site representatives and got to tour all the facilities, including the secure sites,” Atkins said. “We also visited the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos and the Trinity site. It really gave me a feeling of being a part of history.”

Atkins has been involved with MAPR since its very inception. Prior to joining LM, she spent eight years working for NPS at the Denver Service Center in Lakewood, Colorado, as a community planner and manager for several NPS projects. When her bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering, Project Management, and master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas, and another post-graduate degree in Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering and Management from Stanford University were combined with her experience, she was the right person at the right time to manage the startup of a new national historical park.

“I was selected for an Albright Fellowship with the NPS Director’s Office in Washington, D.C. in 2015 to develop, track and assess proposals that could have significant impacts on the NPS,” she said. “This led to our developing a multiagency memorandum of agreement with the Energy and Interior Departments to establish MAPR.”

Following her fellowship, she served as the NPS interim superintendent until June 2016. When NPS assigned a permanent superintendent, she started looking to find a position with DOE in the Denver area, perhaps at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden. Her background fit well with DOE’s role at MAPR, and an informal conversation with future LM Director Carmelo Melendez ended with him recommending that she look for a place with LM managing the new park.

“Well before Carmelo became LM’s director, he told me that LM needed somebody to translate the cultures between the NPS and DOE,” she said. “My experience as an engineer and a community planner meant that I could be a bridge between the two organizations as well as understand stakeholders from local governments, private sector entities, nonprofit organizations, and the public.”

One of Atkins’ favorite accomplishments is her work on implementing Executive Order 13985 - Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. The Order required all federal agencies and programs to assess whether their policies perpetuated barriers for underrepresented and underserved communities. In response, LM and the Bonneville Power Administration led the Stakeholder Engagement Working Group, one of six working groups led by a DOE steering committee. Atkins and BPA’s Toya Bligen led the working group’s efforts.

LM and BPA gathered information from subject matter experts in various DOE programs as part of the work to develop an assessment and a Key Findings Report. Each working group later provided input for DOE’s Action Plan, which was delivered to the Office of Management and Budget as part of that agency’s work to prepare its response to the White House.

“Our group was really excited to take on this project,” Atkins said. “This is the kind of work that can have significant impact on how DOE engages with tribes and other stakeholders. Our team really believes this is the kind of work that impacts lives.”

Now that she is putting her career behind her, Atkins says she is looking forward to continuing the volunteer work she has been doing over the years with her husband Nate in their hometown of Golden. Both are avid wilderness hikers and have served as Wilderness Trekking School instructors and members on the State Board and Trail Maintenance Committees with the Colorado Mountain Club. She also serves on the Golden Economic Development Commission.

She says her first post-retirement trip fulfills her love of travel and adventure by going to Baja California, Mexico on a marine conservation trip that will include snorkeling and whale watching. In the future you can expect to see her and Nate on the road in a travel trailer, traveling throughout the West four-wheeling and mountain biking.

“The best memories I carry with me are of the great folks I worked with at LM,” she said. “Helpful people with lots of knowledge and overall positive working relationships. LM is well regarded in DOE for having good relationships with states, regulators, tribes, and the public and being transparent about their work.”