Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson today named Robert DeGrasse to the new position of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations within the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Defense Programs. Bob DeGrasse will provide day-to-day operational oversight, guidance and coordination of the nation’s nuclear weapons research, development and production facilities.

"Bob is exceptionally well-prepared to oversee the efficient and effective operation of the department’s nuclear defense programs," said Secretary Richardson. "He spent over a decade in senior posts overseeing and implementing key organizational changes to increase efficiency and maintain the core capabilities necessary to accomplish the department’s missions."

The new post was created as part of Richardson’s reorganization of the department’s national security programs (announced last April) to establish greater line-accountability, responsibility and communication between DOE’s primary programs and field organizations, laboratories and contractors.

Bob DeGrasse comes to his newest job with a set of unique qualifications and skills honed both within the Energy Department and on Capitol Hill. He joined the department in 1993 after serving four years as staffer of a special panel of the House Armed Services Committee overseeing DOE’s atomic energy defense activities. In that capacity, he worked with the panel’s chairman, Rep. John Spratt, (D-S.C.) and other key Members of Congress to create the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and on forming a special congressional commission on the safety of nuclear weapons. (It is widely known as the "Drell Panel").

In his first assignment at the department, DeGrasse served as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Defense Programs. In this role, he helped shape the policy of science-based stockpile stewardship for assuring the effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Of note, as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy for Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Defense Programs, DeGrasse helped shape the policy guiding the Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of underground testing. In addition, he assisted the Secretary in the nuclear weapons complex consolidation by closing and reusing excess facilities providing non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons.

DeGrasse was also responsible for initiating a program for disposing of excess fissile materials. He was instrumental in launching a public process for identifying methods to "demilitarize" – in concert with the Russians – plutonium and uranium unneeded after the end of the Cold War.

Since 1995, as Director of the Office of Worker and Community Transition, Mr. DeGrasse has been responsible for overseeing a 33 percent reduction in the contractor work force (from 150,000 to 100,000 employees) at department-owned facilities.

A key consideration during these dramatic reductions has been the maintenance of the department’s core technical capabilities to manage nuclear materials and the other hazards associated with nuclear weapons activities. In pursuit of this objective, Mr. DeGrasse has worked in coordination with Defense Programs and has developed extensive knowledge of DOE’s defense research and production facilities and work force.

A native of California, Robert DeGrasse received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1976. In 1984, he earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He and his family make their home in McLean, Va.