PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE SUMMARY
Donald. J. Spellman
Donald J. Spellman is a Senior Development Engineer for the Engineering Technology Division (ETD) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Mr. Spellman came to ORNL in 1991 from PRC Engineering Services Inc., an engineering and information systems consulting firm in Reston, VA. His project experience includes design development of advanced gas-cooled reactors, assessment of BWR and PWR power plant processes, design reviews and validation, configuration management program development and implementation, marketing and business development, and large-scale computer data base data collection and validation.
Mr. Spellman is Project Manager for the ORNL Fissile Materials Disposition Program (FMDP) support to the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fissile Materials Disposition. He currently has overall responsibility to manage ORNL tasking for the domestic reactor option for disposition of weapons-grade plutonium as mixed-oxide nuclear fuel. During the project, DOE will implement the reactor option in the United States through a DOE contract with a national consortium of engineering design and fuel fabrication companies. Previously, Mr. Spellman supported the FMDP program as the ORNL technical lead for the assembly of the necessary documentation to present a request for proposals to appropriate bidders and to assemble a team to evaluate responses from qualified bidders who would compete to implement the reactor disposition option. Prior to this procurement assignment he was the project coordinator for technical development of the Canadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor investigation as an option for the disposition of surplus plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.
At ORNL, Mr. Spellman previously served as a Principal Engineer for support of the DOE Technical Standards Program. He was responsible for coordination and support activities for recognition of technical standards needs, determination of current coverage, development of new standards, and database tracking of existing standards and their revisions. He is currently Chairman of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Nuclear Facilities Standards Committee and is the ANS liaison member to the IEEE Nuclear Power Engineering Committee on standards.
Mr. Spellman completed a successful military career in nuclear submarines from 1960 to 1980, progressing through the Naval Enlisted Scientific Education Program and reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander and qualification as Engineer Officer. After retirement, he was employed as a project manager for Gas-Cooled Reactor Associates to provide supervision and technical direction for research and development of the modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. He was responsible for evaluating alternative engineering concepts, construction methods, and project controls. He coordinated the NSSS vendor and architect engineer design efforts, conducted cost trade-off analyses, evaluated competing designs, and allocated DOE support funding.
During the remainder of the 1980s, Mr. Spellman served in various roles as a engineering and management consultant to the commercial nuclear power industry. He was responsible for directing utility assumption of design responsibilities, development of the configuration baseline and the computer systems to manage its status, engineering information systems analysis and logical design, plant design basis reconstruction, plant modification process design reviews, revision of work activities to support integrated database control for configuration information, and tracking of real-time activities not yet reflected in design documents and information systems. He was responsible for engineering technical services marketing and corporate business development of configuration management projects at several nuclear utilities and for the DOE New Production Reactor Program.
Mr. Spellman received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University and completed M.S. studies in ocean engineering (nuclear programs) at the University of Rhode Island. His MS project was associated with design and analysis of the sea water cooling system for the Seabrook Nuclear Station.
