Mr. Lake Barrett was appointed to the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board by President Joseph Biden on September 16, 2024.
Mr. Barrett is a part time independent consultant in the energy field. He has worked in the nuclear energy and nuclear materials management areas for more than five decades. He served as special advisor to Japan for the recovery of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. Before that, he served as the head of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management which was responsible for implementing the United States’ programs for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste management, as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In that capacity, he led the complex scientific Yucca Mountain Geologic Repository program through the statutory site selection process culminating with the Presidential site designation and following successful House and Senate votes before he retired from Federal service.
Mr. Barrett also served at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in various senior capacities, including as the site director during the stabilization, recovery, and cleanup of the Three Mile Island reactor accident. He has testified in Congressional hearings concerning U.S. spent nuclear fuel policies and the Fukushima reactor accident. He also has extensive managerial and engineering experience in DOE’s Defense Programs and in private industry at both Bechtel Power Corporation, with commercial nuclear power plants, and Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, with nuclear reactor and submarine systems design, operation, and decommissioning. He has degrees in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and has been the recipient of various executive branch and congressional honors.