Ken Engle is Chief Operating Officer for the Isotope Science and Engineering Directorate. Image Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory
It was reading about current nuclear discoveries in textbooks that first made Ken Engle want to work at a national lab.
It was seeing the real-world impact of the isotopes produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory that made him want to come here, specifically.
In late June, Engle succeeded John Gearhart as the Isotope Science and Engineering Directorate’s chief operating officer, after Gearhart became director of the lab’s Environment, Safety, Health and Quality Directorate.
“The real draw was the work I saw ISED doing for curing cancer and the advancement of nuclear fuel, along with Jeremy Busby’s enthusiasm for the mission of ISED during our tour of the facilities,” he said of the associate laboratory director for Isotope Science and Engineering.
Engle came to ORNL from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he’d served as construction management division director for more than a year and a half. But the bulk of his post-Navy career was spent in chemical manufacturing and nuclear fuel manufacturing.
While he was senior projects manager for Westlake Chemical in Louisiana — the last job he had before joining Los Alamos, and his longest tenure with a single company — Engle got the urge to return to his alma mater, Thomas Edison State University, for a bachelor’s degree in nuclear energy engineering, from which he’d graduated in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering. Engle hoped the nuclear energy engineering curriculum would help him study for the Nuclear Professional Engineering Exam.
“I began this journey in June of 2019, and it was mostly core nuclear classes with some electrical engineering,” he said. “I originally had done my core classes in 1986 and 1987, so I was seeing all the new technology and advancements that were being made around nuclear power. This gave me the desire to jump back into the nuclear field to see what was being done with nuclear fuel. That is how I ended up at LANL. Then the chance to work at ORNL, doing exactly the type of job I was looking for, was impossible to turn down. I’m so excited for this opportunity.”
For six years before joining Westlake, Engle worked in several positions with Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, in upper East Tennessee’s Unicoi County. Though an Ohio native, “I claim Tennessee as my home,” Engle said. “It will be great to go visit family two hours away. Strangely, I missed the humidity and green nature — such a difference from being at 7,000 feet in New Mexico with 15% humidity. Having less oxygen and moisture is hard on the body.
“And I missed the language. I left East Tennessee and had to learn Cajun French in Louisiana, and then moved to New Mexico. Coming back here, I instantly understood what everyone was saying!”
Growing up in Ohio, Engle had little interest in nuclear. He came of age servicing and selling cars, doing body work and pumping gas in his grandfather’s Gulf service station. A volunteer opportunity with the American Legion also led to work in residential construction. Engle did well in the industrial electronics program at his high school, where he was also class president, but had difficulty finding a job after graduation so he moved to Texas.
There he answered an ad for Nuclear Power Training — which offered “free room, board and medical” — that turned out to be with the U.S. Navy. Engle had a robust Navy career, serving from 1985 until his 2007 military retirement and gaining a vast amount of experience with nuclear power, technology and leadership. Along the way, he garnered multiple awards and honors for both overall performance and specific achievements. In addition, those experiences positioned him for a post-military career in nuclear.
Engle expects his diverse work experience to be an asset to ORNL.
“I have a vast background in nuclear operations, maintenance and construction, and I also bring in-depth knowledge of chemical manufacturing,” he said. “This, combined with my nuclear fuel manufacturing experience, will prove valuable in all aspects of ISED. Although I’m not an expert, I will understand each of the separate divisions’ struggles and needs and will help them in any capacity they need to succeed.”
Engle’s past jobs and his current position as COO have required a deep understanding and appreciation of the need for safety on the job at all times. For years, though, his leisure activities were a little riskier.
“I took up racing motorcycles late in life — something I should have done when I was much younger,” he said. “My first race was in Palm Beach, Florida, at Moroso Speedway. I basically had one lap to learn the track and ended up fifth in the Unlimited Superbike class. I raced on and off for four years, with best overall finish of ninth in my class. I had been third overall but was taken out in a 130-mile-per-hour crash and missed six races.”
Later, Engle switched from collecting Ducati motorcycles to enjoying a few Porsches. “Four wheels and a cage are much safer,” he said.
These days, all his hobbies are more sedate: collecting specific brands of tools and rare Scotch, and traveling with his wife, Sarah, a chemical engineer and accountant who is a nuclear facilities engineer at LANL.
“Now that I’m older, I find that exploring national parks and significant places in the U.S. is very interesting and enjoyable — not to mention a lot safer,” Engle said.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
