Bio
Bill Sonnenburg joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in 2021 as senior project manager of the Radioisotope Processing Facility (RPF) project. As RPF project manager, he is establishing and advancing a Department of Energy (DOE) capital line-item project: to design and build a Hazard Category 2 nuclear facility deploying modular hot cells to meet critical near- and long-term national demand for processing radioisotopes for medical, scientific and industrial applications. Bill is a skilled project management professional with experience in engineering, procurement and construction on large projects ranging from the hundreds of millions of dollars in the construction sector to several billion-dollars for federally funded line-item projects.
Prior to joining ORNL, Bill held various leadership roles over the past 18 years where he was responsible for successful delivery of large and complex construction projects, including commercial nuclear reactors, fossil power plants and nuclear projects for the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration.
He started his professional career in 2006 working for Kiewit as a mechanical engineer and lead mechanical field engineer on a $515 million 200MW fossil power plant, one of the cleanest coal-fired generating units in the nation, that was completed six months ahead of schedule and under budget. He developed and implemented advanced construction planning tools, including 4D modeling, that gained national recognition and led to the City Water, Light & Power's Dallman Unit 4 being named POWER magazine Power Plant of the Year in 2009.
Bill joined Bechtel in 2010 as a mechanical field engineer at a $4.7 billion Construction Completion Project for Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear power plant, where he became the construction coordinator responsible for representation of multiple departments including electrical, instrumentation, mechanical and the control room design review group at system meetings with utility owner TVA. As system completion manager, he managed the completion and turnover of the first major ASME Section III safety-class system turnover in nearly two decades. Following this success, he became lead system completion manager before serving as project field engineer and then assistant site manager through substantial completion followed by nuclear fuel load in 2015.
Afterward, Bill transitioned to the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) Project in Oak Ridge for design and construction for the DOE NNSA at Y-12 National Security Complex, a $6.5 billion project. He became area field engineer for the $4.7 billion Main Processing Building subproject, the largest subproject at UPF, and then was UPF control account manager with overall responsibility for project construction scope with accounts totaling more than $900 million in direct hire labor and subcontracts. He executed the overall planning, direction, control, coordination and evaluation for 13 Control Accounts in four subprojects, including the Main Processing Building, Salvage and Accountability Building, Mechanical and Equipment Building and Project Support Facility, before coming to ORNL.
Bill received a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering in 2005 from the University of Tennessee. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and is a certified Project Management Professional through the Project Leadership Institute.