OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Harold Conner has been a force behind many accomplishments at DOE for more than 50 years. In a career that has come full circle, he has a unique distinction of supporting uranium enrichment operations and then leading efforts related to its cleanup at Oak Ridge.

Conner, who holds a doctorate in industrial and systems engineering, began as a chemical engineering co-op student at the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, or K-25 Site, in the late 1960s.

Watch this video, "Journey to World’s First: The K-25 Story," featuring Conner.

After graduating from the University of Tennessee–Martin, where he was the first African American to earn a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, Conner spent the next 33 years working in almost every facility in the Oak Ridge plant, eventually being named site manager and later vice president of environmental management and enrichment facilities. In that latter role, Conner managed 3,000 workers for operations in Oak Ridge, Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Conner’s talent, knowledge and expertise led to a diverse career across the DOE complex. In addition to Oak Ridge, Conner has worked at the gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah and Portsmouth as well as the Idaho National Laboratory, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

After working at other DOE sites, Conner returned home to Tennessee where he served as a senior advisor to Oak Ridge cleanup contractor UCOR and supported efforts to complete cleanup at the site where his career began.