About Us
Leadership
Chuck Spencer – President and Project Manager
Chuck Spencer is President and Project Manager of Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), an affiliate company of URS Corporation where he leads the $7.1 billion remediation of radioactive and hazardous waste tanks at the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state. WRPS assumed responsibility for the Hanford Tank Operations Contract on Oct. 1, 2008.
At Washington River Protection Solutions, he is responsible for retrieving, treating, storing, and disposing of Hanford’s tank waste and closing single-shell storage tanks to protect the Columbia River. Approximately 53 million gallons of highly radioactive and hazardous waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at the Hanford Site.
He is a 25-year veteran of URS (formerly Washington Group International) and the nuclear industry.
Before being named president of WRPS, Spencer was President and Project Manager of Washington Closure Hanford, a company that manages the River Corridor Closure Project at DOE's Hanford Site.
Prior to that, Spencer was senior vice president for management and operations for the Global Management & Operations Services Group, responsible for operations at the Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Waste Isolation Pilot Project and other project operations. In addition, he was responsible for design oversight of the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility and had operational responsibility for the business unit’s operations in the United Kingdom.
Previously, he was the vice president and general manager for Defense Programs at the Washington Savannah River Company near Aiken, South Carolina. There he had responsibility for servicing all active nuclear weapons through the production and processing of tritium and testing of gas boost systems. He also was responsible for managing the Savannah River Site’s development of the conceptual design of the $2.4 billion Modern Pit Facility for future plutonium trigger manufacturing for the nation’s stockpile.
From 1988 until joining Washington Group in 1990 he was an attorney for Centerior Service Company in Ohio where he was responsible for nuclear and other corporate matters.
He earned a civil engineering technology degree from Youngstown State University and a Juris Doctor degree from Cleveland Marshall College of Law.
Spencer resides in Richland, Washington, and serves on the board of directors for the Tri-City Economic Development Council and United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties.
