National Security Technologies’ new president a veteran in field

A veteran of the nation's weapons labs who currently is head of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University will take over the reins for running the Nevada National Security Site in January, officials for the test site's prime contractor said Wednesday.

Raymond J. Juzaitis will replace Stephen M. Younger as president of National Security Technologies, NSTec, the corporation that manages and operates the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Younger will retire in January. He has been president of NSTec since the corporation was awarded the five-year,
$500 million annual contract in 2006. NSTec is a joint venture whose partners include Northrop Grumman, AECOM, Babcok & Wilcox, and CH2MHill.

Juzaitis currently is nuclear engineering department head for Texas A&M, one of the nation's most prestigious nuclear engineering programs.

Previously, he served as an associate director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he led weapons physics projects.

"His extensive experience in nuclear weapons physics and testing combined with his leadership and management credentials make him the most qualified individual to lead NSTec now," Bill Carty, chair of the company's Board of Managers, said in a news release Wednesday.

"We are fortunate to have a person of Ray's caliber leading an already talented NNSS team into the future," Carty said.

Carty credits Juzaitis with playing a critical role in designing experiments that were conducted at the former Nevada Test Site earlier in his career.

Also, he served two tours in Washington, D.C., as the senior technical adviser to the Office of Weapons Science in the Department of Energy and as the special scientific adviser to the assistant to the secretary of defense.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.