[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 154 (Wednesday, October 29, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13511-S13512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO RONALD W. BARTON

 Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to note before the 
Senate a great professional honor bestowed recently on my constituent, 
Ronald W. Barton of Arlington: the Chairman's Medal of the Defense 
Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.

[[Page S13512]]

  The Safety Board, the Senators will recall, was established by 
statute in 1988 for the purpose of providing the highest quality of 
technical oversight of the safe operations of the Nation's nuclear 
weapons complex--dozens of plants with very high risk radioactive 
material. To accomplish this very difficult task, the Safety Board has 
to attract and train the very best technical talent in the nuclear 
area. Chairman Conway's citation accompanying the award to Mr. Barton 
says in part:

       Mr. Barton joined the Board in 1994, bringing with him more 
     than 25 years of project management and engineering 
     experience in the design, construction, and operation of 
     nuclear reactors for commercial facilities. He became an 
     indispensable leader for the Board's technical staff, and was 
     key to the development of more than half a dozen technical 
     reports, which continue to have an impact on operations in 
     the defense nuclear complex today.

  I have examined Mr. Barton's career, and I certainly agree with 
Chairman Conway. Mr. Barton not only brought his own expertise to the 
board, but he trained and developed a generation of young engineers to 
contribute to the admirable technical performance of the safety board, 
where a technical staff of about 60 oversees the safe operation of a 
complex of over 100,000 workers with a budget of over $16 billion. This 
technical staff is superb, and Ron Barton helped build it, and then led 
it by example.
  Now Ron must retire, much too early, because of his leukemia. We wish 
he were able to continue to serve, but we are grateful for the 
contributions he made to safety in the nuclear complex. For instance, 
Ron was the expert lead on at least six very complex and thorough 
technical studies, on such diverse areas as: DOE emergency management 
capabilities, confinement ventilation systems, fire protection, 
criticality safety, and documented safety analysis. This is an 
extraordinary list of achievements; these reports still guide the 
Department of Energy operations of these complex, hazardous facilities. 
We should be grateful to Ron for these contributions.
  Ron Barton is the best of the best, and the Nation will miss his 
contributions. We wish him good health and a happy retirement.

                          ____________________