[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 28 (Thursday, February 16, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S1393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                        TRIBUTE TO GARY PETERSEN

 Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to a 
close friend, ally, and devoted public servant as Gary Petersen retires 
from a more than 50-year career in support of our national security, 
environmental cleanup, and furthering the ever-changing missions of the 
Hanford Nuclear Reservation and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 
PNNL, in my home State of Washington.
  A graduate of Omak High School in Okanogan County, Mr. Petersen first 
came to what is now known as the Tri-Cities in January 1960 as a 
servicemember stationed with the Nike Ajax missile site at the top of 
Rattlesnake Mountain. After a duty station transfer to Korea, he came 
home to Washington and attended Washington State University. With a 
communications degree in hand, Mr. Petersen had a job lined up with 
Ford Motor Company in 1965, but in a great stroke of luck for 
Washington State, he chose not to move to Detroit and instead got a job 
with Battelle, a company that had recently won a contract to operate a 
research and development lab--now PNNL--at Hanford in 1965. One could 
say that Mr. Petersen got in on the ground floor at PNNL when its 
scientists were providing critical support to win the cold war.
  While at Battelle, Mr. Petersen worked in communications and was the 
manager of the news service. One of his chief responsibilities was to 
give tours of the Hanford site to new employees, elected officials and 
dignitaries, and later, foreign visitors. Congresswoman Catherine May, 
the first woman elected to Congress from Washington State, was the 
first Member of Congress Mr. Petersen gave a tour to, but she was 
certainly not the last. Senator Warren Magnuson, Speaker Tom Foley, and 
I, to name a few others, have all crisscrossed the Hanford site with 
Mr. Petersen. He even helped with President Richard Nixon's visit. By 
now, Mr. Petersen has probably given thousands of tours of Hanford, and 
many, including myself, have heard the stories from years past, from 
bumping into the woman who he would later marry during a tour, to the 
alligators, to bringing moon rocks from the Apollo 11 mission to 
Hanford for public display.
  Mr. Petersen's work with nuclear management began in 1974 for 
Westinghouse on the construction, start-up, and operation of the Fast 
Flux Test Reactor and then the Washington Public Power Supply System, 
which is now Energy Northwest. After spending some time on the 
International Nuclear Safety Program through the U.S. Departments of 
Energy and State, Mr. Petersen returned to Battelle as the director of 
communications and administration at PNNL in the late 1980s.
  When he retired from Battelle in 2002, Mr. Petersen was quickly 
recruited by Sam Volpentest to help him at the Tri-Cities Washington 
Economic Development Council in a part-time, volunteer capacity to 
travel to Washington, DC, to secure funding to support Hanford and 
PNNL. This part-time job quickly became a full-time job, and Mr. 
Petersen has been advocating on behalf of the Tri-Cities ever since. 
Since my first days in the Senate, I have worked with Mr. Petersen, and 
he has been a key ally during many a funding battle. He knows the 
budget as well as any staff member on the Appropriations Committee, and 
this isn't just limited to nuclear waste cleanup, but also includes 
research and development capabilities that support the PNNL mission, 
transportation, agriculture, and so much more.
  It is clear to me that Washington State has benefited greatly from 
Mr. Petersen's vision and passion for sharing what the Tri-Cities 
community, its workforce, the Hanford site, and PNNL have to offer. I 
have seen this firsthand at home and here in the other Washington. His 
work is evident in the progress that has been made on environmental 
cleanup at Hanford, to charting out a future vision for the Tri-Cities 
that looks past cleanup operations to preserving history through 
designating the B Reactor as a National Historic Landmark and the 
Manhattan Project National Historical Park, to growing the workforce 
safety mission at the Volpentest Hazardous Materials Management and 
Emergency Response Federal Training Center, and to seeking out new, 
emerging opportunities like small modular reactors. Through it all, he 
has remained as committed as they come. Last October, when I had the 
good fortune to get one more tour with Mr. Petersen at the Hanford 
site, I saw that he still carried the same enthusiasm and pride for his 
work as what I had seen in him on my very first tour years ago.
  Mr. Petersen has been critical to my work in the Senate and has made 
a tremendous impact on the Tri-Cities community, Washington State, and 
our Nation. Today I join with others throughout the State of Washington 
in thanking him for his many years of service. I congratulate Mr. 
Petersen on his retirement and wish him and his wife, Margaret, the 
best of luck as they write their next chapter.

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