on campus - Article - Manhattan College

40 manhattan.edu
Energy To Burn
As assistant secretary of energy,
James Rispoli ’68 is helping to clean up America
It’s not every job where final approval
comes after confirmation from the U.S.
Senate. But that was exactly the case for
James Rispoli ’68, who, after retiring from
the Navy’s Civilian Corps of Engineers and
stints in private firms, as well as the U.S.
Department of Energy, was sworn in last
summer as assistant secretary of energy for
environmental management. His rise in
government wasn’t something the Staten
Island native had foreseen back in his days
at Manhattan — or even something he
would have guessed at a few years ago.
Career-wise, it was “not a to-be-expected
progression,” Rispoli says.
In his nine months or so on the job — his
nomination to the position was unanimously
confirmed by the Senate on July 29, 2005,
and he was sworn in on August 10 — Rispoli
has headed a big undertaking: a cleanup of
the department of energy’s nuclear waste
sites, a $6 billion-a-year program targeting
some 20 sites across the United States.
His department’s major missions are treating and safely
disposing of radioactive liquid and solid waste, spent nuclear
fuel and nuclear materials, such as plutonium and uranium;
cleaning up chemically and radioactively contaminated soil
and groundwater; and cleaning out and demolishing facilities,
such as nuclear reactors, large nuclear materials processing
buildings and laboratories. Highly radioactive waste and
materials found during cleanup are disposed of in deep
geologic “repositories.” Less radioactive and chemical wastes
are disposed of in surface landfills.
Rispoli’s work is the legacy of more than 60 years of nuclear
weapons research, development, production and testing in more
than 100 sites across the country. While a small amount of the
existing waste is used-up nuclear reactor fuel, the majority was
generated as part of the development of the country’s nuclear
weapons complex, which dates back to the Manhattan Project
to develop the atomic bomb during World War II.
Areas targeted for cleanup include former Manhattan Project
locations and Cold War development facilities, such as Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Hanford Site in
Washington state and Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee
(original Manhattan Project sites), as well as Savannah River
Site in South Carolina and Idaho National Laboratory in
southeastern Idaho. The cleanup effort is scheduled to run for
the next few decades, with a total budgeted cost of $145 billion.
To date, many of the smaller sites have been finished, and
approximately 17 more sites are slated to be closed between
now and 2009. The remaining large sites are expected to be
completed by 2035.
Since being sworn in, Rispoli says, the job has been a rewarding
one, but a few challenges have stuck out. A key objective of the
office is performing the job safely — not only for the benefit
of the more than 30,000 workers (many of whom are contract
employees) but also for the environment and surrounding
communities as well. Another is attracting and retaining a
workforce with the necessary experience and scientific skills
to do the technical and complex job.
“It’s not that common a career field,” he says ruefully.
Rispoli credits his own experiences and skills in large part
to Manhattan and especially to his time in its Air Force ROTC,
which awarded him a two-year scholarship to the College.
The two organizations gave him not only a solid education —
“Manhattan gave me a great technical education, a superb
engineering education,” he says — but also the self-confidence
and the discipline that leadership positions require.
“You learn [the self-confidence and leadership ability] in
class and put it in practice as you move your way up,” Rispoli
says, noting that his time in the Arnold Air Society, as well as
the campus chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
gave him plenty of opportunities to lead.
“Between Manhattan and the ROTC, I got a really great start
in civil engineering,” he says.
But it’s not just a career that Rispoli credits to his
undergraduate experience.
“If it weren’t for Manhattan,” he says, “I wouldn’t have
discovered the career I spent my life in — and I wouldn’t
have found the person I’ve spent it with.”
Rispoli met his wife, Carol, then a student at Brooklyn
College, at a mixer in Thomas Hall in 1968, and they were
married in 1969. Together they have two children, Joseph and
Christina, who both followed their father into engineering and
have families of their own.
After graduation, the Air Force sent Rispoli for a fully funded
master’s degree in civil engineering at the University of New
Hampshire. Afterward, a career in the Air Force and, six years
later, in the Navy’s Civilian Engineering Corps took the Rispolis
across the country. He estimates that, between the two branches,
they moved 13 times in 26 years. Along the way, he earned a
master’s in business at Central Michigan University. After retiring
from the Navy as a captain in 1995, Rispoli held executive
positions at engineering firms Dames & Moore and Metcalf and
Eddy, which specialize in design, construction management
and environmental engineering.