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Michael Johnson

On May 14, 2012, Michael Johnson began serving as the Deputy Executive Director for Reactor and Preparedness Programs and is responsible for leading the Offices of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, New Reactors, Nuclear Security and Incident Response and NRC’s four Regional Offices.

Mr. Johnson has over 40 years of Federal service, first with the U.S. Navy, and subsequently with the NRC.  Mr. Johnson joined the U.S. Navy in 1974 and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering.  Mr. Johnson served in the nuclear submarine force for 10 years.  He also served in the Navy Reserves through 1995.

Mr. Johnson began his civilian career in 1986 as an inspector in the NRC Office of Inspection and Enforcement.  Following that he served as a Technical Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director for Regional Operations.  From 1989 to 2005, Mr. Johnson held a number of progressively more responsible staff and supervisory positions in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

In 2001, Mr. Johnson was selected to the Senior Executive Service, and has since assumed a variety of senior management positions.  He has served Chief of the Inspection Program Branch, Chief of the Probabilistic Safety Assessment Branch, Deputy Director of the Division of Inspection Program Management, and Deputy Director of the Division of Systems Safety and Analysis.  As Chief of the Inspection Program Branch, Mr. Johnson led the most extensive overhaul in the past 25 years of the NRC’s processes for overseeing the performance of operating reactors.  The agency undertook this effort, led by Mr. Johnson, to fundamentally revise the process used to inspect nuclear power plants to ensure that they operate safely.

From 2005 to 2006, Mr. Johnson served as Director of the Office of Enforcement.  In this position, he led the development and implementation of activities to enhance the agency’s oversight of the safety culture of operating reactor plants.  In 2006, Mr. Johnson assumed the position of Assistant for Operations in the Office of the Executive Director for Operations before becoming the Deputy Director of the Office of Research in 2007.  In May 2008, he became the Director of the Office of New Reactors (NRO), the second largest office at the NRC, with programmatic responsibility for enabling the safe, secure, and environmentally responsible use of nuclear power in meeting the Nation’s future energy needs.

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