Bruce Watson

Bruce A. Watson, CHP is the Chief, of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch in the Division of Decommissioning Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. Bruce has been with the NRC since March 2004. He has extensive experience in decommissioning of reactors and materials sites and was the technical lead for the license terminations at Trojan, Maine Yankee, Rancho Seco, and Big Rock Point. He has overseen the closure and license terminations at AAR and Stepan material sites and the University of Illinois, NASA, and Cornell research reactors. In May 2010, Bruce was appointed as the Chief, Reactor Decommissioning Branch, and is responsible for power and research reactor, complex materials and uranium decommissioning project management, licensing and inspection programs. Since 2010, he has overseen the license terminations at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, and SUNY at Buffalo research reactors. Under Bruce’s leadership, in 2021, the Reactor Decommissioning Branch terminated the licenses at Humboldt Bay and the two research reactors at General Atomics. He has extensive international decommissioning experience with the IAEA in the development of decommissioning safety guides and training programs, and represented NRC in bilateral decommissioning cooperation meetings with France, Korea and Taiwan. Prior to joining the NRC, his previous experience included management of defense complex decommissioning projects at Rocky Flats and international projects in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Bruce has a B.S. from Virginia Tech and is certified by the American Board of Health Physics. He has 40 years of experience in health physics, including over 30 years of management experience.