Tooele Transcript Bulletin
January 2, 2003

Burner safety a priority for new manager
(Copyright 2003 by the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin)

by Andrew Weeks
Staff Writer

Reviewing his history, one would think that Dale A. Ormond is a
fictional person from a Tom Clancy novel. With his own escapades as one
who's served his country for more than a decade, Ormond has the makings
of a Jack Ryan character.

His newest adventure is being the Site Project Manager for the Tooele
Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF) at the Deseret Chemical Depot
(DCD).

Ormond said in a phone interview that his goal as manager is to increase
the bar of safety for chemical workers.

"This is not to say that the facility was unsafe to start with, but the
margin of safety wasn't what it needed to be," he said. "I also want to
insure the destruction of all chemical agents stored at DCD, and to do
that as quickly as possible to make efficient use of taxpayers dollars."

Ormond's vision for the facility stems from his already long and devoted
career.

For starters, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985, and
afterwards went into Navy training. After six months of classroom
study, Ormond moved on to a six-month course studying nuclear
prototypes.

Next he attended submarine school and then reported to a fast-attack
submarine as a nuclear division officer. He stayed aboard the USS
Sturgeon in Charleston, S.C., for three years and said it was a "great
experience."

"I had four different divisions that I rotated through," he reflected.

"I covered all aspects of the nuclear division room. It was fun using a
periscope and doing war games."

While on the Sturgeon, Ormond also served as Officer of the Deck where
he had responsibility for all operations of the submarine.

Since his time on the sub, the USS Sturgeon has been decommissioned--in
essence, disassembled.

"When the Navy decommissions a submarine, they really decommission it,"
he said jovially.

Next Ormond went to Washington D.C. for three years as an operations
intelligence analyst for the Naval Intelligence Command. His job was to
analyze foreign submarines, among other things--things that, as he
said, are only talked about in the movies (or a Tom Clancy book).

Ormond can't talk much more about his work as an analyst, other than the
fact that it was an "eye-opener," he said.

In 1993 he left active duty and worked 18-months for BDM Federal, Inc.,
a technology consulting company that assigned him to the Hanford Site
Programs Office at the Department of Energy (DOE).

In 1995 Ormond left for Washington D.C. for an additional six months,
and then to the DOE Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.

In March 2002 Ormond transferred to the Department of Defense
headquartered in Aberdeen, Maryland. He was assigned to TOCDF as the
Acting Site Project Manager at that time, and in October was named the
Project Manager for the DCD facility.

So far the job has been "challenging" but good, Ormond said.

His time in Utah since March has been identifying and resolving various
issues at the facility, and working on plans to upgrade the level of
worker safety.

He said he looks forward to his continued work with TOCDF, and hopes to
make a significant difference in his work.

Ormond currently rents an apartment outside of Tooele County and said he
and his wife, Rachel, and their two children will probably wind up
living in Salt Lake City.