James Durnan Receives Secretary's Award for Improving DOE Electrical Safety

James Durnan enlarge

James Durnan

Laboratory Electrical Safety Officer James Durnan, Safety & Health Services Division, received "The Secretary's Appreciation Award" from DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman in recognition of his contributions to the DOE Electrical Safety Improvement Project Team. The award certificate states, in part, that since January 2006, the team "has provided valuable assistance to the Department, facilitating significant improvement in electrical safety performance across the DOE complex."

The team, a subgroup of the DOE Energy Facility Contractors Group (EGCOG) Electrical Committee, meets twice yearly to discuss electrical safety initiatives and improvements for the DOE complex. The team members received their certificates at a recent 2008 EFCOG meeting hosted by DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.

"I am one of about 20 team members who received this certificate, all electrical subject matter experts from DOE sites," Durnan said. "I am able to attend the meetings and be a member of the team because of the support of BNL Deputy Director for Operations Mike Bebon and my management in Safety and Health Services Division. The team's function is to review the unique electrical concerns at DOE sites and provide solutions and guidance to address them for DOE. Some of our achievements are inclusion of safety-related work requirements for research and development laboratories in NFPA 70E, the national standard for electrical safety in the workplace, and development of the electrical severity measurement tool that aids DOE in evaluating the severity of electrical incidents."

At BNL, Durnan assists the Laboratory Electrical Safety Committee in the interpretation of the National Electrical Code, known as NFPA 70, which is the U.S. standard for safe installation of electrical wiring and equipment, and NFPA 70E. He is also the subject matter expert for electrical safety and lockout/tagout - specific practices and procedures to safeguard employees from injury due to unexpected energizing or startup of machinery or equipment - subject areas in the Standards Based Management System.

The interpretation of the code is important for assisting electrical workers in maintaining a safe workplace at BNL. Durnan said, "The electrical workers at BNL are the most professional and competent I have met in my career. My job is to assist them in performing their work safely and to code."

A New York State-licensed professional engineer and a certified safety professional, Durnan earned an associate's degree in electronic technology from the Wentworth Institute of Technology in 1967, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1974 from Columbia University. He served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1970 and became an electronic technician at Consolidated Edison Company upon his return to civilian life. He then joined Gibbs & Hill Engineering in 1974 before coming to Brookhaven Lab as an electrical engineer in 1975.

Durnan left BNL in 1980 to join Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation in the construction of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, and from 1983 to 1990, he worked for the Long Island Lighting Company as plant maintenance electrical engineer for the nuclear power plant. In 1990, Durnan returned to BNL, where he became a safety engineer in the Radiological Control Division. He moved to the Safety & Health Services Division in the same role in 2003, and in 2005, he assumed his current position.

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