December 2006

JIM VIEBROCK'S ADVENTUROUS CAREER
MHF-LS Nuclear Expert Jim Viebrock’s Assignments Have Spanned The Globe

For nuclear fuel cycle expert Jim Viebrock, globetrotting has become a way of life.

Over the course of an almost four-decade long career in the nuclear energy industry, Viebrock – who recently joined MHF Logistical Solutions (MHF-LS) to help manage our growing spent fuel and international businesses – has worked in some 25 countries.

Viebrock currently is on assignment in Europe where he is managing a nuclear waste transportation logistics project for an MHF-LS client.


Jim Viebrock, seen here along The Great Wall of China, is a world expert in the nuclear fuel cycle. He recently joined MHF Logistical Solutions.
Europe is certainly a reprise from earlier locations. In recent years, a series of projects for Viebrock’s previous company had him encamped for weeks at a time at sites scattered across the former Soviet Union, including Kazakhstan, Georgia, Russia and the Ukraine.

Viebrock’s responsibilities for those projects included managing equipment and manpower for packaging and stabilizing thousands of fuel assemblies, developing a dry transfer system for the removal of spent fuel from reactors, and handling transportation logistics for fuel shipments.

Other assignments over the decades have included stints in such far-flung countries as Chile, India, Iraq and both the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan, along with several European countries and at locations across Canada and the U.S.

All told, Viebrock estimates that he has worked at close to 90 nuclear plant sites and handled more than 4,000 fuel assemblies around the world, starting with his 1970s position as a field service engineer for the nuclear division of General Electric. He spent more than 30 years with affiliates of Nuclear Assurance Corporation, with his last position there as a senior vice president for site and transportation services. His undergraduate degree, in chemistry, is from the University of the Pacific, followed by a Masters (Chemistry) from the University of California – Santa Barbara.

The most challenging international assignment, Viebrock says, was in North Korea, where in the mid 1990s he rotated through month-long stints over a four-year period.

“Because of the political situation, our work at the Nyonbyong facility plant in North Korea took a lot longer than expected and had to be undertaken under difficult circumstances,” he recalls. “What was to be a six-month project turned out to be a four-year job.”

Among a small group of International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. Department of Energy related personnel – the only foreigners – at the North Korean facility, Viebrock and his colleagues lived in a guarded, barbed-wire compound. With “minders” (political police escorts) almost always in tow, movement and contact with locals were highly restricted. Importing equipment and dealing with local officials were “ongoing challenges,” Viebrock remembers.

“North Korea is probably the most isolated country on earth,” he says. “Needless to say, spending so much time there was quite an experience.”


Viebrock, in Iraq, pressure testing an NAC-LWT cask cavity.
Another memorable posting was Iraq. Soon after the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, Viebrock worked with the United Nations to remove spent fuel from Iraq’s two destroyed research reactors. The materials were transported to Chelyabinsk-65 (now called Ozersk), formerly a closed, super-secret Russian city where Soviet-era nuclear research and development was undertaken.

At one point during Viebrock’s stay in Iraq, American bombs were dropped on a target nearby in response to Iraqi violation of its peace agreement with Western countries.


“I was the only American in Iraq at that time and after a day of staged rioting around our hotel, I was evacuated on the next UN plane out of the country,” he says. “It was a bit unnerving to be so close to the military action and of course a big relief to get out.” (He later returned and finished the UN assignment.)

Despite the long absences from home and the occasional danger, Viebrock has cherished the adventures of living and working in so many places. He says it helps him today bring a deeper, richer perspective to MHF-LS clients and business partners.

“I’ve been fortunate to be involved in just about every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle and to witness upfront how different governments handle disposal,” he says. “Today, when I’m asked to develop a program or give advice, I’m able to draw on a pretty in-depth knowledge base.”

Home is a suburb of Atlanta, Ga., where Viebrock lives with his wife of 42 years, Suzie. Two grown children, both married – a daughter in San Francisco, a son in Atlanta – have made the senior Viebrocks grandparents of five.

Viebrock is optimistic about the global nuclear power industry. “Even with high plant development costs, I think we’re seeing a real resurgence for nuclear power, both in the U.S. and around the world,” he says. “Moving away from carbon fuels has got to be priority everywhere, and nuclear power remains the most realistic way to make that happen.”

You can reach Jim Viebrock at 724.799.5180 or jim_viebrock@mhfls.com