Polestar Team

Bob Birney

Bob joined Polestar in January 2022 as a technical consultant to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) following a 40-year career in the nuclear and chemical demilitarization industries. Bob’s Hanford experience includes being an FFTF reactor operator and supporting multiple facility startup projects with a focus on management policy and technical procedure development. Experience in the chem-demilitarization industry includes supporting equipment development from conceptual design to production equipment fabrication and facility startup testing. Most recently Bob was the Conduct of Operations Subject Matter Expert at the Waste Treatment Plant.

Bob has a history of directing local non-profit organizations, including fund raising for youth safety programs.

Bryan Coles

Bryan has over forty years experience in reactor operations, sodium and light water, both startup and shutdown. He has experience in Performance Assurance, training, and Integrated Safety Management System implementation.

Bryan has a BS Physics from UCLA, was a qualified Navy Nuclear Officer, and is a Certified Trainer.

Bryan has been with Polestar since January, 2009.

Maisie Fishback

Maisie is a Project Administrator and works with the CAFTA Sales Team as well as helping with various aspects of business management and development.  She recently earned a Bachelors degree in International Business and Human Resource Management at Washington State University.

In her free time she enjoys camping, hiking and spending time with friends and family.

Jessica Fuller

Jessica Fuller has a BA in Business Administration. She works with the accounting and financial portion of the company. In her free time she is a sports junky and loves to watch anything sport related. She also loves to spend time with family and friends boating, camping and enjoying time together.

Wendy Hahn

Wendy Hahn has a Bachelors of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University and a Master of Science degree in Materials Science from Colorado School of Mines.

She has over 40 yrs of experience in Process and Environmental engineering in the nuclear and chemical weapons industries.

Wendy is currently supporting waste profiling and shipping radioactive waste shipments.

Wendy is active in showing her dog, a Belgian Tervuren in conformation and herding. She is also an avid snow skier.

Jim Jacobsen

Jim has over 35 years of leadership and management experience.  Nearly 31 years of this experience is related to federal government procurement and contract administration, primarily supporting Department of Energy funded projects in Richland, WA.  

Jim currently supports the administration of Polestar’s government, commercial and CAFTA software contracts.

Jim enjoys golfing, reading, and spending time with his wife, Chris, and his daughter, Jaimie. 

Marina Klein

Marina Klein leads the IRT CAFTA Phoenix Architect Project for Polestar. She has been supporting this project for 20+ years either directly for the manufacturer, or indirectly through other previous vendors. Phoenix Architect includes a robust suite of software tools designed for Risk, Reliability and Safety Analysis and its customers include a range of industries primarily Aerospace. These software users rely on the tools for success in their own projects which may include design and maintenance and support of small to major aircraft manufactures. The suite of tools rests on the flagship product, CAFTA which has a long history known as the Industry Leader in Fault Tree Analysis.

Mark Morton, PE

Mark Morton Sr holds a BS in Engineering at Geneva College (Beaver Falls PA); Master’s Level Course Development in Decommissioning Planning and Engineering at Washington State University (Richland WA); Professional Engineer (Environmental) in WA State.

He has merged Hanford Interim Safe Storage (ISS) lessons learned into the re-design concept for the KE and KW reactor ISS’s at Hanford. Deploying Polestar’s proprietary decommissioning planning tools at commercial nuclear and US government facilities.

Woodworking, RV and foreign travel, helping out at church and downhill skiing keeps Mark busy when not working with Polestar clients.

Mark Morton, PMP

Mark is a Cost Engineer with expertise in financial oversight, process improvement, identifying problems, and providing targeted solutions.

He has supported project teams in the field under volatile, emergent, and emergency response projects and is currently serving as a commercial nuclear fleet technical lead responsible for cost reporting database development and analytics.

Mark first began working with Polestar as a contractor in 2005 providing 3D modeling, and technical writing/ editing support, eventually moving into scheduling, cost control, software development, and project management. Mark has been a full-time Polestar employee since 2007.

Mark holds an Associates of Applied Arts Degree in Music and Video Business from the Art Institute of Seattle and is a certified Project Management Professional.

 

 

Ryan Ollero

Ryan joined Polestar Technical Services in August of 2020 as a Technical Consultant with over 27 years of environmental, safety, health, and quality (ESH&Q) experience. His experience includes such disciplines as conduct of operations, industrial safety, integrated safety management, emergency preparedness, contractor assurance, and performance assurance; however, his primary area of expertise is in waste management and transportation. He has extensive experience with managing nuclear construction, operation, D&D, and remediation wastes that are generated under the authority of RCRA, CERCLA or RCRA/CERCLA integration. Ryan’s waste management and transportation experience spans the width of hazardous, low level, mixed low level, and TRU waste from the point of generations to final treatment and disposal. In addition to supporting the needs of the client, Ryan is also the Health and Safety Representative for Polestar.

Ryan was most recently assigned to the Department of Energy-Office of River Protection supporting day-to-day operations oversight of the Tank Operations Contractor including operations readiness and startup/re-start of the Tank Side Cesium Removal System, Liquid Effluent Retention Facility, 242-A BA Boiler Annex, and 242-A Evaporator.

Ryan spends much of his spare time traveling and exploring local wineries with his wife Jennifer, spending time with his two adult children (Riley and Marley) and chasing fish from Bouy 10 to the upper Hanford Reach of the Columbia River.

Bill Peiffer

Bill Peiffer has over 40 years of diverse experience that encompasses nuclear facility design, startup/commissioning, operation and decommissioning. He has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering.

Bill is currently supporting the Operations Planning Integration team within the Mission Integration and Waste Feed Delivery Operations organization and is engaged with a range of activities including procurement of operations phase spare parts for DFLAW, conducting DFLAW operations phase optimization studies and providing input to the integrated DFLAW Operations Research Model.

Bill enjoys fly fishing to refresh from the rigors of work.

Karen Price

Karen is a Principal Engineer with 23 years of environmental remediation experience.  She brings experience in both the planning and implementation sides of the job.  She has developed the regulatory documentation and managed the field work for D&D, mixed waste treatment, and waste disposal projects under CERCLA, RCRA, TSCA, and low-level waste regulations.  Karen possesses a BS in Civil Engineering and a Master of Business Administration.

Karen is currently supporting waste management and air permitting tasks with Polestar at the Hanford Site.  She looks to continue developing regulatory documentation for other sites within the DOE complex.

Karen’s favorite past-time is traveling with her family.  She also enjoys home renovation projects and outdoor sports like golf, hiking, and bicycling.

 

Kirk Riedner

Kirk Riedner graduated from the University of Idaho in Chemical Engineering and has 5 years’ experience working with the vapors program at the Hanford site. His current project is helping his team with data analysis, analyzing vapor sample data for the Department of Energy throughout the Hanford site. When he’s not at work, he spends lots of his time being around family and friends and enjoying the outdoors.

Tom Rodovsky, P.E.

Tom is a Principal Technical Consultant with 28 years of experience in the nuclear and environmental engineering fields supporting United States Department of Energy and commercial nuclear power projects.  He demonstrates versatility in providing technical expertise in nuclear, environmental, radiological, environmental air quality and project engineering.  

Tom has extensive experience with authoring technical documents, calculations, evaluations and use of air dispersion modeling and radiation shielding software.  Tom prides himself on being able to work on highly technical projects while also being able to manage projects and teams by using good communication skills.

He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering with a Professional Engineering license in the State of Washington in the Environmental discipline.