Don Caverly stands in front of a control panel in the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center. Carlos Jones, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy
It was the Navy that led Don Caverly to nuclear and, ultimately, to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
It’s the variety − and the impact − of nuclear work that’s kept him in the field.
“I never get bored here,” said Caverly, group leader for Radiochemical Engineering Development Center Hot Cell Operations in ORNL's Isotope Science and Enrichment Directorate’s Isotope Production and Manufacturing Division. “That’s a huge thing for me. If I don’t think I’m learning something, or if I get bored, that’s when I start looking for something else to do or making poor life choices. But here, there’s always something to do, always something to look forward to.”
Caverly’s path to nuclear was forged when his Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) results showed he was qualified for a “slew of jobs,” he said, but could go on to test for more specialized fields.
While in high school, Caverly had looked at his career options beyond what was available in his rural, economically depressed Midwestern hometown. He had decided a U.S. Navy enlistment offered the best opportunities for his future.
“I’d signed up to be a general electrician,” Caverly said, but he passed the test for an advanced qualifying field: nuclear. “So I said yes to being a nuke, graduating high school early and enlisting in the Navy… That’s been the best decision I ever made.”
Caverly had never known anyone who worked in a technology program, let alone in the nuclear field, but he was a quick study. He was active duty for about a decade, working his way up to increasing amounts of responsibility, starting with leading a team of nuclear machinist mates who maintained the steam plant and engine room of the U.S.S. George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. At the time he ended active duty, he was a watch supervisor as a junior enlisted sailor and teaching “baby nukes” at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command “A” School.
When Caverly left active duty, he initially sought out non-nuclear jobs, taking contract work at weapons demilitarization plants and for the Environmental Protection Agency. But after three years of contract work, he started thinking about stability. He’d enjoyed Conduct of Operations work, so he did a job search on Indeed.com – and ORNL came up.
The job, for a reactor operator at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, turned out to require a college degree, which Caverly didn’t then have. But the plant manager was impressed enough with his interview that he made a call to the operations manager of the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center (REDC) while Caverly was still sitting there, recommending him for a hot cell operations technician job.
“I applied, and here I am, 15 years later,” Caverly said. He quit his contract job, got married to his girlfriend, moved to a new state and started at ORNL all in 11 days.
“Why do things normally?” he said. “Why not do the three most stressful things in an adult life − marriage, moving and changing careers −all at the same time?”
Caverly loves working in a hot cell, a heavily shielded cubicle that allows technicians to handle radioactive materials safely using manipulator arms.
“The individual work tasks changed every day,” he said. “You could be separating californium, or you could be doing rework (solution from a previous campaign), or something completely different.”
He learned the facilities side of the work − ventilation, HVAC and water systems, differences in pressure zones – as well as an emphasis on safety and quality. He said his supervisors always encouraged professional and personal growth.
“There’s always been some other thing to learn, or another qualification to achieve,” he said. “When I was exploring my opportunities to rejoin the Navy as an Active Reservist two years after starting at ORNL, my shift supervisor and leadership team were fully supportive and gave me the confidence to return to the ranks.”
Caverly, who didn’t retire from the U.S. Navy Reserve until 2024, was a shift supervisor for the REDC when he was called to lead a Reserve project establishing 3D printing technologies for submarines at Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Since it required regular travel, his ORNL supervisors moved him from regular shift work to special projects he could work on in between Reserve trips. After that assignment, he became a hot cell operations specialist, then moved to a group leader position in the second building of the REDC three years ago, when Scott White retired.
This past summer, he transferred back to 7920 when Josh Schmidlin, then group leader, was tapped for interim section head. With IPMD marking its third anniversary and both the californium-252 and plutonium-238 programs ramping up production goals, the pace has been challenging at times, he said. Cf-252 is in high demand as a startup material for nuclear reactors large and small, and NASA uses Pu-238 to power craft for deep space exploration.
“Our two major programs are Cf-252 and Pu-238, and then we’ve got several offshoot things that happen with those: curium, promethium, neptunium and the exotics – einsteinium, fermium, berkelium – that are all part of those programs and systems,” he said. “We’ve increased our throughput several hundred percent.”
In addition to supporting new hires and knowledge transfer, Caverly is committed to ORNL’s internship and apprenticeship programs, mentoring several interns for the past four years. Three of his interns ultimately were hired.
“It’s my goal to open the lab to people who think the lab is just for researchers and not attainable for ‘normal,’ blue-collar people,” Caverly said. “For every research or production operation, there is a host of technicians, electricians, pipefitters, welders, laborers and others who keep those things going every day.”
As a group leader, Caverly advocates for his team members, who are highly trained and productive, he said. Leadership is not without its own challenges – the 24-hour, 365-day shift is what it is, he said, and he doesn’t get to promote everyone who deserves it every time – but a little listening goes a long way.
“You need to let people know they are important and that they’re part of the team,” Caverly said. “A good leader has the ability to listen and understand what your people are telling you at the time they are telling you and assist when possible. Not everything is ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ The No. 1 challenge is being a leader who will actually listen to the words coming out of their mouths, to be the listener, to hear what they’re saying and provide guidance, direction and encouragement as much you’re able to, or to offer resources and help, if that’s what’s needed.
“Production meetings and goal setting is one piece of leadership. But you need to have your team on board; they need to feel like you’re in their corner.”
That’s especially important as the work becomes more demanding, as the amounts needed of both Cf-252 and Pu-238 continue to increase – and with them, the associated work with other programs. ORNL produced a record amount of Cf-252 in FY24 – a nice recovery from lower-than-expected production the previous fiscal year.
October 2025 set a record for both production of neptunium, used to make Pu-238, and neptunium pellets. The team also completed a successful californium campaign in FY25. In addition, Matt Racz and Ben Rothrock have been instrumental in helping offload waste from REDC in a timely and efficient fashion, freeing up space, and other groups have provided crucial support for the team to be successful.
In the coming year, Caverly hopes for a focus on scope of work to ensure IPMD can safely meet production goals, with the quality material customers expect.
“I’m excited about hitting some milestones and trying to accomplish what I see as a strong headwind of operational challenges in the next year,” said Caverly, who is also pursuing a degree in industrial management, with a minor in leadership, from Thomas Edison State University. “I want to start knocking some of these items out, close out some of the tasks we have started but haven’t been able to prioritize.”
Caverly finds fulfillment in his work and IPMD’s mission that he doesn’t believe he’d find in the civilian world or commercial industry.
“It is good to have a needed job, or what I like to call ‘noble work,’” he said. “There is an aspect of what we do matters that drives the pride inside to say, ‘Hey, you know what? We’re doing something good here, right?’ It’s sometimes hard to see the end results of the impact we have as operations technicians, waste operators or even supervisors in isotope production, but it is there.”
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
