Meet Our Senior Team

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Eric has been involved in all facets of AFR’s business since April 2004, providing support directly to a number of investor clients and utilities, and took over the company in 2019.  Eric has over 30 years of commercial and technical nuclear fuel experience. Eric is, also, the founder and owner of Rockett Science Inc., a company which provides nuclear fuel consulting services in the areas of fuel procurement and BWR in-core fuel management support.

 Eric was the lead negotiator for the transfer of depleted uranium from the Department of Energy to Energy Northwest for processing into fuel, worth approximately $1 billion at the time, for Energy Northwest and Tennessee Valley Authority reactors resulting in over $100 million in savings to Energy Northwest’s fuel expense.  Eric’s consulting work has supported multiple domestic and foreign utilities fuel procurement activities covering more than $2.5 billion of contracts.

Prior to forming Rockett Science Inc., Eric served for 3 years as the Group Lead – Fuel & Cycle Management for Energy Northwest.  During his employment, Eric led a multi-disciplined nuclear fuel procurement team that negotiated 17 separate agreements with a calculated cost savings (mark-to-market at the time of delivery) in excess of $250 million.  

In addition to fuel procurement, Eric’s group was responsible for special nuclear material accounting, the nuclear fuel budget, dry fuel storage loading development, and nuclear fuel finance.  Prior to joining Energy Northwest, Eric served for over 4 years as lead Nuclear Fuels Engineer for Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) where he was responsible for nuclear fuel management in the areas of fuel assembly design, transient and accident analysis, fuel assembly manufacturing, and vendor oversight.  Eric began his career as a BWR Neutronics Engineer for Siemens Power Corporation after earning is BS degree in Nuclear Engineering from Oregon State University in 1993.

Pam has worked with Eric for more than 20 years, negotiating and finalizing a myriad of nuclear fuel transactions and contracts.  Pam, also, has extensive commercial nuclear utility experience and handled all legal aspects of a utility’s business operations as Manager of Legal Services at Energy Northwest.  She left Energy Northwest in 2011 to pursue the private practice of law but continued to support Energy Northwest for several years with their nuclear fuel transactions and other contract activity.  

Pam is licensed to practice law in Washington (active) and Texas (inactive).  Pam has a B.S. from Washington State University, a J.D. from Gonzaga University, and a LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Houston.

Bill is an accomplished Program/Project Manager with over 40 years of nuclear project and contract management experience, including accountability as a US Department of Energy (DOE) Field Manager for over 12 years. He was responsible for multi-billion-dollar decommissioning projects and the engineering design/construction of multiple capital asset projects; including the DOE’s $500M depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) Conversion Plants at the Portsmouth OH and Paducah KY sites. These nuclear facilities will chemically convert over 700,000 tons of excess DUF6 into safe oxide form for disposal. 

Bill built stakeholder consensus on effective design solutions and obtained Critical Decisions under DOE Order 413.3B process for highly complex and politically charges projects, including the on-site mixed-waste CERCLA disposal facilities at Paducah KY and Fernald OH. He has been responsible for overseeing challenging projects at multiple DOE sites including; Savannah River SC; Oak Ridge TN; Weldon Spring MO; Fernald OH; Shippingport PA; Rocky Flats CO; and the Gaseous Diffusion Plants at Paducah KY, and Portsmouth OH. His last position with DOE as Field Manager for the Portsmouth and Paducah sites involved overall leadership with annual site funding of up to $800M and a total Federal and contractor workforce >3,500 personnel. 

Bill understands the issues and challenges of  capital asset construction projects from the DOE perspective and is experienced in providing independent technical reviews and schedule and cost estimates. He is known for his focus on safety, risk management, problem solving, and regulatory knowledge. As a certified DOE Sr. Technical Safety Manager, he was the Safety Basis Approval Authority with final signature on Documented Safety Analysis and Safety Basis documents for the Portsmouth and Paducah sites’ Category 2 and 3 nuclear facilities. In recognition of his performance, 

Bill received the Secretary of Energy’s Exceptional Service Award and SES Presidential Rank Award, Meritorious Executive. Upon retirement from DOE after 35 years, Bill was selected in 2015 to be the Director of Nuclear Programs at Jacobs Engineering Group in Oak Ridge TN and subsequently selected as the Program Manager for Jacobs’ successful bid on a large US Army Corps of Engineers nuclear waste site remediation project. He retired from Jacobs in 2020 and later joined AFR.

Dr. Higginbotham joined AFR in 2022 as the Director of Licensing following a three-decade career as a Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics at Oregon State University.  Beyond the traditional professorial responsibilities of research, teaching and service, Jack held progressively responsible administrative positions within the University including, Senior Health Physicist, Reactor Administrator and Director (Interim) of the OSU Radiation Center including the TRIGA Mk II Reactor Facility, Associate Dean of the OSU Graduate School, Associate VP for Research and President of the University Faculty Senate.  His final administrative appointment was as Director of the Oregon/NASA Space Grant Consortium.

Professor Higginbotham’s teaching portfolio is long and broad, most notable classes taught include, Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, Nuclear Rules and Regulations, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Reactor Operations, Alternate Energy and Societal Impacts of Nuclear Energy.  His fields of specialization include nuclear instrumentation, decommissioning, radiation shielding, research reactor operations, activation analysis, life cycle assessment, radiation protection and undergraduate STEM education.  Dr. Higginbotham’s most recent research endeavor utilized the NASA Galactic Cosmic Ray beamline facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory to investigate the biological response of Zebrafish organ systems following exposure to extraterrestrial radiation fields.

Jack has B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from Kansas State University, has been licensed as a Professional Engineer, PE (Nuclear) in Oregon and Kansas, held the credential of Certified Health Physicist, CHP and was a licensed NRC Senior Reactor Operator at two nuclear reactor facilities.