Director of DOE's Pittsburgh Center to Take on Senior Post in Washington

Washington, DC - Dr. Sun Chun, director of the Department of Energy's Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center since 1979, has been named to a senior level post at the agency's Washington, D.C. headquarters.

Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary announced today that Chun, a resident of Murrysville, PA, will become the Senior Executive Advisor for the Department's Office of Fossil Energy, taking on a wide range of duties that will include advancing the deployment of U.S.-developed fossil energy technologies to domestic and international markets.

"I am extremely pleased that Dr. Chun has agreed to join our headquarters team and to apply his considerable skills in coal technology and international markets to our energy policy efforts," O'Leary said. "At the Pittsburgh center, he served on the front lines of energy technology development, and his first-hand knowledge will help chart the course for energy policy in the 21st century."

Chun joined the Federal Government in 1975 as a division director at the Pittsburgh Center, having spent the previous eight years as a senior research engineer and supervisor at the Gulf Research and Development Company in Harmarville, PA. Prior to that, he served as a research engineer for the Union Camp Corporation in Princeton, NJ.

During Chun's tenure as director of the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center, he helped establish the Center as one of the world's premier facilities for research in coal cleaning and conversion to new fuel forms. He directed a wide range of government laboratory research efforts, including the development of new innovations in the clean use of coal. He also initiated minority programs for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and established the Asian-American Outstanding Student awards program.

Earlier this year the Prime Minister of Korea conveyed to Chun the Moran-Jang Award, one of Korea's highest-ranking honors. Chun, a native of Korea, had come to the United States in 1955.

In his new position in Washington, Chun initially will take on the assignment of developing a joint strategy with U.S. industry and other government agencies to capitalize on the U.S. investment in clean coal technologies. These technologies, which greatly improve the environmental performance of coal use, are increasingly in demand particularly in international markets where energy use is growing.

"Dr. Chun will be the senior-level executive in the Department who will bring together our Nation's industrial leaders and their counterparts in overseas markets to ensure that U.S. energy companies retain their global leadership in energy technology. It is an extremely important challenge for the United States in an increasingly competitive world market, and there is no more skilled individual in Government to take on this assignment," said Patricia Godley, the Department's Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy.

Chun will move to his new post in Washington on December 2, 1996. In the interim he will provide advice with respect to the transition of the Pittsburgh Energy Technology into the newly created Federal Energy Technology Center. DOE announced last year that the management of its two energy technology centers at Pittsburgh, PA, and Morgantown, WV, would be combined into a new unified organization that will operate at both sites. Secretary O'Leary has named Rita A. Bajura, a career executive from the Morgantown Energy Technology Center, to head the new consolidated Federal Energy Technology Center.

-End of TechLine-

For additional information, contact:
Robert C. Porter, (202) 586-6503 e-mail: robert.porter@hq.doe.gov