Current Employee Spotlight: Ken Green

The year is 1990 and George H. W. Bush is President of the United States. The Hubble SpaceTelescope has just been launched, a computer scientist from CERN submits a proposal to build a“Hypertext project” called “WorldWideWeb”, the official demolition of the Berlin Wall begins, and the most popular show on television was Cheers. Although the United States is just entering a recession that will affect its economy for years to come, BCS made its first hire, Ken Green.

30 years ago, Ken Green started his employment with BCS, and has been central employee at the company ever since. When Ken started at BCS, he wasn’t sure how long his position would last. His first project with Salt River Project covered him for about three months. As more work came in from the California Energy Commission and the US. Department of Energy (our first DOE task was $5k!) he was able to stick around for a while longer. Thirty years later Ken is still at BCS! Throughout his time with BCS, Ken has been an integral part of the company’s growth, seeing the company employ as many as 100 full-time staff. He led the company’s first prime contract, which was to provide technical and analytical support to the Office of Industrial Technologies (now known as the Advanced Manufacturing Office) Metal Casting Industry of the Future. He also established our support at OE, CESER, OP, and BETO. He opened new office locations in West Virginia and Pittsburgh supporting NETL and has gone from a new hire analyst in 1990, to the companies first-ever Chief Operating Officer.

Ken’s dedication to his work has always been evident to his co-workers. Said one BCS employee, “Prior to the track changes function in Word, Ken would spend his weekends with his red pen editing hard copies of our work products. It required us to become experts in reading Ken’s cursive writing. He would circle paragraphs and give them labels like A, B, C etc. and then would in corresponding text write “Insert A” which was the old school way of cutting and pasting entire paragraphs.”

As many of us have experienced firsthand, one of Ken’s most appreciated qualities is how he treats everyone at BCS. The term “open door policy” may not be strong enough to describe Ken’s approach. Whether it is calls after work hours to answer questions, reviewing proposals or write-ups from staff on weekends, or instituting new policies at BCS based on the needs of workforce, Ken has always put employees first.