Jeff Yarbrough

Jeff Yarbrough

Manager, Site Separation Management

Jeff Yarbrough is the site separation manager for Consolidated Nuclear Security, the management and operating contractor for the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In this role, he oversees the planning and execution of all site separation activities that support NNSA’s transition of the Pantex Plant and the Y‑12 National Security Complex to two separate management and operating contracts.

Prior to this assignment, Yarbrough was the Pantex site manager and the deputy site manager at Y‑12. At Pantex, he oversaw daily operations to ensure the plant delivered a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent through effective nuclear explosive assembly/disassembly and explosive manufacturing operations. Throughout his career at Pantex, Yarbrough played a key leadership role in engineering and design, weapons assembly/disassembly, explosives technology, and Directed Stockpile Work program management, including strategic high explosives facility recapitalization plans. At Y‑12, Yarbrough led the development and implementation of the COVID‑19 pandemic recovery plan to return the plant to normal operations. In his roles at both sites, Yarbrough provided leadership for targeted improvement initiatives in productivity, conduct of operations, and nuclear safety.

With a combined 40 years of experience working in NNSA facilities, Yarbrough holds extensive knowledge of nuclear operations and processes. Previously, he was the vice president of operations for BWX Technologies Technical Services. Yarbrough also served as the associate director for Plutonium Science and Manufacturing at Los Alamos National Laboratory for 7 years, where he led the lab’s production mission, including managing high‑hazard plutonium and high explosive facilities. In this role, he improved organizational safety and production culture, leading to increased production yield rates while attaining the best industrial safety performance in organizational history.

Yarbrough holds an M.B.A. from West Texas A&M University and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Texas Tech University.