By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 02/20/2010 03:56:17 PM MST

When Wall Street traders sat down at their computers Friday morning, few might have expected the news from Utah that Steve Creamer, head of the nation's busiest nuclear-waste company, had resigned as chairman and CEO.

Company President Val J. Christensen had been named CEO, and board member Steve R. Rogel, who previously led Weyerhaeuser Co., became chairman of the board, said the company's just-past-midnight news release. And, though the announcement's last line was punctuated with a period, it might as well have been a question mark.

From Utah to Washington everyone seemed to be asking: "What's next?"

Investors responded by throwing EnergySolutions' stock into what TheStreet.com called "a hazardous share freefall" that briefly put the stock at its lowest price of the year. Then investment house FBR Capital Markets downgraded the company stock, saying Creamer's abrupt departure, just days before he was to announce quarterly and annual results, left them puzzled.

"We expect investors are likely to sell first and ask questions later regarding this news," said the FBR analysts, who cited "uncertainty" after "uncertainty" as the reasons behind their move.

In Salt Lake City, where the company is headquartered, information was in short supply about EnergySolutions' direction. The question is a big one because of the company's large presence here.

EnergySolutions not only has its name on the arena for Utah's lone major professional sports team, but it is airing ads on local TV stations and in theaters. It has poured tens of thousands into politicians' campaign coffers at the same time it is locked in a court battle with the state over who -- if anyone -- gets to say what kinds of waste is disposed of in its low-level radioactive landfill 80 miles west of the capital city.

And the company's face was Steve Creamer's face, a Monroe native who often talked about his deep Utah roots.
Creamer described the mile-square landfill in Tooele County's desert as a crown jewel of the company that last year had revenues of nearly $1.6 billion. And, while it already takes about 98 percent of the nation's low-level radioactive waste, he arranged for it to become the graveyard someday for four of every five U.S. nuclear reactors.

He touted how he blended nine companies to make one with the technology to reprocess nuclear fuel, the work force to clean up sites, the equipment to process, shred and decontaminate waste and, in the United Kingdom, the license to operate nuclear plants.
He took the company public in 2007.

Former company employees said Creamer, with his Utah cowboy's independent streak and aggressive drive for growth, had been clashing with the board of directors that was concerned about the company's image to investors. Shareholders had even filed suit over executive departures just before the stock price plummeted to all-time lows.

"They are more focused on New York [investors] than they are on Utah," said Charles Judd, who was president of Envirocare of Utah a few years before Creamer and his investment partners arranged to buy it in 2004.

For many Utahns now, the question is whether a company led by Christensen will stay the course on some of the controversial proposals that have dominated Utah headlines for the past three years.

In that time, the company has sued to establish its right to import radioactive waste from Italy and other foreign nations. It also has proposed an expansion that would have nearly doubled the landfill's size, and campaigned at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and in Salt Lake City for authority to blend waste streams for the nuclear industry.

The proposals have set the company at odds with two governors, the public and even the U.S. House of Representatives, in the case of foreign waste.

Some employees wonder if high-profile friction like this affected the relationship between Creamer and the board. According to an old friend, "he'd had a gut-full." He removed the paintings from his office walls Thursday night and Friday morning hopped on a plane to Hawaii.

At a hastily called teleconference Friday, Christen -sen tried to lay to rest any questions about internal strife to "make sure everyone understands what did not happen."

He said "this change had nothing to do with any corporate malfeasance, fraud or issues with customers or contracts. [There has been] no dispute between Steve Creamer and the board; no accounting issues, no fundamental or economic issues related to his resignation."

The company said Creamer's departure had been set in motion more than a year ago -- he just left several months sooner than expected. Christensen denied there was a link between Creamer's resignation and the departure in November of CFO Philip Strawbridge and regulatory affairs vice president Jill Sigal, both old hands in the waste industry.

Bryan Melchior, president of BCM Nuclear and a former EnergySolutions executive, said the change could be good for the company's future, with a man he called "smart," "fair" and "proactive" as leader.

"I think Val Christensen will steer the company in a very positive direction," Melchior said.

But will he change the company's course?

Some suggested he won't need to. With $479 million in shareholder equity and combined long- and short-term debt of less than $520 million, many of the company's headaches will be cured by a healthier world economy.

In addition, the company has the $98 million contract to clean up uranium mill tailings on the banks of the Colorado River, a project that got a $108 million boost in federal stimulus funding. Plus, there's a new optimism about the nuclear industry nationwide after President Barack Obama's announcement last week that he wants to see more U.S. nuclear plants.

At the state's Department of Environmental Quality, Director Amanda Smith said: "We have no indication of any change in EnergySolutions' plans for blending waste, depleted uranium or foreign waste."

And Vanessa Pierce, director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, a longtime company critic, doubted that much would change. She said: "We can expect more of the same."
Bob Mims and Steven Oberbeck contributed to this article.

What happened in the market Friday:
EnergySolutions Inc.'s stock price tumbled nearly 30 percent to its lowest level of the year, $5.22 per share. After a conference call, the price bounced back a bit, closing at $6.35 a share, down $1.44 a share or about 18 percent. The nuclear waste company has more than 5,000 employees throughout the United States and in three other countries. Financial results for 2009 are due out on Wednesday.

EnergySolutions' new leader
Val J. Christensen, 56, joined the company in 2006, after serving executive roles at FranklinCovey Co. over 17 years. As general counsel and executive vice president, he helped EngerySolutions go public and became its president just over a year ago. Christensen grew up in central Utah. His undergraduate and law degrees are from Brigham Young University.