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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
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From operator to entrepreneur: David Garcia applies outage management lessons
David Garcia
If ComEd’s Zion plant in northern Illinois hadn’t closed in 1998, David Garcia might still be there, where he got his start in nuclear power as an operator at age 24.
But in his ninth year working there, Zion closed, and Garcia moved on to a series of new roles—including at Wisconsin’s Point Beach plant, the corporate offices of Minnesota’s Xcel Energy, and on the supplier side at PaR Nuclear—into an on-the-job education that he augmented with degrees in business and divinity that he sought later in life.
Garcia started his own company—Waymaker Resource Group—in 2014. Recently, Waymaker has been supporting Holtec’s restart project at the Palisades plant with staffing and analysis. Palisades sits almost exactly due east of the fully decommissioned Zion site on the other side of Lake Michigan and is poised to operate again after what amounts to an extended outage of more than three years. Holtec also plans to build more reactors at the same site.
For Garcia, the takeaway is clear: “This industry is not going away. Nuclear power and the adjacent industries that support nuclear power—and clean energy, period—are going to be needed for decades upon decades.”
In July, Garcia talked with Nuclear News staff writer Susan Gallier about his career and what he has learned about running successful outages and other projects.
Edited by Dr. Arkady Serikov, Fusion Science and Technology (FST) is the leading source of information on peaceful uses of fusion research. Recent topics have included plasma and fusion energy physics, tokamak experiments, stellarators, next step burning plasma experiments, target fabrication and technology for inertial confinement fusion, inertial fusion science and applications, tritium science and technology, magnetic and inertial fusion energy reactor studies, heating and current drive physics and technology, plasma control, plasma diagnostics, and much more.
Authors: Publication of articles in FST is free of charge. Optionally, open access publication is available for a fee.
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