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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
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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.
Technical Session|Panel|Sponsored by YMG
Tuesday, June 9, 2020|2:30–4:15PM EDT|2
Session Chair:
Catherine Prat (Westinghouse)
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chairs:
Timothy M. Crook (MCR Performance Solutions)
Matthew J. Jasica (Sandia National Laboratory)
Track Organizer:
Staff Producer:
Eileen Cullen (American Nuclear Society)
This workshop will address how to build a successful resume or CV in industry, national labs, academia, and government/policy. In the first half of this workshop, panelists representing each sector will go through what makes for a strong application in their sector, and critique different examples as a group. Following this, attendees will split into groups based on their sectors of interest and workshop their own resumes/CVs with a panelist and each other. Audience members are recommended to bring their own resume/CV.
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