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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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
Wednesday, February 5, 2025|1:10–2:50PM EST|Cumberland A
Session Chair:
Dan Randolph (X-Energy)
Session Organizer:
A recent report by the US Department of Energy, "Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear", estimates that to achieve US decarbonization targets by 2050, 200GW of nuclear power will be required at a rate of 13GW of new nuclear capacity per year. This will require 375,000 nuclear industry workers for construction, manufacturing, and operations, which is a 275% increase from the roughly 100,000 workers today. Furthermore, a recent consensus study by the National Academies of Science, "Laying the Foundations for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States," states that specialized advanced reactor training is required to address the shortfall in nuclear expertise for the new and emerging market demands and deployment scenarios for long term economic growth and decarbonization. These future deployment scenarios include industrial applications, data centers, micro-grids, desalination, and integrated energy systems. The advanced (and current) nuclear industry requires a widespread collaboration effort from K-12 education through undergraduate, post-graduate, trade, vendor, and utility organizations to provide a successful pipeline to power a nuclear future. There are growing efforts by different groups to prepare for training the future workforce and educate the public in conjunction with or ahead of the development and deployment of advanced nuclear plants. This panel will discuss some of their efforts and progress.
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