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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
NUCLEAR AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR SPACE (NETS-2024) PLENARY SPEAKER
Randy Bell is a senior project leader at The Aerospace Corporation working in space nuclear power and propulsion. Prior to Aerospace, he served in DOE and NNSA in nuclear engineering and nuclear nonproliferation from 1991 through 2020, during this time he led research programs developing technical methods to detect and characterize weapons proliferation. Mr. Bell was the manager of Space and Remote Sensing Systems where he oversaw several small satellite programs and many advanced airborne remote sensing efforts. He headed NNSA’s Office of Nuclear Detonation Detection where he was responsible for production of operational satellite payloads as well as seismic and atmospheric detonation detection technology. Subsequently he was the Director of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty’s International Data Centre where he led operation of the multinational nuclear test detection system and coordinated nuclear test monitoring activities among all Treaty member countries. Before DOE, Mr Bell was a US Navy Fast Attack Submarine Officer and continued in the reserves in numerous assignments related to national space systems. He has master’s degrees in physics from George Mason University, and computer science from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Rochester.
Last modified April 16, 2024, 8:46am MDT
