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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.
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2024) Plenary SPeaker
Guest ScientistLos Alamos National Laboratory
US Air Force Nuclear Research Officer (retired)
Richard (Dick) Malenfant joined the critical experiments facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in January 1961 following a tour of active duty in the US Air Force as a nuclear research officer. He retired from full-time employment in 1996 and continues his association with the laboratory as a Guest Scientist. His special interests include the history of the Manhattan Project, nuclear propulsion, criticality safety, and radiation protection and shielding. Perhaps no program better illustrates the idiom that indicates the importance of paying attention to the smallest aspects of a task than the application of nuclear energy to rocket propulsion. Even now, after 65 years of association with programs such as Kiwi, Rover, Phoebus, Dumbo, and NRX; he is in awe of the small aspects of the nuclear propulsion programs that had to be overcome. Radiation heating rates that would melt tungsten, pumping 350 pounds of liquid hydrogen per second at 1/14th of the density of water, and the reaction of hot hydrogen and graphite to produce methane are illustrative of the small aspects of the problems that are often forgotten and will discuss them further.
Last modified November 6, 2023, 1:06pm MST
