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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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September 2025
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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.
26th Technology of Fusion Energy Meeting (TOFE 2024)
For more than two decades, Dr. Hegna has been a leading advocate of stellarators in the fusion community. At UW-Madison, he directed research initiative aiming to enhance stellarator concept through targeted optimization key plasma physics confinement issues. There, he led the Center for Plasma Theory and Computation for over two decades.
Dr. Hegna's expertise lies in theoretical plasma physics, and he is internationally acknowledged as a specialist in the magnetic confinement of plasmas and nuclear fusion. His academic contributions include authoring or co-authoring over 200 publications and mentoring more than two dozen Ph.D. students at UW-Madison. His academic and professional achievements have been recognized with numerous accolades. He has been honored as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, was a co-recipient of the 2014 John Dawson Award for excellence in plasma physics research, received the Nuclear Fusion Journal Award, and was designated the Harvey P. Spangler of the College of Engineering at UW-Madison. Furthermore, Dr. Hegna has exerted influential community leadership in the international fusion sector, including serving on the DOE’s Fusion Energy Science Advisory Committee.
For more than two decades, Dr. Hegna has been a leading advocate of stellarators in the fusion community. At UW-Madison, he directed a research initiative aiming to enhance the stellarator concept through targeted optimization of key plasma physics confinement issues. At Type One Energy, Dr. Hegna spearheads the Stellarator Physics Optimization Group, serving as the primary driver of the company’s stellarator design.
Last modified April 23, 2024, 10:42am CDT
