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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Educational Session|Panel|Sponsored by Regulatory Relations|Cosponsored by Risk Management
Tuesday, August 11, 2020|2:00–3:30PM EDT
Session Organizer:
Ken Lowery (Southern Nuclear)
Knowledge Manager:
Maxwell Daniels (IAEA)
The scope of these activities includes both agency-wide efforts intended to address cross-cutting aspects of culture, innovation, technology, and staff development, as well as elements driven at the office-level focused on reactor licensing, oversight, and rulemaking. Though they vary in objective, the common themes that motivate the transformation activities are: (1) gaining efficiencies in our processes such that more time can be devoted to matters of greatest importance to the agency’s mission, (2) enhancing agility to manage evolving workloads and responding adeptly to emerging technology trends in the nuclear energy sector, (3) developing a workforce that has the appropriate skills and tools to meet the mission needs, and (4) using new approaches to data analytics to inform our decision-making. Staff will provide an overview of the transformation, an update of the most recent activities, and identify ways in which the agency will engage with licensees and other stakeholders throughout the transformation process.
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