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Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
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.
M. D. Fowley, T. J. Steeper, J. E. Klein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 3 | October 2011 | Pages 910-913
Tritium Storage | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12564
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tests were performed using a Model 15 m3/hr Normetex vacuum pump to determine if pump performance degraded after pumping a humid gas stream. An air feed stream containing 30% water vapor was introduced into the pump for 365 hours with the outlet pressure of the pump near the condensation conditions of the water. Performance of the pump was tested before and after the water vapor pumping test and indicated no loss in performance of the pump. The pump also appeared to tolerate small amounts of condensed water of short duration without increased noise, vibration, or other adverse indications. The Normetex pump was backed by a dual-head diaphragm pump which was affected by the condensation of water and produced some drift in operating conditions during the test.
