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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.
Hyuck Jong Kim, Gyunyoung Heo, Jong Kyung Kim, Hyung Chan Kim, Myeun Kwon, Gyung-Su Lee
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 21-27
Plenary | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13391
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Fusion DEMO Program of Korea is a mega program consisted of phased three programs: DEMO Preparatory Program from 2009 through 2011, DEMO R&D Program from 2012 through 2021 and DEMO Construction Program from 2022 through the 2036. The DEMO R&D Program is further divided into three sub-programs: DEMO-Plant Design-Concept Study from 2012 through 2014, DEMO-Plant Design Study from 2015 through 2018 and DEMO Plant FEED (Front End Engineering Design) from 2019 through 2021 at the same time with initiating validation tests for the design methods.Until 2011, preparatory works for DEMO, such as developing the strategic plans, defining a pathway to DEMO and initiating some R&D works necessarily required for defining the pathway, will have been carried out. In this paper, the R&D activities planned in the 2nd phase sub-program, with an overview of the strategic plans and preparatory works of the Fusion DEMO Program of Korea, are discussed.