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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.
M. E. Sawan, C. S. Aplin, G. Sviatoslavsky, I. N. Sviatoslavsky, A. R. Raffray
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 771-775
Technical Paper | Nuclear Analysis and Experiments | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1583
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A blanket concept made of the low electrical conductivity SiCf/SiC composite and utilizing Li17Pb83 as coolant and tritium breeder has been developed and integrated with the magnetic diversion system. Neutronics issues related to tritium breeding adequacy particularly with the area lost to the dump plates at the ring and point cusps were addressed. Radiation damage and lifetime considerations for the SiCf/SiC structural material were also addressed. Another issue of concern is providing adequate shielding for the superconducting cusp magnets. Detailed neutronics analyses show that tritium self-sufficiency can be achieved. A 0.5 m thick water-cooled steel shield that doubles as the vacuum vessel is a reweldable lifetime component and will provide adequate shielding for the magnets.
