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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
S. Polosatkin et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 2013 | Pages 184-187
doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16901
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The prospect of a new facility for plasma-surface interaction studies is presented. The unique features of this facility named GDMT-T are ability to generate both stationary plasma flux and transient events which simulate ITER ELM-mode operation and strong magnetic field on the target important for studies of dust and impurity migration. The experimental program of GDMT-T will include testing of plasma-facing components at ITER-relevant conditions and investigations of electron beam generation and beam-plasma interaction for application in the next generation of linear fusion facilities.
