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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Yasuo Shimomura, ITER International Team, Participant Teams
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 1 | July 2003 | Pages 3-10
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Plenary and Overview | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A303
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
ITER is planned to be the first fusion experiment operating under reactor-relevant plasma conditions integrated with key technologies in a regulatory licensed environment. The ITER design, safety analysis and cost estimates are supported by the physics basis, analyses and technology R&D. Full-sized or scalable modules of key components have been successfully manufactured and tested. The scientific and technological bases to start ITER construction are established. Inter-governmental negotiations to prepare the Joint Implementation Agreement for ITER construction and operation are expected to conclude in 2003. ITER operation would then be able to start in 2013.
