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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
C. E. Kessel, J. P. Blanchard, A. Davis, L. El-Guebaly, N. Ghoniem, P. W. Humrickhouse, S. Malang, B. J. Merrill, N. B. Morley, G. H. Neilson, M. E. Rensink, T. D. Rognlien, A. F. Rowcliffe, S. Smolentsev, L. L. Snead, M. S. Tillack, P. Titus, L. M. Waganer, A. Ying, K. Young, Y. Zhai
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 2 | September 2015 | Pages 225-236
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-953
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The proposed Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) represents the first facility to enter the complex fusion nuclear regime, and its technical mission and attributes are being developed. The FNSF represents one part of the fusion energy development pathway to the first commercial power plant with other major components being the pre-FNSF research and development, research in parallel with the FNSF, pre-DEMO research and development, and the demonstration power plant (DEMO). The Fusion Energy Systems Studies group is developing the technical basis for the FNSF in order to provide a better understanding of the demands on the fusion plasma and fusion nuclear science programs.
