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September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
James A. Grundl
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 30 | Number 1 | October 1967 | Pages 39-53
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A17241
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Eight activation detectors, 235U(n, f), Np(n, f), 238U(n,f), P(n, p), Al(n, p), 56Fe(n, p), Al(n, α), and 63Cu(n, 2n) are placed on a firm experimental foundation to prepare for the investigation of fission-neutron spectra in Part II. Gross beta-gamma counting with methane-flow counters is employed to achieve the exceptional stability of detector response required for spectrum determinations. Calibration and specification of detector excitations are based on relative cross-section measurements performed at the Los Alamos Van de Graaff. The latter have been tailored to supplement existing cross-section information and to aid in its evaluation. Deduced detector excitations are specified in fifty energy groups with uncertainties assigned in a separate seven-group excitation structure appropriate for the investigation of distributed neutron spectra.
