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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.
Thomas H. Scott, John A. Wethington, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 38 | Number 1 | October 1969 | Pages 48-52
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A19352
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The radiolysis of perfluorodimethylcyclohexane, C8F16, by gamma radiation, by reactor radiation, and by fission fragment radiation (C8F16 - UF6 solution exposed to reactor radiation) was studied. The principal products in the first two cases were dimeric molecules; however, small amounts of gaseous products including CF4, C2 F6, C2 F6O, C3F8, and C3F8O were found. In the latter case, the principal products were CF4, C2F6, and C2F6O. No polymeric materials were found. From the standpoint of the chemical nature of the products and of reaction kinetics, the effects of reactor radiations and gamma radiation were indistinguishable. These same considerations, applied to fission-fragment radiolysis, supported the assumption that the C8F16 molecule was shattered into tiny fragments which were then fluorinated to give simple fluorocarbon molecules.
