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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
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.
W. O. Doggett, Fred A. Bryan, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 39 | Number 1 | January 1970 | Pages 92-104
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Berger et al. of the National Bureau of Standards have utilized the Monte Carlo method to calculate total scatter differential dose transmission and reflection coefficients for plane unidirectional gamma rays incident on concrete barriers of finite thickness. These calculations were performed for source energies of 0.2, 0.4, 0.66, 1.25, 5.0, and 10.0 MeV with incident obliquity angles cos θ0 = 1, 0.9, 0.8, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.01; emergent obliquity angles cos θd = 1, 0.9, 0.8, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.01; emergent azimuthal angles relative to the ongoing incident ray = 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 degrees; and slab thicknesses of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 2, 3, and 4 mean-free-paths. These data are used herein to compute dose rate slant penetration and reflection probabilities for a detector located adjacent to a barrier. The total scatter contribution was calculated by numerically integrating the Monte Carlo data of Berger et al. over the 2π solid angle subtended by the barrier relative to the detector location. In addition to results for the above listed thicknesses, energies, and incident obliquities, slant penetration and reflection probabilities are computed for the 1.12 h unfractionated fission spectrum by interpolating and weighting the Monte Carlo data at appropriate energies and thicknesses. The probabilities obtained herein compare favorably with those obtained by the Spencer-Fano moments method for an infinite medium, with other Monte Carlo studies, and with experimental data.