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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.
Luciano Ondir Freire, Delvonei Alves de Andrade
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 6 | June 2019 | Pages 766-780
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1546067
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent studies point to a reduction of atmospheric pollution using nuclear energy for merchant ships. This work examines the development of an economically competitive nuclear power solution for merchant ship propulsion. The solution also addresses the requirements of a wider market, like islands, offshore oil platforms, and remote cities. System engineering and analysis at various product breakdown levels also propose architectural options to improve competitiveness of nuclear power in mobile nuclear power plants (MNPPs). Analyses include market research on clients and technical considerations on nuclear energy costs. The results show that an enterprise that delivers electric power to remote clients and dedicates to management of all nuclear aspects seems to be the best organizational and technical choice. Besides, ships should be of modular type and the MNPPs should be easily detachable at sea. Only container ships and remote islands demand enough power to justify the use of nuclear power. Nuclear power has high probability to be economically competitive for large container ships, however, only if public policies impose levels of risks akin to other industries.