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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.
Faten N. Al Zubaidi, Kyle L. Walton, Robert V. Tompson, Tushar K. Ghosh, Sudarshan K. Loyalka
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 7 | July 2019 | Pages 951-963
Regular Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1573618
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The total hemispherical emissivity of A508/A533B alloy steels was measured for conditions of interest in nuclear plant safety. The effect of long-term oxidation on the emissivity of A508/A533B was simulated by oxidizing test samples using a three-zone tube furnace at temperatures of 573 and 773 K. An apparatus built and operated in compliance with the American Society for Testing and Materials C835-06 testing standard was used to measure the total hemispherical emissivity for the following surface conditions: (1) mirror-like polished (unoxidized), (2) polished surface oxidized in air, (3) wire-cut electrical discharge machining (EDM), and (4) EDM-cut surface oxidized in air. The emissivity of polished (unoxidized) A508/A533B strips varied from 0.16 to 0.24 within the temperature range from 552 to 1180 K. Increasing the oxidation time of polished A508/A533B from 10 to 100 h at 573 K provided slight increase in emissivity, whereas increasing the oxidation temperature from 573 to 773 K for a 10-h duration provided over a threefold increase in emissivity. EDM-cut surfaces had an emissivity of 0.51 at 464 K to 0. 54 at 845 K due to the inherent roughness and the presence of a recast layer and possible oxidation layer. Oxidizing EDM-cut A508/A533B in air at 573 K increased the emissivity compared to the unoxidized EDM-cut A508/A533B, but no additional increase in emissivity occurred from 500- to 1000-h durations. Further oxidation of A508/A533B oxidized at 573 K for 1000 h for an additional 500 h at 773 K resulted in spallation of the oxide layer. The emissivity of the sample with loose oxide removed had similar emissivity for EDM-cut A508/A533B at 537 K.
