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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.
Bradley K. Heath, Cody C. Race
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 10 | October 2019 | Pages 1369-1377
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1589853
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Resumption of Transient Testing Program was created to re-establish transient testing capability in the United States, specifically at the Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility, located at the Idaho National Laboratory. The restart of TREAT began in early 2014 and concluded in August of 2017. The restart of TREAT occurred 13 months ahead of schedule and $20 million below the $75 million original budget. High-level detail of the restart effort along with several significant factors that contributed to successful restart of TREAT are discussed.
