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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 207 | Number 8 | August 2021 | Pages 1257-1269
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1808394
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Measurements and data are reported for the total hemispherical emissivity of Grade 91 steel [ASTM International (ASTM) A387 Grade 91] for the temperature range of 400 K to 1048 K using ASTM standard C835-06. The surfaces studied included (1) an electric discharge machining (EDM) cut, (2) Grade 91 steel sandblasted with 320-grit-sized alumina beads, (3) EDM-cut Grade 91 steel oxidized in air, and (4) Grade 91 steel sandblasted with 320-grit-sized alumina beads and oxidized in air. The EDM-cut Grade 91 steel was oxidized at 873 K and 1023 K for 1, 3, and 5 h. The 320-grit sandblasted Grade 91 steel was oxidized at 1023 K for 5 h. Air oxidations were carried out in a three-zone furnace at fixed airflow. It appears that under some conditions, Grade 91 steel can reach the emissivities required for passive heat removal during an air ingress accident.
