Education Never Ends at Oyster Creek

I took an extra day off from work recently to be at home when my two sons started their first day of school. Waving goodbye as they left that day and then being the first to greet them when they returned home is a tradition I savor each year. As much fun as the first day of school is (probably more for me than the boys), both my 11^th grader and my 5^th grader pondered what it will be like when they no longer have to go to school.

If either of them follow in my footsteps and get a job at a nuclear power plant, like Oyster Creek, they can look forward to schooling that never ends. That’s because in our industry, training and continuous improvement are a part of our culture. It’s paramount to safe operations.

Recruiters at Oyster Creek, and all nuclear power plants around the nation, look for the best and the brightest — experts who are well-educated and most experienced in their crafts.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t have more to learn.

Every man and woman who works at a nuclear power facility — from control room operators to clerks, from engineers to the folks who work in our cafeteria, from our security officers to buildings and groundskeepers — are initially trained to understand basic nuclear power and how to work with safety as the top priority. Through classroom and interactive training, we learn that nuclear power is special and unique, and we learn how to treat it as such. Successfully completing this training is our “admission ticket” to our nuclear careers.

It certainly doesn’t stop there.

Licensed operators, the only men and women authorized to actually operate nuclear reactors, successfully complete at least 18 months of training before they actually take a rigorous exam and receive their license. And before that training, most of these folks either gained a great deal of nuclear operations experience in the U.S. Navy or working at a nuclear plant as equipment operators or earning a technical degree.

What’s more, because their jobs are in the Control Room – the nerve center of any nuclear power facility – they are required to spend every fifth week in classroom and practical training and examinations.

So what’s that training like?  Well, at Oyster Creek our Training Facility is unrivaled. Classrooms have state-of-the-art interactive learning tools and equipment. Our Training Staff consists of nearly 50 subject matter experts, many who, too, are licensed nuclear operators.

And if you’ve ever seen Oyster Creek’s Control Room Simulator, you know we take training seriously. This multi-million dollar facility is an exact computerized replica of the plant’s actual Control Room, right down to the carpeting. It’s here where our licensed operators spend the bulk of their training weeks, practicing the same maneuvers they may see during daily operations and being challenged with simulated emergent situations that truly test their know-how.

Workers throughout the plant are continually trained and tested on their work as well. Before performing maintenance or making repairs, workers often participate in “mock-up training” on exact models of certain components or plant systems to ensure that as individuals or teams, they know exactly what they need to do to complete the job safely and correctly.

We even have employees whose jobs are to review industry events, understand how they apply to the work we do at Oyster Creek, and then forward those learnings to all of us.

Employees are encouraged to continue on with their education outside of work, too, by working for advanced college degrees.

Ben Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” We know that in the nuclear industry. We have made that investment and the communities that we serve receive the benefits.