Onsite duties prior to instant SRO training

[NucEng for Hire]

If a degreed engineer with no prior nuclear plant experience hopes to begin an 18-month instant SRO class upon his 1-year employment anniversary at the site, are there any caveats as to how he should spend that year, such that he meets the experience requirement to sit for the exam at the end of the training? Must that year be spent in plant engineering? Can he do operations staff work for the year? Or is there no way the combination of degree, prior onsite time, and training can qualify him to sit for the exam?

[Fermi2]

At least 6 months onsite PRIOR TO RECEIVING THE LICENSE! In other words you can start school on day one, test for your license on day 365, but the NRC won't issue the License until 180 days later. (I was almost in that boat.

That's not your real question though. Thats the legal requirement.

So assuming you have a year to go, screw engineering you won't need it.

1: Spend maybe 2 or 3 months in department corrective action.

2: 2 to 3 months in Work Control.

3: 6 months in day to day operation of the plant, of this time I'd spend at least 3 months rotating with a shift and as much time as possible doing rounds with the Non Licensed Operators.

4: Try to get involved in at least 2 self assessments one a departmental, the other a site wide.


None of this will guarantee you anything, but as an engineering instant it will help you a lot.

Do NOT become just a paper pusher or admin guy.

Mike

[NucEng for Hire]

I've been told that per Figure 2-3 of ACAD 00-003, with my maximum of 2 years of 1:1 academic credit, the 1-year balance toward the 3 year experience requirment has to be spent as a "Plant Staff Engineer" and "within the accredited population", and that this excludes rotations as part of ops. Is this not true, and if that is the case, what documents can I support this stance with?

[M1Ark]

You can do everything Broadzilla described and be clasified as a "Plant Staff Engineer".  You do not have to be in Engineering. 

You already have an engineering degree and you are working for Ops as a "Plant Staff Engineer".

Seen this done at two different plants.

[Fermi2]

Thats right, Plant Staff Engineer is a generic term. Your utility defines what it means. You won't find ANYTHING that defines it. ACADs are only recommendations night requirements do take them with a grain of salt.

The real requirement is 6 months onsite in ANY position.

I just gave you a recommended way to use the time.

Mike

[Fermi2]

Get assigned to an Operating shift. Rotate with them. Go to training with them. Ask them questions do rounds. Learn the job of every single member of that shift. Spend a day with Chemistry, Radcon, Maintenance and Engineering.

Also make DARN sure your utility has processed whatever waivers are required for you to take the exam.

Mike

[alphacookie]

Get assigned to an Operating shift. Rotate with them. Go to training with them. Ask them questions do rounds. Learn the job of every single member of that shift. Spend a day with Chemistry, Radcon, Maintenance and Engineering.

Also make DARN sure your utility has processed whatever waivers are required for you to take the exam.

Mike

I was finally able to get a hold of my soon to be Assistant Ops Manager and he pretty much had the same idea.

My goal is to get in, learn as much as possible from anyone and everyone, take my lumps, forget as much of the negative Navy crap as possible and enjoy myself.

Thanks for your help.

[RDTroja]

My goal is to get in, learn as much as possible from anyone and everyone, take my lumps, forget as much of the negative Navy crap as possible and enjoy myself.

That sounds like a very good blueprint for success in any chosen career path (nuclear or otherwise.) Good luck to you and welcome to NukeWorker.com.

[flamatrix99]

I am currently in my 6 month window waiting for HLO class to start in the middle of next month. We had a lot of admin duties assigned to us (answering CRs and Apparent Cause Evaluations) and had to attend approx 4 weeks of supervisor training. We also did observations of Ops training, did some rounds with the NLOs and did a little walking around on our own.

I have to admit it was not what I had in mind when I took the job.  At my previous plant the Instant SROs had a qual card they did on locations, operator rounds and basic systems knowledge. I was fortunate enough that I got to go support another plant during their outage. I learned the most during that time especially since I have a PWR background now I am in a BWR world.

[tr]

In addition to the above, try to walk down as many of the main systems as possible (especially feedwater, condensate, cooling water systems, accessible portions of safety systems, main steam, and the turbine).  For the systems like feedwater and condensate, try to walk them down from the start to the end, to help get a feel for where the system is, and what the flowpath is.   This will help immensely once you get into the systems class and the simulator.  Going on rounds (where you typically examine all the systems in a given area) doesn't always help you understand how the system actually functions.