What percentage of workers are former navy?

[patzke]

ELT on FBM here. After I got out I wanted to stay as far away from nuclear power as possible. Went to work in Law Enforcement in Florida as a "preferred Vietnam era vet" and was sitting in a college class one evening when I got a message that I had a phone call in the office. Next thing I know I'm working for a company called NUMANCO heading to some power plant called Zion in Zion, Illinois. Chuck Pierce could sell sand to the Arabs. Site Supervisor met me at the Chicago airport and gave me $210/cash as advance per diem and worked for them from 1977 through many iterations until the early 90's including the Westinghouse purchase fiasco. Never had to pay the advance per diem back. The late 70's through mid-80s were great times to be a rent-a-tech.

After classroom training at Zion I was sitting in the locker room stripped to my undies getting ready to suit up for containment when I smelled perfume. Looked up and one of the female house techs was undressing beside me. I thought to myself that this has to be a good business to be in.

Took a short stint as a house chem tech and an RP tech at Turkey Point for FP&L and a couple of years later got the infamous call from Chuck Pierce again and went back on the road.

[Holland32Inst]

Navy BE/E school
Navy Electronics Class "A" school (all modules)
Navy Electronics Class "C" school, RADIAC Maintenance

Submarine Tender/Rad Con Div/Qualified Radiac Cal Tech and various co-lateral quals - Serviced boats and surface ships

5 mo. prior to EAOS, head hunter called ship looking for Rad Cal Techs getting out in next 6 months. Had to rush down to head hunter shop to get registered so he could offer me to Westinghouse. Interviewed with Westinghouse within a day or two, hired in short order, months before I was out. So glad they were willing to wait on me. Of course, being one of only two instrument guys they found on the east coast didn't hurt when they had two instrument positions to fill.  :-)

[stormgoalie]

Surface puke on a carrier (non-nuclear) with BT as a rate (yes even old BTs can be taught).  Got in to the nuke business after the Navy.

Cheers,

Jim Rodgers

[LaFeet]

Okay  I retired from the navy nuke program.... No  I was not a SMAG!!!!

Hows this for tours:  USS Narwhal
                             USS Tullibee
                              ETMS Instructor
                               USS Maryland NEWCON and 6 years u/w
                                Kingsbay RADCON

Then I realized I could no longer afford to feed my family on what the good ole Gov was paying...... Now Ima at Humboldt Bay taking stuff off of the reactor head.

[nukewood]

I'm an old AF pilot who got out after Vietnam when pilots were a dime a dozen. I am grateful for the many Ex Navy nukes that were willing to help me learn this business in the early 80's. We need even more of that type of help now.

[Rock Chalk Jayhawk]

Navy, subs.

[roadhp]

USS Carl Vinson
USS Dixon
USS Enterprise
After 10 years, including the last 3 doing an eight reactor refuel on the Enterprise, Uncle Billy decided to downsize, so I got out.  First outage was at Kewaunee.  Thought I had seen everything in NN Shipyard during that refueling, until I supported Mirror decon and got smears that pegged the meter.  Was told to get an RO-2 ion chamber.  Left there and went to SRS.  Got introduced to FP (Fast Peg), VFP (Very Fast Peg), and UTM (Untold Millions) alpha.
After 18 years of bouncing between DOE and commercial, finally got house at GG.  Of course that means I'll probably retire when I am 70, but it beats welfare.

[Chimera]

When I started in the civilian nuclear world back in the 70's, we were almost all ex-Navy - except for one guy who came from the NSS Savanah and one from RPI.  Over the decades I would hazard a guess that our near dominance of the industry has shrunk to less than 40%.  A lot of schools and other training programs have turned out a lot of operators and technicians over the years.