The Restated Charter provides the Committee may contract for services including the services of consultants and experts to assist the Committee in its safety review. The DCISC Members are assisted in their important work by technical consultants and legal counsel. For this report period those persons were:
Technical Consultant: Mr. R. Ferman Wardell, a Registered Professional Engineer, holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Nuclear Engineering from North Carolina State University. He is a 53-year veteran of the nuclear power industry, having been directly involved in design, quality assurance, operation and nuclear safety oversight activities for Duke Energy Corporation's seven nuclear units. He was formerly Executive Assistant to the Chairman and CEO at Duke Energy. Mr. Wardell has been a Consultant to the DCISC since 1992. In this capacity he participates in technical and programmatic reviews of the safety of Diablo Canyon nuclear operations, DCISC public meetings, and development of the DCISC fact-finding reports and its annual reports. Mr. Wardell also serves as nuclear consultant to the minority owner of the North Anna Power Station, a nuclear plant in Virginia.
Technical Consultant: Mr. Richard D. McWhorter, Jr., holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. He is a 35-year veteran of the nuclear power industry. He served for ten years as a division officer and department head in the navy's nuclear submarine program in which he was responsible for the operation of his submarine's nuclear power plant. Mr. McWhorter then served the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for ten years first as an Operator Licensing Examiner and then as Senior Resident Inspector at North Anna Power Station. He then was employed for two years as a Systems Engineering Manager for Dominion Virginia Power at North Anna Power Station. For ten years, Mr. McWhorter was employed at Old Dominion Electric Cooperative where he served as Vice President of Operations and Asset Management. Mr. McWhorter has been a Consultant to the DCISC since 2016. In this capacity he participates in technical and programmatic reviews of the safety of Diablo Canyon nuclear operations, DCISC public meetings, and development of the DCISC fact-finding reports and annual reports.
Technical Consultant: Ms. Lisa A. Darden holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Master of Business Administration degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a 35-year veteran of the nuclear power industry having worked for Dominion Energy at Surry and North Anna Power Stations. She was a Shift Technical Advisor and a Licensed Senior Reactor Operator for 10 years at Surry Power Station. Other responsibilities at Surry included developing and implementing regulatory and engineering programs, management and oversight of the corrective action and nuclear oversight programs, and Planning and Scheduling of all on-line and outage work. At North Anna, Ms. Darden was the Plant Manager for 5 years where she was responsible for all Operations, Maintenance, Work Management, and Supplemental departments and activities including outage development and performance and station budget, and the Site Vice President for 3.5 years where she was the senior executive on-site.
Technical Consultant: Mr. Richard J. St. Onge is a Registered Professional Engineer, holds both a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, MA. and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the University of Pheonix, San Diego Campus, CA. Mr. St. Onge started his career designing and constructing the current fleet of Power reactors in the United States. He furthered his nuclear knowledge as an Instrumentation & Controls design engineer, was promoted to Engineering Design Supervisor, then Design Manager at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. He was selected as the Project Manager for the Decommissioning of SONGS Unit 1, which was completed on time and under budget. Following that Project, he was selected as Station Engineering, Director. Following that experience, Mr. St. Onge was promoted to Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs, which included responsibilities of the Emergency Planning Program. During his career, Mr. St. Onge obtained two Senior Reactor Operator (SRO) licenses from the US NRC Licensing Branch. His experience includes Control Room operations, reactor refueling activities, Technical Specification compliance, and was an on-shift Certified Shift Technical Advisor (STA) as part of his duties. Mr. St. Onge has been a Nuclear Consultant since 2014 for the US Fleet of reactors, ranging on topics that include; Project Management, Plant Operations, Plant & System Engineering, Emergency Planning, Licensing, Regulatory Compliance, SMR design, Spent Fuel Management, Decommissioning, and other strategic nuclear projects.
Technical Consultant: Dr. Andrew C. Kadak, holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Union College in Schenectady, NY, Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Northeastern University. He is a 50 year veteran of the nuclear industry having worked for Combustion Engineering in reactor physics, Yankee Atomic Electric Company in many roles from Project Manager of the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant, Vermont Yankee, and served as the vice president of engineering for Yankee providing engineering and technical services to Yankee Rowe, Vermont Yankee and Maine Yankee. He subsequently became President and CEO of the Yankee organization overseeing technical and administrative services to those companies. After retiring from Yankee Atomic, Dr. Kadak became a Professor of the Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 12 years. Dr. Kadak has been a Consultant to the DCISC since 2022. In this capacity he participates in technical and programmatic reviews of the safety of spent nuclear fuel storage and decommissioning and the safety of Diablo Canyon nuclear operations and in DCISC public meetings and fact-finding visits and development of the annual reports.
Technical Consultant: Dr. Mark T. Kirk, holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, and Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois. He has 40 years working experience in the field of structural integrity assessment. The last 27 of these years have been dedicated to the nuclear industry, including 2 years at the Westinghouse hot cells in Pittsburgh, 19 years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, and the past 6 years as a consultant to various industrial concerns, including the Electric Power Research Institute, The Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry (in Japan), and to HOLTEC. His research and engineering efforts have focused in three areas: development of databases and models to support reactor pressure vessel (RPV) embrittlement prediction, develop of Master Curve methods for RPV assessment, and the development and implementation of probabilistic methods for RPV integrity assessment. He is the chairman of the ASME Section XI Working Group on Operating Plant Criteria and is an active contributor to ASTM Subcommittee E10.02 on Nuclear Structural Materials.
Technical Consultant: Dr. G. Kenneth Koves received his Masters and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. He has worked in the nuclear power industry for 18 years. He was the Senior Advisor for Safety Culture and Leadership Development at the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) - Tokyo Center and a principle program manager in Industry Leadership at the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). Prior to working in the nuclear power industry he was a senior organization development consultant at Sprint, a telecommunications company. Dr. Koves stewarded the creation of a common safety culture framework between the US nuclear industry and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission; known as the Traits of a Healthy Nuclear Safety Culture. He then worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on developing a global framework for nuclear safety culture. He has led consulting assignments and workshops on defining and assessing safety culture, and led workshops on leadership development and management observation in 20 countries. He works with stations to integrate assessment results into their operational strategy for the improvement of safety and reliability. Examples of results were 66% reduction in component failures, 90% reduction in recordable injuries, 92% reduction in plant status control events, and 65% of employees said they had changed their behavior.
Legal Counsel Robert Rathie, Esq. has been associated with the Committee since 1993 through his work with the Wellington & Rathie Law Offices. Mr. Robert R. Wellington was the Legal Counsel to the Committee since its organization in 1989. Mr. Rathie holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Social Science and History from Chico State University and served for 15 years in the U.S. Merchant Marine as Chief Purser on board passenger and freight vessels in foreign trade. He received his Juris Doctor Degree from Monterey College of Law. For over 30 years his practice has been limited to representing several cities, community service, regional wastewater and solid waste districts and other public agencies, including the DCISC. He is a member of the State Bar of California and the Monterey County Bar Association. He advises the DCISC with regard to its legal, regulatory and administrative matters.
Special Counsel for Regulatory Affairs Willis Hon, Esq. is a partner in the law firm Nossaman LLP and focuses on serving clients across California, including the DCISC, on a broad range of administrative and regulatory matters. He has extensive experience before the California Public Utilities Commission where he has participated in a number of ratesetting, adjudicatory, and rulemaking proceedings. He also provides legal counseling and governance advice to public agencies on regulatory compliance issues. Mr. Hon has written and presented on climate change resilience and adaptation matters, with a particular expertise on recent legislation addressing wildfire risks. He also has experience representing clients in federal court and before administrative agencies on environmental law matters. Prior to joining Nossaman, Mr. Hon was an associate at a boutique environmental law firm in New York City, where he worked on federal and state environmental litigation and advised clients in regulatory investigations. He also served as a law clerk with the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, Law and Policy Section. Mr. Hon is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Columbia University School of Law.