{"id":9820,"date":"2016-01-30T20:26:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T01:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9820"},"modified":"2016-02-02T13:51:54","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T18:51:54","slug":"power-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9820","title":{"rendered":"Power Player"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MikeFord_DSC_0008\"The control room simulator\u00a0<\/strong>at the Oyster Creek Generating Station in Forked River, New Jersey, seems an appropriate setting in which to talk with Operations Director Mike Ford \u201998 about the training required to keep a nuclear plant running safely.<\/p>\n

As its name implies, the simulator mirrors the actual control room elsewhere on the plant\u2019s 800-acre site, down to every button, switch, knob, dial, gauge, and computer screen. (Even the carpeting is the same.) In here, says Ford, precision is at a premium. Cameras and microphones, used during training, ensure that operators communicate in unambiguous terms. An operator who needs to adjust one of the aforementioned buttons, knobs, or dials, for example, may do so only after conferring with a colleague and consulting one of the six-inch-thick instruction manuals kept in the room. \u201cYou can\u2019t touch a switch without someone watching you,\u201d says Ford.<\/p>\n

Operators must complete an 18-month training session before being granted a license by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Intense does not begin to describe the process of wrapping one\u2019s head around so much highly technical information. What\u2019s the experience like? \u201cLike drinking water from a fire hydrant,\u201d says Ford.<\/p>\n

Ford came to the plant, straight from TCNJ, as a chemistry technician, analyzing the water that flows through the reactor. (The CliffsNotes version of the plant\u2019s operation goes something like this: The reactor\u2019s 137 rods heat water to 520 degrees Fahrenheit, which produces steam, which spins a turbine, which makes electricity.) Several promotions later, in August 2012, Ford was named operations director. These days, he oversees a staff of 115 people and is responsible for the overall day-to-day operation of Oyster Creek\u2019s nuclear reactor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our industry, operations and training go hand in hand,\u201d says Ford. \u201cOur success is their success. I\u2019ve been fortunate in my career to have advanced to levels where I can coach and manage people. It\u2019s been a great opportunity to watch people grow and develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oyster Creek Generating Station is America\u2019s oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant. It began operation in December 1969, and today provides electricity to 600,000 people in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Its location in a densely populated region of the Jersey Shore\u201430 miles north of Atlantic City, 60 miles east of Philadelphia, 75 miles south of New York City, and within 50 miles of more than four million people\u2014only underscores the need for its safe operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a healthy respect for what we\u2019re doing,\u201d says Ford, \u201cbecause every one of us is trained with safety as our number one priority. That\u2019s where the training is most important.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Ford \u201998, operations director at Oyster Creek Generating Station, talks about the training required to keep a nuclear plant running safely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":296,"featured_media":9834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-winter-2016"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/296"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}