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Insights > Meet the pros: Andrew Nance
Meet the pros: Andrew Nance
11/26/2024
Serving as nuclear power plant control room supervisor is an all-consuming job, but for Andrew Nance at Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville, Arkansas, that is only the beginning. Read how he reaches out cross-functionally to accomplish even more efficiencies for the site.
What's a typical day like for you?
I spend most of the day in the control room because the control room supervisor is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the plant. A lot of it is just oversight, making sure that we’re operating the plant safely and that we're performing all our scheduled activities. When craft workers come in, I may perform a surveillance or do something out in the plant, making sure that whatever we've got going on is not going to put the plant at risk. I make sure that we're ready to respond as needed to keep the plant and the public safe. We rarely have to use it, but we have responsibility for knowing where to find emergency guidance—the emergency operating procedures and abnormal operating procedures—and how to use it.
Which of our company’s values is most important to you?
Teamwork is probably my favorite. I try to get involved with stuff outside of the operations organization, to reach out and work with other departments to bring something together. It's sometimes kind of difficult when you're on shift, but when it does work it can be a good thing.
What have you been up to outside of your normal responsibilities?
I've visited some of Entergy’s other nuclear sites to see how we do things and whether we're outside of the norm. I want to know if there’s anything we can eliminate, to be more efficient.
For example, I’ve been working on a project for the control room, trying to get some electronic status boards installed. Currently, we status the plant and equipment on an old-school marker board, so we're trying to get up to date. I’d like to get some big-screen TVs in there to monitor the plant.
I've also been working with engineering and with the projects group to get one of those status boards installed right outside of the control room. We've talked about doing that for awhile but hadn't gotten traction on it. Now it's getting traction. It's not implemented yet, but it is in the works, so that’s a huge success.
In what other ways have you looked for efficiencies?
I’ve been trying to think outside the box to streamline our work and perform it more efficiently. The screens would allow us to utilize modern technology to help us in monitoring the plant, and there are also ways to use it for the administrative controls we spend a lot of time tracking.
For example, we have controls for a lot of manual valves and for safety systems, and especially in a refueling outage, we spend a lot of time putting those things into the tracker. It's something that we can potentially get rid of and use our time for other tasks instead.
Tell us a bit about your background and your history with ANO.
I grew up in Harrison, which is a couple hours north of Russellville. I went to college at Arkansas Tech University and got my electrical engineering degree. Soon after that, in 2012, I was hired as an auxiliary operator and worked in non-licensed positions for a couple of years. Then I went to reactor operator class and got my license. I was an RO for two years and then got my senior reactor operator license in 2022. I was a shift technical advisor for one refueling cycle, and now I'm the control room supervisor on a crew. I’m glad I was allowed to keep changing positions and doing different things, which is a strength of the operations organization.
What's are the most challenging and rewarding parts of your job?
The most challenging thing I’ve done was getting my senior reactor operator’s license. The most rewarding part honestly is the people I work with; that's what really makes this job great. I'm in a control room with two or three other guys for 12 hours for three or four days in a row. If you don't have people you like to be around, it can be a miserable time. So, I'm blessed and thankful that those guys on crew are great.
Why are you proud to work for Entergy?
Entergy has been really good to me over the last 12 years. Sometimes when you're a kid coming out of college, you feel like you want to make a difference—and sometimes it's hard to make that connection when you're monitoring equipment at a power plant. But I've grown to respect the fact that, as our motto goes, we power life. Ultimately, we're providing power to the people of the community, and I'm proud to be a part of that.
