BONUS Crossover Episode: The Future of Nuclearn & Naked Nuclear

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Danielle Allen: DJ, firefighter Skateboarder Pilot. No, this isn't a Mad Libs. This is the crossover episode you didn't know you needed. Naked nuclear joints Phil Zeringue of Nuclearn and their podcast, the future of Nuclear

to talk about everything from the purpose of healthy hazing

I'm like, what's it gonna do if I, uh, hang his, uh, uniform up in the rafters?

It's also a really good way to like. Understand the people on your team.

to finding purpose in your work.

[00:00:31] Phil Z: it's one of the most, endearing. Like you really fall in love with the machine and you want that machine to run.

You want that machine to be healthy and you want to come in every day to take care of that machine. It really does mean something to you

[00:00:45] Danielle Allen: We talk about everything under the sun this episode, and we're hoping you get a little bit more dimension behind the IE, the people who are always asking the questions.

We hope you enjoy this sit down conversation between two of maybe the most eclectic voices in nuclear

[00:01:03] Phil Z: Welcome to the future of Nuclear and Naked Nuclear. It is a mashup, and so '

our conversation today is with a trained flight instructor, a nuclear talent recruiter, the founder of syllable getting its roots, helping first responders engage in Spanish speakers in emergency situations. studied at Princeton before becoming a firefighter and a paramedic in Aurora's Station one. an aspiring astronaut, a future TED talker, and physics educator. She has a personal mission to bring empathy into energy. Yes, she has a favorite scientist. Claude Shannon. She's the IRA Glass of Nuclear. She's the creator and host of Naked Nuclear. Welcome, Danielle Allen.

[00:01:49] Danielle Allen: Thank you so much, Phil.

And it was so funny when you were reading that, I was like, I've done all that. Oh, wow. I literally have like the memory of a goldfish. So what a fun intro. and I love that we're doing this mashup episode right now.

[00:02:02] Phil Z: Yes. It's gonna be awesome. I think, I mean, I feel like we're Kindred spirits to some degree where we both just kind of gone random directions doing random things.

[00:02:12] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:13] Phil Z: just like, where can we help and where does it take us? And so I think we'll discover a lot more of that today is what I'm looking forward to.

[00:02:21] Danielle Allen: I mean, just before this, we were talking about the fact that you met your wife DJing, and she was a DJ as well.

[00:02:27] Phil Z: That's

[00:02:28] Danielle Allen: But phenomenal. I was like, that's so cool. yeah, there's just so many fun nuggets and trinkets, just really trying to out here live. Very interesting lives. and then just kind of also stumbled into nuclear a bit.

[00:02:39] Phil Z: I listened to, a lot of your work. So I'm a fan. I follow the pod.

one of the questions I wanted to jump in a little bit to, you said something in one of your interviews and it was actually related to your work on, you were a firefighter on syllable,

[00:02:56] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:57] Phil Z: the

[00:02:57] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:02:58] Phil Z: tools to help in emergency situations.

And you had mentioned when you were. Going after funding a lot of the model you were presenting and the funding you were requesting didn't kind of meet the standard vc, you know, deck of corn, you know, huge market and they didn't really understand the specific problem you were solving or, or didn't really have awareness into the kind of problem yet.

All of the firefighters and first responders were like, oh my God, yes,

[00:03:27] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:03:28] Phil Z: It's hilarious because that is identical to what we experience at Nuclearn

[00:03:34] Danielle Allen: Mm.

[00:03:35] Phil Z: our journey. And

[00:03:36] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:03:36] Phil Z: talk to press, or even, when we were doing our fundraising. We had a reaction around, wait, is that really a problem in nuclear?

[00:03:45] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:46] Phil Z: you talk about it in naked nuclear about how efficient nuclear is, the fuel is so dense, it uses so little land compared to, other intermittent sources like wind and solar. the waste, can fill up this can, if you used it your whole life, like all the things about how dense and efficient nuclear is. But the least efficient when it comes to labor,

[00:04:07] Danielle Allen: Right.

[00:04:08] Phil Z: when it comes to bureaucracy, right? And so we're trying to describe to folks that aren't familiar with it. We solved this paperwork problem, we solved this inefficiency in labor and process problem. we get that same look of

[00:04:22] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:22] Phil Z: is that really a problem?

how,

[00:04:24] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:04:24] Phil Z: can it be?

[00:04:26] Danielle Allen: Right.

[00:04:26] Phil Z: then you talk to nuclear professionals and they're like, oh my God. Yes. I have had to do the same research. I've had to keyword search fatigue and a thousand page FSAR a and I spent four hours straight until my hand cramped up.

[00:04:39] Danielle Allen: When you're working with VCs and you're trying to pitch them, you're trying to like, bring them into the story. oftentimes it's just a lived experience. you gotta live through the pain to understand why this is such a big problem. and, you know, especially for the nuclear side, I think like there's a lot of people who have lived through the pain of being like, this is gonna take forever. I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm tired. I'm on my 17th cup of coffee. That's not healthy. it's really difficult, when you're doing, you know, a a 15 minute pitch or you have a sit down meeting with investors to really bring up that flavor of difficulty.

The fun parts of raising money, but also the really tricky part is. especially for a lot more niche, industries like, nuclear there isn't really a lot of outside eyeballs on the industry to know what the problems are. and that's one of the reasons I wanted to, start naked nuclear so that people get more comfortable with nuclear topics, in general.

[00:05:34] Phil Z: Yeah. The, the, the inefficiency on the labor side is such a interesting problem that people don't think about. And I think it was with Firefighter X on her YouTube around like, Hey, you're a firefighter and now you're into nuclear. Why aren't you doing fire ops at a nuclear plant?

[00:05:48] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:49] Phil Z: it's super boring. they're just in case.

[00:05:52] Danielle Allen: I like to think that, like I'm very altruistic in my actions and I am sometimes, but most of the time it's because I'm interested in it and it's really cool. Like what are the real problems that we got going on?

[00:06:04] Phil Z: I'm gonna be, real with my fire ops folks right now. when I was, first stationed at Sequoia Plant, I was running plant projects and then I went into the maintenance group and hung out with fire ops more than anybody that was my secret refuge if I needed to get away. 'cause they had the best food. was one thing, but fire ops they had a rotation. I knew who was bringing chili. who was bringing stew. who was having breakfast for dinner. they adopted me. I mean, it may be boring from a, they're not rushing up buildings on a regular basis or, or, or catching babies. but they're fixing fire equipment,

[00:06:39] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:39] Phil Z: activities.

[00:06:40] Danielle Allen: troubleshooting is tricky.

[00:06:41] Phil Z: working. One of my closest buddies, his name was Topper. And so I don't know what it was like in Station one, but at Sequoia, everybody had a nickname.

And your nickname was on your hard hat? and the guy I spent the most time with, his name was Topper, they called it a topper because no matter what story you had, would top it.

[00:07:01] Danielle Allen: there's always gotta be one in a firehouse that is like, I see your ace and I raise you two ACEs. You're like, okay, buddy.

[00:07:08] Phil Z: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:10] Danielle Allen: I was actually bestowed a nickname, from a man on a call. He wasn't actually involved in the call. he said that I was looking like a mango thunder, and I didn't know what that means, but my whole crew was like, all right, this is now Mango Thunder.

And I think that's, the funny thing about the fire service and just the comradery as well a lot of people will come into like a station or firehouse and be like, you guys are cooking mac and cheese in here?

what's going on? And so that's always the, the nice thing about the comradery that's, baked in. but then also just getting to know the people, working in troubleshooting. were you the social butterfly, at Sequoia

[00:07:47] Phil Z: I started at corporate You get hired in and then they figure out the best place for you I was doing projects across the fleet. one of the big projects I had was a security project.

I had to work with the fire ops team. And it had to do with barrier protections and some surveillance equipment and some other things. so I just kind of got to know those folks. when I moved into a full-time role at the plant, the, you know, of gravitated to people, I kind of knew a little bit from my project work.

And then it's like, hey, I'm just, one of the folks over here.

[00:08:15] Danielle Allen: Nice. It does feel cool. like they accepted me. I'm in,

[00:08:20] Phil Z: Yeah. And so it was, it was a good refuge. when I left the project team and went over to the maintenance side on the construction. So there's hazing in every discipline. on the project side, I worked a lot with modifications, construction

[00:08:31] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:33] Phil Z: vendors.

And there was quite a few, pranks that went on. I had my hard hat completely filled with ice, with my

[00:08:39] Danielle Allen: Oh,

[00:08:39] Phil Z: glasses in the middle of it.

[00:08:40] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:41] Phil Z: and frozen for

[00:08:42] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:43] Phil Z: go on a scavenger hunt to find it. And so it was the mods construction lead that did that.

I got some PVC glue and filled his hard hat with that, put it out in the sun it became a nice little, silly putty ball. But you still see his name on it.

[00:09:00] Danielle Allen: The pranks level, I think in all of these industries I worked at one station in particular and we were literally the prank house. it's almost like if you're not being teased, you're like, oh, what's wrong with that guy?

you kind of gotta be teased to get through it. it's also just like knowing, people's sense of humor is also like a really good, mini test for like, when really stressful things happen. how's this person gonna react? for me as a probie, it feels like, oh my gosh, they're teasing me.

But then, you know, after I got a couple years on the job it's like you kind of have to, test and push people's boundaries. I'm like, what's it gonna do if I, uh, hang his, uh, uniform up in the rafters?

[00:09:37] Phil Z: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:38] Danielle Allen: or how's he gonna get it down? let's see the problem solving I definitely have been known to play a few pranks, here and there.

but yeah, I think it's one of those things that it's great to pass the time, but it's also a really good way to like. Understand the people on your team.

[00:09:53] Phil Z: And when you can navigate inside a nuclear environment, or In a city environment following all the procedures. You're not breaking any rules. You're not breaking any laws. You're, you know, adhering to the MSDS sheet.

You know, I only use it on, GVC materials, right? And if you can follow all the rules, not go outside of boundaries, not put anybody at risk, not put anybody in harm's way or do anything, harmful or hateful to anyone, you could still pull off something funny. Like that is a good test of. your judgment, your patience. and I think it's really important, especially when you're the new person to, show that you're willing to take it.

[00:10:31] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:31] Phil Z: a lot of times in the trades, we'll call it, you know, can, he push as hard as he pulls or the other way around, right?

[00:10:37] Danielle Allen: Yep.

[00:10:37] Phil Z: his own weight as hard as he barks at others and pushes other people? And so I definitely found that, comradery and, and the willingness to, to know when someone's pushing your boundaries and to let them, and to go with it. Like I had, my mid-shift supervisor tell me, he is like, well, when the new, superintendent comes in, he has to buy barbecue for, you know, the whole evening shift. was like, of course he does. So I, you know, brought in barbecue the next day and he is like, you know, just kidding. I'm like, no, you weren't.

[00:11:05] Danielle Allen: Yeah, it's like we're joking, but we're serious. Like, we're joking, but we're also serious. A lot of the trades and fire a lot of it is almost akin to like being on a sports team. Like you really have to get feedback. this is just essentially all a part of that feedback loop.

it's all very information driven and I think a lot of times for newcomers to these industries, it is overwhelming at times. 'cause you, you are kind of intimidated, like, especially if you've got a, you know, a gray-haired guy who's been on the job for 30 years in the fire service. they've got more time on the toilet than you've got in the whole service.

and it can be intimidating the nice thing. Is being able to navigate that as a newcomer, it's essentially all very mapped out. you know what's gonna happen You can almost expect it.

when people are serious with you and be like, Hey, we actually can't do that. that's when you're kind of seeing that person. They can adjust and mold to, the protocols we have at hand.

And I think that's one of the major things with the nuclear side, the protocols are very, very, you know, we have to stick to them regulatory, on the fire side it's like, Hey, you were doing this because these are the steps you need to do to save somebody's life. if you don't do them, you might not save their life.

And I think that's really important. at the end of the day, the people who work in these industries can keep on the horizon, the real risks of having a bad day, what does a bad day look like? I think that's al also the nice thing about the pranks and the jokes and how people are brought up into these industries, it's kind of serious and

Sometimes a little bit boring if you don't bring in some of that humor,

[00:12:41] Phil Z: one of the correlators I've, always drawn is I always thought there should be. A television show around nuclear operations. And I

[00:12:49] Danielle Allen: Oh, yeah.

[00:12:50] Phil Z: people in the world right now are exploring those things. So I'm very optimistic that that will come true. but, things like refueling outages have their whole own novella of drama.

It's like, you could end on a climax. It's like, oh, they just discovered this in the turbine. how are they

[00:13:09] Danielle Allen: Right.

[00:13:09] Phil Z: schedule? what are they

[00:13:11] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:13:11] Phil Z: And the drama with this crew. And, you

[00:13:14] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:16] Phil Z: you have that in the home builder shows where they have schedule pressure time and constraints how are they gonna work through it?

You have it in the firehouses, it's like the office. But the backdrop is a nuclear refilling outage.

[00:13:26] Danielle Allen: We did like a Woman's History month series at the beginning of this year. one of the folks that we had on, she was a project engineer, became a project manager. and it was really, the episode was about, those changes.

one of the really fun things, about the conversation was like, outage season, what does that look like? And she's like, it can get pretty high stakes. you're calling people up at 2:00 AM like, Hey, this thing broke. We gotta send somebody on a plane, get on a train, whatever form of transportation.

It's like a unicycle if you need to, but you gotta get there. And I'm like, man, that would be so great for television. because I think oftentimes there's so many people within the public that if you ask them, Hey, can you like picture a nuclear power plant? Almost always the only thing they're gonna bring up is nuclear cooling towers, But there's so much more happening within a power plant that I'm like, oh my gosh, I'd make for such great television. Also, my personal thought, we have way too many fire shows, and most of 'em are bad. I think television deserves a nuclear, outage, fueling drama, 'cause yeah, there's too many fire shows. We need some new, content,

[00:14:26] Phil Z: Have you ever spent $50,000 on a single roll of tape? I have.

[00:14:31] Danielle Allen: there's just so many things that you could definitely just wow the general public with

[00:14:35] Phil Z: Yep. Private jet. Just for a roll of tape. manufacturing line spun up just for one roll of tape.

[00:14:40] Danielle Allen: Yep.

[00:14:41] Phil Z: it gets expensive

[00:14:42] Danielle Allen: It gets expensive. I had a conversation specifically about, the INC and the fact that some of these, pieces of equipment are obsolete and like, what do you do if nobody makes it 'em anymore? And you're like, well, you gotta get creative. And the levels of creativity found, within kind of this whole subculture of, you know, keeping these power plans up and running.

I was like, this should be a show in and of itself. This is an incredible, even maybe a graphic novel, like, I don't, I don't know. I'm creative. I'm not that artistic though, so it maybe just stick figures running around with, tools

We had kind of chatted about before is just how do we like, bring to the attention of the general public, all of the, the really interesting things that are happening within the nuclear space, and especially when we're like, Hey, we need workforce, we need this, we need that.

[00:15:28] Phil Z: Do you think we need to do a retrofit or do you think we need to just market it different? Like, so for example, when I got into the nuclear industry, going around with the plants, looking around, it's like, oh my God, everything's so dated. it's like a 20-year-old kitchen.

You're like, oh, I just wanna rip this out and put a new kitchen in. But if you go back far enough, it's vintage, it's retro, it's cool.

[00:15:47] Danielle Allen: Yeah, the kids are wearing nineties clothes again, so I'm pretty sure we're fine. They're gonna go in, they're like, oh, wow, this is really cool. It's like a time capsule. I was watching a group of high schoolers enter the grocery store the other day, and nineties grunge is back.

I wonder if, some of the kids feel the same. if that would be, just as interesting, to get into, working with a nuclear operator to see how they're actually operating.

[00:16:14] Phil Z: Three dimensional tactile controls. That's how we operate the plant.

[00:16:21] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:16:21] Phil Z: you just gotta come up with the right branding.

[00:16:23] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:24] Phil Z: It's state-of-the-art analog equipment. You can't just get that

[00:16:27] Danielle Allen: Ooh, state of there analog. Yep. I like that

[00:16:31] Phil Z: How do you attract talent into the nuclear industry when it's not the most state-of-the-art technology anymore?

[00:16:37] Danielle Allen: Yeah, I think it's interesting in terms of just what the kids are interested in these days. a lot of it is generally just the environment. I'm a really big bird nerd. I was listening to a birding podcast the other day.

It was fascinating because on the podcast, it was a lady who was like, let me go out and do birding with the kids.

what are the kids interested in? And of course they were really interested in all the different birds one of the things she said was devastating this 7-year-old was, at the pond with them. And she's like, this is not gonna be here very long.

I was taking a climate class and it sounds like we're going in the wrong direction. the lady on the podcast was also like, Ooh. the younger generations are having this very wide awareness of the microclimate catastrophes that are happening within these little pockets of the world we live in.

And so I think that's one of the reasons why, the nuclears are actually starting to sell itself a bit. I think it's the culture, the nuclear culture is what the kids aren't super sure about. the idea that nuclear is the best for the environment, you know, low carbon emissions, is pretty straightforward, but it's like, okay, the paperwork and the kind of the bureaucracy and how slow and how attention details we're having.

That's all the other type that I think is you kind of have to sell the kids on

[00:17:58] Phil Z: I can see that. the amount of paperwork in nuclear is what we built our whole business on. So it is real. It's no joke. as technology gets, more widely adopted as we continue to, to grow and improve on the AI space and the tech space, that that burden of monotony. It evaporates and you get to do more interesting types of problem solving. that part's great. I think it's interesting the perspectives. my generation had the backdrop of the Cold War, and we're gonna get nuke out of existence with bombs. And so we, I probably won't live to 30 anyway as a, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, versus , climate change is gonna destroy the planet and we're all gonna die and we're gonna use up our resources and kill the planet. every generation's had their backdrop of disaster and, and this generation's kind of taking it seriously and bit of anxiety based or, you know, consternation based. Whereas I, maybe it was just my bubble, but it felt like my generation took it as well, we're all gonna die anyway.

Let's party it up, let's go crazy.

[00:19:00] Danielle Allen: Right. You're like, ah, whatcha gonna do? I think, a little bit more of it is really in terms of, I was having a conversation specifically about the nuclear industry to recruit people into it, but also to retain them that retention piece.

I think NEI was looking at workforce development, research that they're doing and they're showing like that one to 10 year gap is where they're like, they have the highest attrition rate. I was like, well, why? what's going on there? the expectations you get recruited into the industry with are not necessarily the same ones that will keep you to stay.

keeping everything in terms of, you know, hey, like, you know, we got state, state-of-the-art analog. I think that's fine, but I think the other part of it is the nuclear culture required to keep these plants running. the attention to detail.

Getting kids more excited shifting the culture, through technology that might help. Nuclear is already attracting young folks.

but it's the retention part how do you retain, some of these kiddos? And I think a lot of it is just, they're so used to a very fast paced world anyway, and nuclear's not necessarily that way all the time.

[00:20:09] Phil Z: Yeah, I think it was Tory Beige gave me a stat from N-A-Y-G-N. Some studies they did, and I'll probably get this wrong, there was a large number that within the first five years, they leave nuclear, I wanna say it was 25%.

It could have been north of that. And so there, that retention, it was a challenge and it's just not, you think nuclear. And there's a couple folks, that, that we've had on the podcast that, that a nuclear engineering degree specifically because they wanted to go into nuclear and just not very good knowledge of all the other ways you can go into nuclear.

You're doing a great job promoting that. I'm not just an engineer, I'm a nuclear engineer. It's like, it sounds super awesome when you talk outside of your circles, right? another side job I had back in the day was I was also a, diversity instructor on the side.

I met some really cool people there. one of the big, Focus areas is recruit, retain, develop, and on the recruit and retain side, you need to make things welcoming. one of the larger utilities I worked at, and I won't say their name

I went through their two week onboarding process. They have a great name for it and it's all branded and they do a great job. I went through that whole process got on the job and I ran in like two months later to my, my instructor that did all my onboarding. You know, how's it going?

what was the name of that company you were telling me about? I really wanna work there

[00:21:29] Danielle Allen: Yeah. Right.

[00:21:31] Phil Z: because where I work is.

[00:21:34] Danielle Allen: And I think it's, the bait and switch a little bit of like, I feel icky. I feel a little bit used. one of the books that I really enjoy. I've reread it like. Probably a dozen times now. it's called Corruptible by Brian Klass, and it looks at like what creates a, a corrupted system or a corrupt system.

And a lot of it was just like how you recruit, like, and who you're recruiting and essentially the system you create when trying to retain people. this is not a shot at doctors. all the people in my family are doctors. my mom, my dad, my aunt, my uncle, one of the things that they were showing is doctors, lawyers and police officers, according to this book, have some of the highest rates of, sociopaths especially surgeons. I love telling my mom that, and I'm like, Are you a sociopath, you're a surgeon?

But within the book, it's not that, you know, like all doctors are sociopath. It's, it's just the way that you recruit and, and the, the, the environment you create in medical school for people to survive. you have to be cutthroat.

she would tell me about, opening up her books at Columbia Med School and they were all blacked out. people had redacted the books, and this was like in the eighties. So like, there's no like going on, on the internet to like be, be bloop. and so I think that was one of the things that was like fascinating to me is just like, oh yeah, the environment that, and how you recruit and the environment you place people in once you've recruited them is very important to kind of the types of people that you're gonna be producing within an industry itself.

[00:23:05] Phil Z: it's fascinating. So, so I'm second generation nuclear. My dad was a nuclear his whole career and he moved up, pretty high, one time I asked him, I'm like, how come you keep having to meet with psychologists? And, and, so I actually talked to one of the nuclear psychologists and found out the answer one of the tests you have to take for your background check is the, MMPI exam. It's like a 300 question test. It asks you a bunch of questions often over and over again, and different phraseologies random things like, would you rather hold a gun or a flower? how angry are you with your mom? You know, like there's all kinds of different questions and you're scored on a be curve. There's no right or wrong answer, but there are that are less normal for your demographic, your age, your, your sex, your gender, whatever. And so the whole idea is as long as you're within the certain range of the bell curve, then your profile doesn't generate any flags. the psychologist told me most of the executives are outside of the bell curve. so to get to a certain level in a utility, you have to be a little bit something.

[00:24:09] Danielle Allen: for sure.

[00:24:10] Phil Z: And so I can imagine being, a surgeon, especially a, a plastic surgeon in a warrant torn area, who would definitely put you.

[00:24:19] Danielle Allen: There're a little something in the ingredients to that cake. Yep. I think that's the interesting thing to me a lot of the thesis of this book is, trying to avoid corrupt systems, but really any system that you're designing for a large group of people, is, you know, how do you recruit and how, what, what's the environment that you put them in?

Do you value transparency? how does work ethic happen? How do you correct people? I think that was a really big one. for me, when I was a, paramedic instructor,

I would, make sure that all of my students and all just, you know, people that we worked with, I'm like, Hey, it's, you're gonna mess up. Like there's just, there's too many variables in the calls we're running. You're not gonna know everything. You're gonna mess up the fact of the matter is you do have to own up to it.

There has to be a level of accountability the problem is when you mess up and then you're like, Ooh, I messed up. Let me try to cover that up so that nobody sees it. I'm like, people are gonna see it

as we're creating these environments of accountability and transparency, and so I think that's definitely something that takes a lot of humility and a lot of that culture shift, within any industry to be like, Hey, this is how we're going to start changing. And hopefully through that, you see those attrition rates change.

You see people being retained, because they know the environment is fair.

[00:25:36] Phil Z: You need a different strategy for each kinda location because nuclear is, that high risk, scary, but at the same time, like really not.

[00:25:43] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:43] Phil Z: it's one of the most, endearing. I felt like I've. Had a relationship with the equipment, like you really fall in love with the machine and you want that machine to run.

You want that machine to be healthy and you want to come in every day to take care of that machine. It really does mean something to you and it means something to, it's, it's very different being at the plant around the equipment getting opportunities to work night shift with people and bond over very specific high intensity, you know, jobs and, and just having that, like everybody there, you all know what the priority is.

It's get the unit back online. It's, get through the schedule for your shift. It's like you're very aligned and you have something so tangible that you can just. Step outside and see, like there it is, there's this giant humming thing that I am actively making better right now.

And it's so tangible. you know, feeding millions of people their energy needs recharging their phones and CPAP machines all of the important things that, that need to happen, right? And so really feel that tangible connection. And it's, it's, I think, much harder if you come out of school go into a corporate job and you're in a design engineering, cube farm, in a corporate office doing work for a plant, but you're not at the plant, you don't spend enough time going to visit it, getting to know the people there, you don't form that connection. That's gonna be a totally different retention, a totally different experience than, than really taking the time.

And I wanna make sure we paint the right picture here because, you know, we're talking about high risk and it's nuclear and it's scary, but it really isn't Nuclear like aviation, has an incredible defense in depth.

and so when you're talking about that accountability and that transparency and take ownership of your actions, so much effort Over the decades has gone into nuclear's, not that old,

[00:27:41] Danielle Allen: 25 years until a century, like we're almost there.

[00:27:43] Phil Z: Yeah. fair enough. but there's so much work and effort that's gone into making mistakes inconsequential,

[00:27:49] Danielle Allen: Mm.

[00:27:49] Phil Z: the

[00:27:49] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:50] Phil Z: Will we have the right barriers, the right defense and depth, the right engineered solutions, the right processes, human performance tools, the right thing.

So when they do make a mistake, it's not consequential, it's not gonna hurt anyone,

[00:28:02] Danielle Allen: Yeah.

[00:28:02] Phil Z: damage anything. It's gonna be a shot on goal. It's not gonna be, a disaster.

[00:28:07] Danielle Allen: There's such a separation between doing very heady work all day, versus being at a plant and being able to like boots on the ground seeing things.

And I think a lot of the things that are super funny to me is a lot of the interviews that I've been having and just kind of learning from people is a lot of their experiences, become really kind of clearly colored. the first time they visit a plant or an information center, or did their first shift.

Like when you get immersed in the world and you're not kind of just like in an office cubicle. . and so I think that's, another thing is like, you actually have the evidence and the experience in front of you to be like, wow, this is something bigger than myself.

your purpose isn't like kind of questionable. Like, you're not like, ah, what does this even matter? I think that's one of those things you know, we're kind of joking about a nuclear TV show, but for people to be able to see that connection and correlation of purpose, like, so evidently,

[00:29:00] Phil Z: One thing I haven't heard you talk about is the three jobs. every plant worker has three jobs. what you don't realize about the three jobs is it gives you the opportunity to grow your network. It gives you the opportunity to do something a little bit different. It gives you the opportunity to learn so much more about, people around you and, all successful people in the work environment.

They know it's not always what you can do, it's who you know. a lot of times that's used negatively, like, oh, you're getting special favors. But really it's about how do I work through other people and how do I navigate to get the result and leverage, the strengths and the folks in my relationships those employees are always very Successful because they're able to leverage the whole organization.

one of the great things that Nuclear has built in for the folks that don't know is you have your normal job, whatever that is. You can be, a decon, an RP tech, a welder, a mechanic, an engineer, but then you have an outage job. And that could be different, right? I know it folks that their day job is taking care of technology systems and their outage job is lower containment coordinator. they're climbing over equipment organizing and making sure nobody steps in water that they're not

[00:30:06] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:06] Phil Z: And, they do that for 30 days, right? And they meet totally different people. And now all of those people know an IT person. And it's great for those people too, right?

[00:30:15] Danielle Allen: Yeah. Right.

[00:30:16] Phil Z: Yep.

[00:30:17] Danielle Allen: Mm.

[00:30:17] Phil Z: preparedness job. And so that's the job that you get put on a certain rotation and you get to be on call for that rotation.

you get to participate in emergency drills. we're gonna pretend there's some scenario with the plant. This is a drill, this is a drill, yada, yada, yada is happening, you've got a job. my first EP job, was a dose assessor. got to meet meteorologists, I got to talk to folks in the state. job was every 15 minutes, out a recommendation on where to evacuate, you know? And then, and so you get, you get to meet Totally different people.

[00:30:55] Danielle Allen: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:56] Phil Z: like it's a super, I learned so much about weather, you

[00:30:58] Danielle Allen: I learned about weather when I first started getting into aviation and I was like, wow, I did not know. I didn't know so much about weather and now I know so much about weather. I think the nice thing is it allows, the different parts of your brain get worked and scratched in different ways and you're like, oh wow, this is actually really interesting.

for, for myself, I'm you, I would like to say like a, a lifelong learner. I always like meeting those 87 year olds at conferences that are like, I'm just here to learn something new. And I'm like, of course you are. You are so cute. Uh, 'cause I always find it so fascinating just to learn how people are doing things that I think nuclear does allow for, just so many different perspectives to learn from. that might be, another, cool selling point that we should hype up a little more

[00:31:39] Phil Z: Yeah.

[00:31:40] Danielle Allen: people are multidimensional, I learned that you were a skateboarder. so I was like, that's cool. Like, I like to longboard. I'm, I'm really not good at skateboarding.

That's the holistic nature of nuclear that we also probably should talk about more, to let people kind of understand like, hey, there's, there's a lot of different ways that you can kind of get your fix, especially if you're like climbing on things that that's a whole whole thing you can do.

[00:32:03] Phil Z: Yeah.

I don't wanna give myself too much credit on skateboarding because I did skate competitively across the southeast when I was in, high school. but I grew up all over the place, anywhere there was nuclear plant being built for the most part. And so, I got into skateboarding while Palo Verde unit three was being, built and restarted. there was a lot of, west coast skateboard influence in West Phoenix and Central Phoenix. During, that time. then I moved to Browns Ferry Construction and, and startup and, Alabama had a very different scene than, west Coast Phoenix,

being, fairly average to being fairly advanced just by relocating and so yeah, I was able to, hop out on the scene.

So they say

[00:32:42] Danielle Allen: nice. different size pond, big fish now.

[00:32:47] Phil Z: that's right.

I think we're hitting on something here for your recruiting. You know, you've got retro state-of-the-art analog, three dimensional tactile experience, and you get three jobs in one.

[00:32:58] Danielle Allen: Right.

[00:32:58] Phil Z: to that?

[00:33:00] Danielle Allen: And I think that's perfect because I'm finding that the younger kids, I mean, I'm going back to school currently for nuclear and it's always humbling to work with 19 year olds one of the interesting things is the kids have access to everything nowadays. They really do. Like, have access to all of the things in every dimension that you can think of. and they get bored very easily. And I think it's just 'cause there's just an abundance of everything in every direction.

[Transcript continues through 00:55:26. Listen to the full episode for the complete conversation.]