News

What a fantastic first year with Utilities Service Alliance serving as the Director of Fleet Improvements and Support! While I was familiar with the USA staff, folks at our USA Member stations and our supplier partners during my years at South Texas Project, my new role at USA allows me to focus on getting to know folks better and building relationships, which I have been able to do through the USA Winter Conference, Executive Summit and multiple Nuclear Safety Culture Assessments (NSCAs).

Speaking of NSCAs, we had a very busy year! We performed eleven full NSCAs and two survey-only NSCAs in 2022, all made possible by the excellent support provided by our member stations to staff the assessments. One of the full NSCAs was at Paragon Energy Solutions, one of our supplier partners. It was great to conduct a NSCA at a  location other than an operating plant, as it provided us with a different perspective on the challenges facing our industry and provided Paragon with a fresh look at their culture. We have a handful of NSCAs scheduled for 2023 and are always looking to expand the population of organizations that want to leverage our industry leading NSCA process.

I am also very excited about the engagement of our member station’s Plant Managers. In 2022 we kicked off periodic calls with the Plant Managers and held an in-person meeting in September. One of the outcomes of that meeting was for the Plant Managers to serve as Executive Sponsors on some of our USA Networking Team calls to ramp up engagement and help elevate issues when they arise. The Plant Managers are also participating in member stations’ Management Review Meetings (MRMs) to provide an outside perspective, which we plan to continue in 2023.

Regarding our USA Networking Teams, they continue to add value by sharing operating experience, lessons learned and ideas to address emergent and longer-term issues. I previously mentioned the USA Plant Manager meeting in September, and another outcome of that meeting was the decision to re-establish the USA Maintenance Networking Team with Bill Chapin from Cooper serving as the Executive Sponsor.

Finally, looking ahead to 2023, my goals are:

• continue and find new ways to fully leverage our USA alliance to improve performance at our member stations
• continue building relationships through meetings, conferences, assessments and team calls
• promote our USA NSCA process beyond our USA Alliance
• continue to expand the influence of our USA Alliance

Can’t wait to see y’all at the 2023 Winter Conference in Savannah, GA!

Alec McGalliard, Director – Fleet Improvements & Support