2018 Annual Award Winners
Best in Professional Development
Winning Chapter: TVA – Watts Barr
This award recognizes a chapter’s commitment to providing opportunities for nuclear professionals to develop strong leadership skills, organizational skills, and industry awareness.
TVA – Watts Bar recognized an opportunity area within the interview and promotion process at their site and took it as a call to action to help their members. Working with their site HR they created a professional development series and partnered with other site organizations to increase their reach.
Best in Public Information
Winning Chapter: Exelon East
This award recognizes a local chapter’s commitment to communicating, educating, and advocating nuclear science and technology within their communities including discussions with local state, and government officials.
Exelon East took an innovative approach to Public Information. They created a nuclear-themed float for a St. Patricks day parade complete with 2- 5 foot bubble emitting cooling towers. Through this they reached over 1,000 community members.
Best in Knowledge Transfer and Retention
Winning Chapter: Duke Energy
This award recognizes a local chapter’s commitment to addressing KTR and promoting knowledge transfer between generations of industry employees and the sharing of practices with the industry.
Duke Energy accumulated 2800 hours of knowledge transfer and retention efforts. Highlighted by their continued development of the Seasoned Employee Non Seasoned Employee Interface or SENSEI program, a program designed to recognize those mentors who go above and beyond to transfer knowledge to the younger generation, which was rolled out to the continental level through the innovating our impact program in 2018.
Best in Region – Atlantic
Winning Chapter: Dominion – Innsbrook
Dominion – Innsbrook has continued to show growth after restarting their chapter in 2015, by increasing their hours by 50% from the prior year. They have demonstrated this growth highlighted by activities such as judging local science fairs and volunteering at a local animal rescue.
Best in Region – Canada
Winning Chapter: Chalk River
After restarting their chapter in April of last year, they were able to grow from 2 to 100 members in just 8 short months. They sponsored two dozen events ranging from readings of Maries Electric Adventure to Hill Days at Parliament, all while being a completely self-funded chapter.
Best in Region – Carolinas
Winning Chapter: Duke Energy
Completing more than 11,000 participation hours with over 5,000 hours in professional development alone, Duke Energy hosted a wildly successful regional conference, among other successful events in both public information and community service.
Best in Region – Midwest
Winning Chapter: Exelon West
Exelon West continued to build off past success by partnering with other organizations for professional development and networking events, as well as supporting the local community through planting trees in a local city that was hit by a tornado.
Best in Region – Northeast
Winning Chapter: Exelon East
Exelon East accumulated over 14,000 participation hours, which was nearly double their hours from the previous year. They volunteered over 3,300 community service hours and raised over $150,000 for local charities. All of this success was accomplished while maintaining balance across the 4 pillars of NAYGN.
Best in Region – Southeast
Winning Chapter: ENERCON – Baton Rouge
ENERCON – Baton Rouge experienced a tremendous amount of growth over the previous year. This growth was accomplished through events such as Marie’s book readings, teaching a class for an Intro to Engineering course at a local high school, and a cleanup activity called ‘Plogging’ (Picking Up Litter and Jogging).
Best in Region – West
Winning Chapter: Palo Verde Generating Station
Palo Verde Generating Station completed over 8000 participation hours with nearly 5000 in professional development alone. Additionally they partnered with several other organizations to help amplify their voice in public information campaigns.
Best Overall Chapter
Winner: Exelon East
Future Award
Winners: Mark White, Nathan Zohner, Doug Kinsman
Mark, Nathan, and Doug are being recognized for their development of the Nuclear Fundamentals program. This program started nearly 10 years ago through partnering with local schools and since then has reached over 50,000 students. Most recently the initiative included the creation of a website at www.nuclearfundamentals.org.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Tyler Andrews
Tyler stepped up into a leadership role at the Duke energy chapter and also supported the coordination of the Carolina’s Regional conference. This conference was a tremendous success thanks in large part to Tyler’s efforts. In addition, Tyler led the national NAYGN student scholarship process for this year’s conference.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Christy Fletcher
Christy is being recognized for her passion and dedication to NAYGN while serving as the Government Outreach Lead. In this role she is responsible for the coordination of the inaugural Millennial Nuclear Caucus, expanding postcard push day to Canada, and coordinating this year’s Hill Day.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Anne McGovern
Anne is being recognized for her dedication and accomplishments while serving as the Duke Energy Communications chair coordinating across 7 different NAYGN sites. In addition, the success of the SENSEI program could not have occurred without her help.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Paul Rodi
Paul is being recognized for his years of service within the Vogtle 3&4 NAYGN chapter. He has created an atmosphere of community through the various events the chapter has hosted and played a major role in Vogtle winning Future, Best in Region, and Best overall chapter awards at last year’s conference.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Toni Sistrunk Hilliard
Toni is being recognized for her service as a member of the Calvert Cliff’s site director and communications Chair. She was an instrumental part of her chapter’s success over the past year and served as the planning lead for the joint Northeast / Atlantic Regional, which was also hugely successful.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Elliott Wilson
Elliott is being recognized for his passion in leading the development of the SENSEI awards program throughout his fleet and for his leadership as the Chapter Lead for Duke Energy. After successful implementation, Elliott then helped to roll the SENSEI program out to the continental level.
Individual Achievement
Winner: Nick Wilson
Nick is being recognized for his years of service as the Atlantic Regional Lead as well as chapter lead for Dominion, where he was responsible for reinvigorating the chapter with the support of site management.