[Andy4639]

Well I was straight out of high school and applied for a job at McGuire Nuclear station outside Charlotte NC. I had no idea what I was doing except I needed a job.
First 3 monthes I worked sweeping the floors in the aux building then one day they came and asked would I like a pipe fitting helpers job and a .25 cent raise. I said heck yea! 2 years later I was worried about being laid off as the construction was pretty much done. I was offered a job at Oconee Nuclear station with a supervisor who I knew that had transferred earlier. I came to Oconee in 1982 and retired here in 2019.
Once at Oconee things changed pretty quickly for me. I was top pay and they asked for volunteer's for the outage and I did. 6months nights doing upgrades.
After the outage I was asked would I like to be put on the reactor head team to do outages at all three sites and I agree'd. I got to travel all over the US doing core support work and fixing the drives on the heads. Paid very good money and they handled all the expensese back then. After about 15 years they put me in fuelhandling/ headwork. I have moved fuel in all 3 sites of Duke Energy's built plants and ANO1 Ark, I have worked in Crystal River fa 4 times and Racho Sacho in Cal 2 times.
Oconee nuclear station.





Picking up a core barrel for installation inspection. This is a new core never ran yet. If it has had fuel in it it would have to stay under water the whole time as it's lifted. This was for a new plant being built. I have done this so many times I think I could rig it in my sleep.
282,000-pound core barrel



Typical fuel assembly. You can touch a new fuel assembly and it want hurt you at all. Once it's been put in the pool with old assemblies it will be activated and kill you if you where to touch it.