Q&A: Security is the hot issue for Yankee's new owners

Vermont Business Magazine, Jan 01, 2003

Jay K Thayer, 50, is vice president of Vermont Yankee, part of a fleet of plants owned by Entergy Nuclear Northeast. Thayer stepped into this position in July, at the same time that Entergy took over ownership of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, on the bank of the Connecticut River. Thayer replaced Ross Barkhurst, who retired at the time of the sale.

Thayer has been involved in the nuclear industry in New England for nearly all of his professional life, and even worked as an engineer at Vermont Yankee for a time.

Vermont Yankee is a major source of power for the state, currently producing, with one generator, 540 megawatts of elec tricity. Half of this is sold in Vermont, supplying a third of the state's electricity needs.

Thayer takes over the reins of Vermont Yankee at a time when national security has become of greater concern in the country than it has been for more than bay a century. Much of the interview focused on bow the facility has addressed the security issue.

Thayer has two children, one a sophomore at Tufts University near Boston and the other a freshman at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, both studying engineering. He and his wife are in the process of buying a home in the Brattleboro area.

Robert Smith interviewed Thayer at Vermont Yankee's headquarters in Brattleboro. J Brian Cosgrove, director of public affairs for Vermont Yankee, joined in the discussion.

VBM: You've only recently come to Vermont Yankee following its sale to Entergy, so I'd like to start with some of your background. Your education, where you've worked, and how you've come here.

Thayer: My whole career has been in the nuclear business. And it turns out it's all been in New England. I've worked at most every plant in New England. I started out at the old Yankee Rowe plant back in 1974, right out of school. I got quite a bit of experience there. I moved on to Pilgrim in 1979, and in 1982 I came back to Rowe, then Maine Yankee. I spent some time at Seabrook, and in the mid-'80s I actually spent some time at Vermont Yankee on the engineering side. Then again in 1996 I came to work here as vice president of engineering. I worked here for a couple of years then moved on to a couple of other companies.

This past February I went to work for Entergy. I went down and worked with their plants in the South. They have five plants in the North and five in the South. They were putting together this idea of a fleet of nuclear plants, and they wanted me to understand how a fleet behaves as opposed to a single unit operating by itself, which was most of my experience.

So I was down in Mississippi last winter and worked at most of their plants in Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, and got a feeling for who the Entergy company was. I really liked what I saw, and I thought this was going to really work well. I was kind of undetermined about where I was going to be working, and I kind of wanted to stay in the Northeast, myself I really like New England. So they offered me the job to come to Vermont Yankee, and I thought it would be a great opportunity. I knew quite a bit about the plant, knew a lot of the people, and I felt it was a really good challenge. I came up here in June, and we bought the plant on July 30.

Going way back, I do have a family connection to Vermont. My father was born and brought up in Vermont, and his parents were from Vermont and I used to spend summers up here as a kid. Vermont was always kind of a special place to go to and I have a lot of childhood memories from up in the Woodstock area. My father went to Middlebury College. I've always had a good feel about Vermont and I'm glad to be back up here. My wife and I are buying a house here in Brattleboro. I Graduated Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1974 with a degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis in electric power and nuclear power.

VBM: You mentioned the idea of a fleet of plants, and when I interviewed (former Vermont Yankee President) Ross Barkhurst before he retired from Vermont Yankee, he mentioned that would be one of the advantages of the plant being sold to Entergy. It would be a new approach for this plant, but also a way to save money in running it. Could you explain Entergy's approach to operating these plants?

Thayer: About 1990 there was a group of plants in the South, two in Louisiana, two in Arkansas and one in Mississippi, and a handful of power companies got together and formed an operating organization for nuclear plants under the Entergy umbrella. I'm a little loose on the corporate governance, exactly how it happened and how it evolved, but what it amounted to in the end was that these plants were all being managed by the same operating group.

So instead of each plant running by itself with its own staff and its own group of experts, all the sudden you had a group of plants and a corporate structure where you had people moving between the plants and sharing expertise. In the early '90s it was more to enhance the depth of technical expertise and be able to bring more experience to bear on problems. Some of these plants wanted to improve their performance, so they did it primarily to pool their technical and operating expertise.