Talen Energy’s senior executive and nuclear professional Jeffrey M. Helsel, who currently serves the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) as a Performance Monitoring Leader (PML), has been selected by the Utilities Service Alliance (USA) Board of Directors to serve as its first Director Performance Sustainability.

As a result of corporate governance changes announced just weeks ago within the USA organization, the position of Performance Sustainability Director – a two-year rotational assignment – was developed by USA and will work in direct relationship with USA’s monitoring representative at INPO. Once in place, Jeff will lead a team of 10 Corporate Functional Area Managers (CFAMs) to aggressively evaluate and monitor the performance at each of the USA member stations.

In this role, Jeff will report to John Christensen, USA’s Vice President of Operational Performance and oversee a team of CFAMs (one per station) who will act as a check on PML data and information, and will be responsible to coordinate Fleet response to PML issues when he assumes the role, effective January 1, 2016. Jeff will work primarily out of his office at the Susquehanna station. His role will facilitate continuous learning and improvement across the fleet. Excellence at all USA sites is the goal.

“We’re excited to have Jeff serve the USA Fleet in this critical position,” said John. “Jeff understands our challenges and our overarching goal, which is to detect performance declines at any of our stations and quickly correct them, as well as to proactively drive to maintain sustainable nuclear excellence.”

“This position is an exact match to the extensive training I’ve received at INPO – developing the position of a Fleet PML,” said Jeff in a recent telephone interview. “The experience I’ve gained at INPO and at Stations across the country has put me in a solid position to provide this type of leadership to our USA member stations. We want to develop an organization that continually monitors performance to uncover, analyze and correct issues before decline takes place.”

“My tenure at INPO to date has given me a strong perspective on plant performance, using lower level and lower tier indicators and criteria to help us establish trends before they become significant,” said Jeff. “My experience with INPO working with CFAMs at Stations across the country will allow the team the ability to aggressively identify subtle declines in performance and correct them.”

Prior to his service with INPO, Jeff served as Vice President of Nuclear Operations and Plant Manager at PPL Susquehanna, LLC (now Talen Energy’s Susquehanna Nuclear, LLC) for more than five years – in the nuclear industry for more than three decades.

“I am confident that the experience and leadership Jeff will bring to this new, important role will be a real bonus to the USA fleet,” said Susquehanna Station’s Site Vice President Jon Franke. “Jeff’s years at Susquehanna Station and recent experience with the industry make him uniquely qualified to help other USA stations improve and sustain high levels of performance.”

With a nuclear career that has spanned 34 years, Jeff began as an Auxiliary System Operator in 1981 and worked his way through positions which included Nuclear Plant Operator, Plant Control Operator, Unit Supervisor, Shift Supervisor, Operations Manager and Training Manager. During his five years as Plant Manager, Jeff led Susquehanna Station through breaker-to-breaker record runs and a successful Extended Power Uprate project.