News

Prairie Island announces new plant manager

Author: Lisa Kuehl

Prairie Island named Chris Younie as the new plant manager effective April 21, 2014. Younie comes to Prairie Island from INPO, where he has been a Plant Evaluation Team Leader. Prior to joining INPO in 2007, Younie worked at Callaway in Fulton, Mo., where he was manager of Business Operation and Operations. He also spent...

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USA Fleet spring outage overview

Author: Buddy Eller

Several USA plants have completed or have refueling and maintenance outages ongoing this spring. Below is a brief recap of USA outage activities. Fermi’s Outage Fermi 2 completed its 16th refueling outage early this year. The plant completed more than 15,000 separate activities during the outage, including inspections and equipment maintenance activities. In addition to...

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Prairie Island retirees mentor to build robot

Author: Lisa Kuehl

Former employees Don Fricke, Brad Goudy and Chuck Propst put aside work, not their minds. These retirees from USA member Prairie Island have been using their time and talents to mentor local students. As part of the US FIRST Robotics Program, these retirees spent January and February helping a Red Wing High School, Red Wing,...

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Q&A with USA Site Leadership Team Member Grover Hettel

Author: Kelly Rae

Columbia Generating Station’s Operations Vice President Grover Hettel has served on the Utilities Service Alliance’s senior leadership core peer team for about two years. Hettel recently sat down to talk about being a part of the USA team. What is the USA site leadership team? The site leadership team (SLT) is made up of vice...

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After focus on t-mods, success for USA plants

Author: Stephen Tait

Picture this in your plant: Improper fasteners holding together an air conditioning unit, a random drain hose leading to a floor drain or a pipe without the proper heat-resistant insulation and/or coatings. It shouldn’t be too difficult to imagine — these are some of the examples of unauthorized temporary modifications once found at plants in...

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USA names Manager-Performance Analysis

Author: Joe Delmar

The Utilities Service Alliance (USA) has named Andrew Brown as the fleet’s Manager-Performance Analysis effective immediately. Brown is on loan from fleet member Xcel Energy where he spent the past six years coordinating performance indicators, corrective action and other performance improvement related programs. He also served as project manager for the rollout of Observation Way...

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Xcel Energy receives Corporate Partner Award

Author: Lisa Kuehl

Building strong business relationships can have many benefits. Recently, USA member Xcel Energy received the Corporate Partner Award for demonstrating its commitment to maintaining relationships with a broad base of suppliers. The award, given by the National Association of Minority Contractors-Midwest Chapter, acknowledges Xcel Energy for its contract with minority supplier Shaw-Lundquist to build a...

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Students from “closed” Russian city visit PSEG Nuclear

Author: Joe Delmar

Each year, thousands of students visit USA fleet member PSEG Nuclear and its Energy & Environmental Resource Center (EERC) community information center. Recently, a group of students from the Russian “closed city” of Novouralsk made the visit as they toured the United States to learn more about the American nuclear industry. The visit was organized...

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