Blog Post

A year ago, I wrote about our new  Mentor Program^℠ that was launched to help develop newly appointed training leaders in the industry. The new program was designed to help match experienced mentors from our industry with current nuclear professionals who were recently promoted into a training manager role. As we reflect on the successful year of our nuclear industry mentoring initiative, we are reminded of the power of individual growth in shaping the sector’s future.

Personalized Online Mentoring in the Nuclear Industry

The online mentoring sessions benefit candidates who learn through real-life work scenarios and insights shared by highly experienced individuals willing to give back to the industry. The heart of the program is individualized sessions. They were designed to meet the candidates’ needs based on their backgrounds and existing job experience. The process tools we built allowed the candidates access to all the background information and industry standards needed in navigating their job responsibilities.    

Today, we are pleased to reflect on the first year of implementation of The Mentor Program^℠ and the success that it has achieved in meeting our desired outcomes. We are even more excited about how the program is beginning to expand to other functional areas to help broaden the impact Accelerant Solutions can make in the industry. This program allows us to have talented mentors shape the next generation of nuclear professionals by sharing their key career lessons learned in a vast set of specialties. From the start of The Mentor Program^℠ we have seen that these mentoring relationships are rewarding for the mentor and their mentee as they engage in specific development sessions. 

Feedback from Our Nuclear Industry Mentoring Success Stories

In shaping and refining this program, it has been helpful to us to hear back from customers. We would like to share some testimonials from candidates that have personally benefited from the program. 

“Appreciate having detailed discussions on Regulatory and INPO documents focusing on key points and where mistakes have been made implementing the regulations in the past. The ability to ask real time questions on topics that are directly affecting the station are extremely helpful.”   – Alex Brown, Current Operations Training Manager 

“Going over Regulatory documents that are applicable but not used on a consistent basis and gaining a greater understanding of the requirements.”  

– Mike Fortner, Current Operations Training Manager 

“Very happy with the comprehensive review of training programs and requirements including the industry history and operating experience. This allowed me to become knowledgeable of past issues to monitor and watch out for. I liked the fact that it was a customized comprehensive program with a defined start and end point with progress checks and adjustments made throughout the program.”  

– Daniel Bowers, Current Training Director 

We also have received positive feedback from our industry mentors involved with the program. This testimonial is from a mentor who has conducted multiple sessions with a wide range of training leaders over the last year. 

 “Having the ability to help develop Nuclear Professionals so that they don’t repeat some of the same mistakes that I and the industry made over my 30+ year career is extremely satisfying and critical to the Nuclear Industry moving forward. 

Having an individual on a Teams call say, “I never even thought about that being an issue,” or “Now you have me worried and I’m going to follow-up on that today,” is very satisfying and lets me know that it was time well spent.”  

– Chuck Sizemore, Retired Corporate Training Director 

Program expansion 

Several of our clients have expanded the use of The Mentor Program^℠ after an initial candidate had gone through it. And, we have seen the program applied as a fleet approach to developing training leaders, with the program adopted across multiple stations. 

Following the program’s mentoring success in the functional area of training, we created the Performance Improvement (PI) manager position. This module is being deployed in the first quarter of 2022 for a new PI manager with considerable plant experience and an operations background but is taking on the challenge to lead in another functional area. The station using the PI Manager mentoring previously benefited from the Training mentoring, so they expanded the program to meet this new development need. 

Functional areas in development 

Currently, we are developing The Mentor Program^℠ for both the Operations and Maintenance manager positions based on heavy interest in the industry for covering these critical functional areas. These functional areas are expected to be covered by the end of the first quarter. An updated status on all our mentor areas will appear on our website in the very near future.  

Going Forward

Overall, we are pleased with The Mentor Program^℠ in its first year of deployment. We plan to continue to use feedback from our customers to strengthen and grow the program. Tapping into the valuable experiences of the professionals who helped shape the industry in the past and allowing them a platform to give back to the next generation, is a great reminder we all can give back to our great nuclear industry. 

 If you are looking for a mentoring solution for any member of your team of nuclear leaders, please feel free to contact Accelerant Solutions for more information.