Do you know about NAYGN? For anyone who is not familiar, NAYGN is the North American Young Generation in Nuclear. The goal of NAYGN is to provide opportunities for a young generation of nuclear enthusiasts to develop leadership and professional skills, create life-long connections, engage and inform the public, and inspire today’s nuclear technology professionals to meet the challenges of the 21st century. To accomplish this goal, all work NAYGN does revolves around 4 main pillars, Professional Development, Public Information, Community Outreach, and Recruiting and Retention.
For Professional Development, chapters organize activities including everything from lunch-and-learns with senior leadership to tours of other types of power plants. All the development activities throughout the year culminate with the annual conference, which Exelon West holds in late August every year. This event is open to all members, and includes a full day of presentations from senior managers, exercises for developing leadership skills, and awards for best members and site of the year.
NAYGN members from around the region develop their skills at the 2017 professional development conference.
Public Information includes activities such as hosting “Nuke 101” workshops for local educators, and representing the company at local business meetings. The governing Continental NAYGN also coordinates an annual nuclear themed drawing contest for elementary school students, and an essay contest for high school students. These activities aim to help teach the public (both students and their families) the facts about and benefits of nuclear power.
LaSalle NAYGN hosts “Nuclear 101”, a one day seminar on nuclear science with local teachers.
Community Outreach can take many forms. In recent years,Exelon West NAYGN has picked and sold corn donated by a local farm to raisemoney for local charities, participated in fundraising efforts such as Polar Plungesand Relay for Life, and participated in local science / STEM fairs. Exelon Westhas raised thousands of dollars for local charities all around the Midwest aspart of being a good neighbor to the communities we live and work in.
Quad Cities NAYGN members at “Introduce a Girl to Engineering”, which helps get girls interested in STEM careers.
Lastly the goal of Recruiting and Retention is to facilitate creating lasting professional relationships between nuclear employees. NAYGN members frequently work with HR to support job fairs at nearby universities, helping to build the next generation of nuclear employees. Chapters also host social events after work to facilitate building relationships between members who may not work together. There’s also a social event after the annual professional development conference, which is an opportunity for members from various sites to meet.
Cantera NAYGN members playing bubble soccer at an after work social event.
NAYGN is an organization that spans the North American continent. It has chapters at all major nuclear operators, as well as many of the nuclear support companies (such as Areva, Westinghouse, etc). Exelon maintains two chapters of NAYGN, one for the East Coast plants and Kennett Square, and one for all the Midwest Plants and Cantera. Each Exelon chapter has an executive council with a chair, vice chair, and chair for each of the four pillars. Every site has two site directors. Below the list of all the individuals in these rolls for the Exelon West NAYGN chapter.
Exelon East and West chapters together for the national NEA/NAYGN conference.
