{"id":1197,"date":"2026-06-05T12:10:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2026-06-05T14:14:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:14:37","slug":"aecon-presents-on-nuclear-construction-careers-at-inef-hosted-student-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/2026\/06\/05\/aecon-presents-on-nuclear-construction-careers-at-inef-hosted-student-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Aecon presents on nuclear construction careers at INEF-hosted student event\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than three-dozen students from two Washington State University campuses gathered Tuesday at the INEF building in Richland to learn about potential career opportunities within the expanding field of nuclear energy development and construction. During an hour-long presentation, students heard from 10 visiting representatives from Aecon Group, a North American infrastructure company working on major power and utility projects across the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one of the major contractors signed on to help build the upcoming Cascade Advanced Energy Facility<\/a> north of Richland, their presentation focused heavily on the company\u2019s growing nuclear energy projects portfolio, which also includes Canada\u2019s Darlington New Nuclear Project \u2014 set to be the first small modular reactor (SMR) facility in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Thede, Aecon\u2019s vice president for nuclear strategy, business development and services, outlined some of the company\u2019s 50-year history in nuclear project development, spanning everything from maintenance and modernization efforts on existing power plants to new plant construction built around emerging technologies like SMRs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur people are going to be the most knowledgeable in the world on a specific technology that\u2019s never been built before, so it\u2019s a super exciting time,\u201d Thede said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott Ryan, Aecon senior vice president of Canada nuclear operations, hinted at some of the engineering innovations his company is investing in, such as automation robotics, to bring these new technologies online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re building robots to build a first-of-a-kind reactor,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cThere are some really significant engineering challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In discussing their workforce of roughly 11,000 employees, Aecon representatives underscored the need for talent across a wide range of business support services and construction-related professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the nuclear segment alone, at our peak we had about 4,000 skilled workers,\u201d Thede said. \u201cEverything that we do, we need people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the presentation and a question-and-answer session, Aecon representatives mingled and chatted with the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivia Kanoff, a WSU Tri-Cities mechanical engineering major and current INEF intern, said she met with a company representative to ask about the difference in costs and materials for building SMR projects versus large-scale nuclear reactors. With rising electricity demands from new data center construction, she said, investing in nuclear energy appears to be a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re going to be made, then they might as well have a way of getting carbon-free energy,\u201d Kanoff said. \u201cAnd I think that it is important to transition from fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty-nine students attended the presentation, including 30 from WSU Tri-Cities and nine from WSU Pullman. Aecon leaders also participated in a demonstration of the Energy Learning Center\u2019s SMR control room simulator<\/a>, operated in partnership with Energy Northwest and Columbia Basin College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Group<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WSU students met with leaders from Aecon, partners in the upcoming Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, about careers in nuclear plant construction and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":1202,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1205,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsuwp.tricities.wsu.edu\/inef\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}