America’s newest commercial nuclear power plant is also the first for the Tennessee Valley Authority to have a female plant director.
Beth Jenkins, a nuclear engineer who has worked in the industry for 21 years, became plant manager of TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant on Monday. She and site manager Tony Williams help direct the roughly 1,000 employees at the twin-reactor facility near Spring City, Tennessee, which had the last U.S. commercial reactor added to America’s electric grid four years ago.
Jenkins, previously director of engineering at Watts Bar, succeeds Tom Marshall who was promoted from Watts Bar plant manager to vice president of nuclear engineering for all three of TVA’s nuclear plants.
TVA spokeswoman Malinda Hunter said Watts Bar Nuclear Plant “is good at celebrating firsts.”
In June 2016, Unit 2 became the first new U.S. nuclear reactor to connect to the grid in the 21st century, 10 years after the Unit 1 reactor was the last major U.S. commercial reactor added to America’s nuclear fleet in the 20th century.