055 Lauren Thew, President at Bluestone Group

Lauren Thew (00:00)
I look forward to seeing where we are 10 years from now and reflecting back to this conversation with you because I thoroughly anticipate that

Within 10 years, we hopefully have a small modular reactor up and going. We have a couple of them.

Mark Hinaman (01:18)
Okay, welcome to another episode of the Fire Division podcast where we talk about energy -dense fuels and how they can better human lives. My name is Mark Heineman and today I’m joined by Lauren Thieu, president of Bluestone Group. Lauren, it’s great to have you with us.

Lauren Thew (01:34)
Thank you very nice to be with you. So appreciate this opportunity.

Mark Hinaman (01:38)
Yeah, we’ve got a lot to talk about Lauren. We touched base briefly before, but I’m excited to get a little bit on your background, talk about your current organization, talk about the nuclear industry at large and talk about some big nuclear projects. So you’ve got experience on a lot of those fronts. So before we get into the current present state of the industry, why don’t you give us some background on yourself?

Where’d you get your start? Yeah, how’d you get into this space?

Lauren Thew (02:11)
We’ll do. So I am, let’s see, I just recently moved out to Charlotte, but just whatever in the industry, who at least does know me, knows that I’m from Nevada at this point or was. So a little bit with my background, I was in the army for about six years, did two tours in Iraq back in 2003, moved out to Nevada at that time. So I was out there in Nevada in the Reno Lake Tahoe area for about 13 years or so.

I went to college and then crazy enough, I got connected with a woman named Kathleen Jackson, who was with BHI Energy. And she had reached out and said that they’re looking for someone fresh and new to mold into a project manager in the nuclear power industry. And crazy enough at that time, I barely knew how to spell nuclear. So it was just an industry that I was very new to.

And so I was very fortunate. They hired me right after my interview, which I thought was phenomenal. And I jumped right into it. I took off and I managed and built and ran Watts Bar Unit 2, where I had 650 contractors out there. And this was within the technical staff augmentation within BHI Energy. And from there, I just picked up on everything quick.

You know when you’re thrown in the lion’s den, you gotta figure it out quick and fast and so pretty phenomenal opportunity. And so that was about a well over $250 million project. It was a multi year project. I brought on everything from field engineers, all disciplines, procurement engineers, QAQC, administrative support, test engineers, goodness reactor operators, SROs, you name it. We were basically helping out every.

every inch of that project there for several years. Then I had the opportunity to join BCP engineers who I have been with and a part of for almost 10 years now and started off as an executive director with them. And then we had the opportunity to support Vogel three and four, which has been phenomenal. And luckily, unit four is finally online. So super excited about that. We had a huge, huge play in that project for several years.

There at Mobile, I had about 150 contractors there, very similar to Watts Bar, every single department. Once again, field engineers of all disciplines, design engineers, SROs, ROs, QAQC, you name it, a lot of planners. So a lot of the planners that have been in the nuclear industry have probably worked under one of my projects at one point or another, who I still have a lot of relationships with. And then most recently, now with Bluestone Group, I am the CEO.

president and founder of a BlueStone Group. We are a service -disabled veteran -owned small business, veteran -owned small business, and woman -owned small business. And BlueStone was formed because there was a need in the industry, especially on the Department of Energy side, where small business is a major footprint of the technical staff augmentation needs. And within that, it has blown up nicely, quickly, blown up in the good way, right?

We’re supporting a ton of projects right now, not even, I mean, yes, within the DOE sector, but also on the commercial nuclear side. And then we also partner with a lot of EOCs, you know, engineering companies, bigger companies, where they also need help with their technical staff augmentation, either corporate, you know, on a corporate level or even further projects that they have out there as well. And yeah, it’s been a remarkable experience thus far.

and have really enjoyed the nuclear power industry. And in addition to nuclear, my background also, I’ve done a handful of fossil projects, wind, TND, so transmission distribution, SMRs, and then obviously I’m most known on the nuclear side for new builds, so nuclear construction. That’s really my bread and butter of my career.

Mark Hinaman (06:15)
Awesome. We’ve got a lot to unpack there. So I appreciate you going through the whole gamut so quickly. That’s going to be great. For those who are unfamiliar, let’s scale back to BHI energy. What was the business model? I mean, was that also staffing?

Lauren Thew (06:23)
Ha ha ha ha.

Mm -hmm.

It was so BHI energy I joined goodness maybe 2007 2008 where they were transitioning to be a all inclusive company and they’ve done very, very. Sure, so cradle to grave. So they had a branch that was technical staff augmentation at one point was called Sun technical. So that’s where I was affiliated in supporting BHI energy goodness. They had a valve department on the whole division there.

Mark Hinaman (06:47)
What does that mean?

Lauren Thew (07:05)
They had a maintenance and mods department too. So it was really, they wanted to be an all -inclusive company where for any type of project, they’re able to go in and tackle and do it cradled to grave. And so they most recently have been sold. And just to see how they transitioned from, at one point, they were known for their scaffolding. They were also known for the radiation protection.

division there too. And just to see that developed into an all -inclusive company, which several companies these days are trying to be, was really remarkable. And, you know, it, who I worked for for that company really made me who I am today. And I wouldn’t be here without two, two ladies within BHI. That would be Kathleen Jackson and Lisa Panabianco. I learned a lot from them. I learned what leading,

really meant. And, you know, a lot of passion comes from that. And so, and that’s really where I’ve, you know, where and why I am who I am today is because of those two ladies and also just the passion, the drive I’ve had all these years.

Mark Hinaman (08:19)
it’s always helpful to have mentors. So the staffing function within industry, I feel like some people might not be familiar with this, but why on special projects like this or with the Watts Bar project or the Vogel project are staffing firms like the ones that you’ve worked for necessary and what kind of people are they staffing? I mean, you said technical staff augmentation help, and I know you listed a bunch of titles and roles and stuff to do, but like,

Why does this exist? Why aren’t the people that just own the project hiring these people directly and they just, you know, function internally?

Lauren Thew (08:58)
Great question. So technical staff augmentation is going to be, so you have, I’m gonna break this in two layers. You got craft, right? So that’s gonna be your electricians, right? Everything from electricians to painters, you know, anything craft affiliated. And then above that would be your technical staff augmentation. So the technical staff augmentation, it’s clearly more on the technical side, right? So that, I mean, that’s a whole, there’s,

So much involved there. I mean, just to kind of put things in perspective. So Bluestone Group right now, we have, on paper, at least as far as what a technical staff log position looks like, it’s 404 positions within nuclear or within any other energy sector, right, that falls into a technical position. So just to kind of put things in perspective. So your design engineers, right, your field engineers,

It’s everything that’s non -craft, right? And so a lot of craft is also union affiliated, right? Where the technical staff augmentation is not. Now you asked me, you know, why would owners, why would site owners use technical staff augmentation, right? And so I remember when I first got in this business, that was a question I had too, because I was like, I don’t understand, like, why are they spending extra money, right, to use technical staff augmentation, right? Well, when you got…

Mark Hinaman (10:20)
Like most companies would just hire them individually, right? Like, well, we need the staff, we need an engineer and we do stuff. So yeah, let’s hire the engineer.

Lauren Thew (10:28)
You would think, right? But when you have a magnitude of a project, right? We’ll use Google Screen 4, right? We’re talking thousands of people that they need right away, right? During all phases of that project. It’s easier and it’s actually cheaper in the perspective of they don’t have to hire someone direct, which includes all the benefits, right? They’re gonna hire contractors that can get there quickly, right? Also,

The nice thing about technical staff augmentation companies is that yes, we do bring the manpower in to perform the task at hand, the scopes of work, but also if there’s ever any issues with any of the staff of contractors, that’s our issue and we actually take care of it right away. So one thing that we, with Bluestone contractors, let’s say we provide a, I’ll say a project controls engineer.

Okay, let’s say that for some reason they’re unsuccessful within the first two weeks, we actually remove them, replace them, and we don’t actually bill our clients. So with us, we have a guarantee with our technical staff augmentation that we provide that not all companies do. But on the flip side there though, for all these utilities, it’s easier to use technical staff augmentation when there’s a huge project at hand. You get them there faster, they’re already technically, you know,

qualified except for the site qualifications, which normally happens during onboarding. But you get, you know, it’s like bringing in an SME to knock out the task at hand, the scope of work versus, you know, hiring someone full time. They got to pay all the benefits. And guess what? A lot of times that we see that when they hire someone and if for any reason that position doesn’t work out for them, it’s way easier to release a technical staff augmentation contractor through a company like Bluestone Group than it is to go through the process when they’re direct.

So lots of reasons there, but we definitely support with the technical staff augmentation for these larger projects, big expansion projects, right? EPUs, all sorts of projects, especially on the construction side.

Mark Hinaman (12:39)
We used an acronym SMA, that’s subject matter expert.

Lauren Thew (12:43)
Yes. Yes, sir.

Mark Hinaman (12:44)
I don’t know all the acronyms still.

Lauren Thew (12:47)
I love that and I will work on that here.

Mark Hinaman (12:52)
good. Yeah, so I’ll say it back. Sometimes for project specific stuff, if you need to hire people quickly, and can’t necessarily go through the time requirement to identify the best staff, if you have a group of specialists like Bluestone, or any of the companies you’ve worked for before that have that network and know all some of the best people, then they can provide those.

people on an as needed basis. And so it’s kind of dual benefit access to people and needing them. But then also if you don’t need them or you don’t like them, I mean, the structure of how employment functions in the U S, dictates that, I mean, this kind of, I don’t want to call it middleman, but like supplementation employment, supplementation business can exist and is really valuable for the industry. Right.

Lauren Thew (13:45)
It is. It is. Most states are at will employment, right? So at any point a contractor can quit and at any point we can release them. You know, there’s pros and cons to that. I’ve seen it all, especially after 15 years plus or minus right now in the industry and, you know, hiring the thousands of folks that I have thus far. But, you know, different. Well, you know. These big. Yeah, good and bad. You know, listen, it’s sometimes.

Mark Hinaman (14:06)
I can only imagine. Good and bad, good and bad, yeah.

Lauren Thew (14:14)
Positions just don’t work out for someone. It’s just the nature of the beast of getting employed. A lot of times that we see when we’ll send out contractors to go support a major project in the industry is it’s not what they thought it was going to be. And you bring up a good point. Having a middleman like us, there’s advantages and then there’s disadvantages because we’re going based on what the client and the project needs are based on who we’re talking to. Well,

A lot of times when we send in the contractors, the schedule changes or scope of work changes, and then the folks that we send down there, like, this is not my cup of tea, we get it, right? And we’re there very much for the employee, just as we are with the client at the sites that we support. Yes, we want the clients happy, but for us at Bluestone Group, we want them just as happy. We want everyone, we care a lot and we bring in a little different flavor. So for example,

Any contractor that works for us, they get to, since we can’t physically go fly out and go meet with them and their spouse every six months, we make sure that they take out their significant other every six months. We give them a gift card, right, for, you know, basically it’s dinner on Bluestone every six months while they work for us. Those little things are really helpful, I think. For us, we care, and when we say we care, we really do, and we want that to be driven down to our employees.

Our clients appreciate that we do that kind of good stuff too. But it’s all about bringing in the extra TLC overall for the employees and our clients as well.

Mark Hinaman (15:51)
Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m just conceptualizing this business still. And it’s like moving from, I mean, if you were to own a nuclear power plant and like get really good at building one, but you only do it once, then it’s hard to get good at building it. But if you have like a cohort of humans that are good at building one, you can move them from project to project. But, you know, not everyone can own enough nuclear power plants to get good at building them, right? You only have to build them so often. So.

You have to share those resources within the industry, which then like, I mean, it makes for an ideal opportunity for a staffing group to be able to allocate the human capital necessary when it’s necessary. How do you get connected with most of your employees and how do you, how do you find these people?

Lauren Thew (16:45)
Yeah, great question. After having served on these massive projects since the dawn of time in my career, it’s crazy when I say 15 years, I mean, I remember myself just fresh out of college, right? And having thousands of contractors work for me, and I have always been very in tuned with, you know, who works for what position and all that kind of good stuff. I generally know, summing up top of my head,

the first, you know, within a minute or so of knowing what positions needed. I also know where a lot of them are currently working, who’s not working right. The connections alone, just with the field staff that I’ve supported after all these years, my same relationship and how I look at them, it’s the same way that our recruiting team does too. Our recruiting team maintains all of those relationships. You know, even if someone were to get released from us, let’s just say it wasn’t a good fit, I still want…

that relationship to continue for a lot of reasons. A, I want to try to help find them somewhere else to go that’s going to be suitable for them and their family. And just, you know, my connections alone with how long I’ve been in the industry and also these massive projects that I’ve been affiliated with for all these years. If I don’t know someone, I know someone that does know someone, right? And having a recruiting team that are very seasoned in the industry and like I said, maintain those relationships like I do.

with every contractor we ever work for, it makes it really easy for us.

Mark Hinaman (18:15)
So, I mean, that’s a big moat that you guys have, right? Like you’ve put a lot of effort into identifying who the best people are and then building those relationships and fostering them over time, which is good, good for you guys, but tough for a new entrant that someone might want to replicate your business model, right?

Lauren Thew (18:32)
Yes, I mean, listen, you know, with our recruiting team, of course, we have, you know, the standard protocol of, you know, we have our platforms that we can utilize and everything. But the reality is it’s, you know, most good people are currently working. Right. And so folks that are really applying for a lot of these jobs aren’t working. And sometimes there’s reason for that. Right. And, you know, and sometimes it’s just, you know, they just got done with their project and so they’re available now.

But what we’ve learned over all these years on the recruiting side is the good ones are working. So we have to recognize who those names are. We always check in to see how they’re doing. And if for any reason their current role is not working out, hey, we’ve got something else, right? But yeah, it’s really relationship -based.

Mark Hinaman (19:20)
Yeah. Okay. Are there certain roles within the nuclear industry that you find are harder to fill or maybe a higher value or more scarce? Like what are some that come to mind? Like, man, there’s this position that we have to fill again. It’s really hard or, yep, this is going to be a high paying position. I know 20 people that want that job, but yeah. Talk to me about what comes to mind when I frame the question.

Lauren Thew (19:47)
So, no surprise, everyone wants remote, right? Everyone wants remote, yeah. So, you know, and that’s just how it is, whether it’s in our energy sectors or whether it’s just the regular population, right?

Mark Hinaman (19:50)
Everyone wants, nobody wants to be in an office.

I mean, I can’t complain. I’m in Lisbon, Portugal, recording this, so you know.

Lauren Thew (20:05)
Exactly right. You know and I have been blessed you know with working with BCP engineers and Bluestone Group right. I have you know the opportunity to work remote and travel a lot right for work and and I honor that within my entire company of Bluestone Group. I wanted to work remote so it’s important on a personal level important for you know on a professional level too.

And we as Bluestone Group, we’ve been very fortunate to, we tend to be the company that when a project can’t seem to find something, they call us, which we like that, because that’s really what we’re known for when the current companies are struggling, right?

And we want to keep placing those folks too, especially when we know them, right? We know good work and everything.

Mark Hinaman (20:48)
Yeah. So you’ve mentioned DOE projects a couple of times. What are those projects? I mean, are these, yeah, I’ll just pause there. What are those projects? What do they look like?

Lauren Thew (21:00)
Yeah, sure. A lot of DOE projects, Loft, Alanos, Solano, that one has been a strong one for us. And also, Urenco. Urenco is doing a mega enrichment expansion right now. So what does that involve? That means a lot of construction, right? A lot of planning, project controls, right? So right now at Urenco, we’re supporting them with procedure writers.

project managers and project managers, that’s really kind of, that’s a big position for us, meaning that we provide a lot of project managers, a lot of subject matter experts at that level. And let’s see, in addition to project controls, estimators, and then right now we’re kind of at a standing point right now, just based on the phase of the project. But as that moves forward, we’ll be bringing in some more project managers to help support that project as well.

And for those who are not familiar with that, that’s out there in New Mexico. It’s a phenomenal facility. So I don’t know, have you ever been there? I think you mentioned at one point that you know about Urenco, but have you been there before?

Mark Hinaman (22:10)
to.

I’ve been in the lobby. They wouldn’t let me back. I was in the area and I stopped in to ask for a tour and they’re like, you can’t just get a tour. So something about national security and you know.

Lauren Thew (22:14)
that’s quite.

Well, well, fortunately that the. No, it’s it’s kind of a big deal, you know. Well, our Bluestone group team, we were fortunate we got a tour and I gotta tell you the people that work there, especially all the direct folks there, they are so happy together down there working. The only downfall that we hear as far as any complaints is obviously the location. It’s maybe like 2030 minutes from Santa Fe, Santa Fe.

pretty phenomenal city. I actually went there and stayed down there in that town square there. But everyone is just happy to work there. And the facility, I don’t think I’ve ever gone anywhere where the floors are so clean, it’s spotless. And for as old as that facility is, it’s in phenomenal shape. But really, really cool, neat experience. So I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to go inside besides the lobby. It’s…

It’s pretty breathtaking. It’s phenomenal. And that site down there, they’ve done such a great job with really spreading the word to get more involved with what they do, more on the nuclear side and everything. And it’s been just phenomenal experience down there. And it’s been really neat to kind of see the executive team down there really take initiative to get nuclear and all of our energy sectors back in the front lines of thinking everything’s cool again.

Mark Hinaman (23:48)
That’s awesome. It’ll be exciting to track that, your Enco project. So is there an average years of experience for folks that you staff? I mean, what’s the demographic of the industry look like? Are people aging out or a lot closer to retirement? Is there opportunity for young people?

Lauren Thew (24:04)
Great question.

Yep, great question. So I would say on average, contractors are in their 50s and 60s for most of the positions that we support. Right now, I am on the planning committee for the utility working conference that the ANS puts on each year. That is scheduled for the second week, I believe, of August. And one of the panels that I am

running for that conference involves, you know, what are we doing, right? As far as this age gap. And we’ve been talking about it for 10 plus years, right? Meaning people are retiring. Are we really doing everything that we can to get the youngsters in, right? So we can help bridge that gap. And it’s been an issue. What we’re doing this year, though, is that we want to know what action have utilities taken this last year, in particular,

Because we keep talking about this huge gap in the industry, but we want to know what people are actually doing to try to help it right. So, for example, you know, this year at that conference were, you know, the big word is action, right? And so with action, we are, we’ve got a few panelists that are at the utilities. We want to know what are they doing to help bridge that gap, right? Are they hiring fresh college kids? Are they, you know, do they have programs in place?

to try and get that, you know, just that nuclear is cool. And, you know, if you’ve not seen some of the stuff that Bluestone posts, you know, we were kind of doing this theme where we love nuclear and we actually will sit and talk with kids of all ages. Last year we sat and talked with kids that were at the age range of seven and eight years old, right? Teaching them what nuclear is. Nuclear is not just about big stacks that you see with steam coming out of it, right?

Nuclear involves nuclear medicine, chemo treatments. And that’s where me personally, I have, it’s deep in my heart. I’m a cancer survivor as of three years ago. And so to be a part of nuclear, as far as on the energy space, but then also you got the nuclear side of medicine, right? And getting kids involved as young as you can, just so they know how neat and how critical nuclear in general really is.

And so with that, in addition, there is a few committees out there that are doing a mentorship right now. So for anyone in the industry, if you are a leading, you know, mentor who’s been in the industry for 10 plus years, right, what these two committees and groups are doing, they’re linking up executives, right, and managers such as yourself and myself with young individuals in the industry to help mentor them and keep them

you know, a active and, you know, overall satisfied in the nuclear power industry. So we keep them, you know, in the nuclear power industry and also just to help mentor and get them to advance in their knowledge on a technical perspective, right? Make them even more successful in their current position. And it’s really kind of a remarkable program that we’re seeing lately. And there’s a handful of those right now in the industry.

But above all, right now, the big thing is we’ve got to get these new fresh college kids involved wanting to do nuclear, liking nuclear.

Mark Hinaman (27:40)
Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s kind of concerning and I want to talk about, how we can convince people to get back in, but like having an industry with a lot of the know -how and capability that’s close to retiring is dangerous and dangerous for the industry losing that capability. people being in their fifties and sixties, but why is it that way Lauren? Was it lack of capital projects for the past?

20, 30 years that new entrants couldn’t get in, like they didn’t have the experience. Is it just not cool? Like talk to me about why it’s just people in their 50s and 60s.

Lauren Thew (28:21)
Well, let’s look at the past 10 years, right? As far as nuclear projects. I mean, sure, operating units have, you know, they have consistent upgrades, outages, right? But what massive projects have we really done even in the last 20 years, if you really look at that, right? I mean, I’ve been fortunate to be on the two largest new nuclear construction projects.

And I pause a little bit on that because Watts Bar Unit 2 was a little bit different, right? We basically took what was left of Unit 2 when they were doing all these other units within TVA. So Brown’s Ferry, all that kind of stuff. They were kind of stealing parts from that at one point, right? So it wasn’t just completely 100 % new build. But Watts Bar Unit 2, that was in the time frame in 2008, 2009, right around that time frame. And then we just wrapped up with Global 3 and 4 with

unit four just being on the last 30, 60 days or so. Before that, there wasn’t much going on, right? We thought we were gonna be relying on a lot of green power, which we very much support. But there was a gap, a huge gap there as far as any additional build for nuclear power plants. And then we took a whole chunk of the last 15, 20 years and now we’re really seeing, hey, maybe we shouldn’t shut down these nuclear power plants that we’ve been talking about and have started, right?

I think about California and their black outfit that they’ve most recently had to have. My family lives in California. And just hearing all that, and it’s just a very interesting dynamic, but circling back around to your question, there’s really just been a lack of projects for too long prior to Wax Bar Unit 2.

Mark Hinaman (30:05)
Well, I think we should change that, right? Thinking about the people that will be necessary to replace the roles that are going to retire in the next 10 to 20 years, are a lot of these roles, do a lot of these roles require specific training, college degree, such that, I mean, you mentioned hiring new grads out of college, meaning we…

Lauren Thew (30:10)
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

Mark Hinaman (30:34)
We would have to hire people that have that specific training. So either it’s 22 year olds or people that go back and get the training, or can people be cross -trained from other industries and brought into the space? So if you had an engineer in aerospace or chemical processing, could they be retrained to enter some of these nuclear roles?

Lauren Thew (30:56)
Yeah, so great concept there, right? First thing that comes to mind is I remember last year when I was personally on a panel at the utility working conference, the ANS puts on, the question was posed to me of where can we find people now that are experienced, right? And when I sat there and I did some research and everything,

Do you know that there’s over 200 ,000 people that wrap up on active duty with all areas, Army, Navy, you name it, Air Force, right? Every single year. And if you really look at a lot of those positions, a lot of them are suited for what we need and what we bring on as far as technical staff augmentation or even just those positions in general. But we need to do a better job at even just plucking those people that are, you know,

wrapping up with their active duty and they already have experience, right? There’s engineers that are, you know, qualified. Yes, there’s going to be a little bit of, you know, falls coming into the nuclear side, but we need to do a better job at looking at that population that’s already, you know, essentially, I’ll say mid qualified or, you know, mid experienced, or it’s, you know, within the military, right? But what an easy transition can that be, right? I mean, if there’s 200 ,000 people becoming available every single year from our military,

We need to really start pulling those folks over on the nuclear side or any energy sectors too. The other thing though, now that’s a big push there. And I brought up in my panel that I did last year, which is in order for us to even be closely successful with that is that we’re going to have to get the buy -in of the military and also the buy -in of nuclear. And that’s on a whole politician side, right? But.

there’s resources there that we really need to focus more in on tapping into because it’s a no brainer, quite frankly. Now, in addition, right, because that’s going to take time and I’m not the advocate because I don’t have that power to really push that through on that. But the reality, though, is right now, you know, what we’re doing right now is that we’re seeing, I think, a global three and four, OK, within their their startup department. OK.

we were working with the managers there that, okay, we’ve got very seasoned individuals here. Most of the test engineers worked for us at the time and worked under me. But what can we do to start getting some fresh blood in here? So what they were doing is that for like every four test engineers, we assigned them a recent college grad, right? And it was pretty phenomenal. So every four test engineers would have a college grad supporting them. And this was…

throughout the site at a handful of the departments there. But how cool was it that a recent college grad got to go and work on and go work at the newest AP 1000 in this country and also gain the knowledge of the seasoned test engineers and to have that experience, I mean, that’s going to bring those fresh college kids at a level of they’re going to have so much opportunity, right? And in Vogel three and four,

they’re not the only ones doing this. Well, I’m actually seeing this throughout the entire industry right now. So, which is phenomenal because let’s just say with some of the season, I’m gonna call them season veterans, right? In the nuclear industry, let’s say they’ve got, you know, 10 more years max. Well, if they can get linked up with a recent college grad for the next five years, there’s a ton of knowledge transfer there within that five years, right? And the more that utilities keep doing this approach,

I think the better shape we’re going to be in, but that right now is the most immediate action that we’re seeing right now as far as knowledge transfer. Also, and back to the technical staff augmentation side of that, what we’re also seeing is that some of these utilities will ask for a subject matter expert, right, to come in and mentor perhaps like a younger group that just got out of college. So there is activity going on, but the more utilities that can actually…

keep going in this direction, the better shape we’re gonna be even in the next five years.

Mark Hinaman (35:14)
I like that. Mentorship of new grads with existing expertise pulling from also call it non -traditional pools. And one example that you gave was, yeah, the military as being a great resource, but of qualified professionals that are coming available in the labor pool that, hey, they’re all gonna need jobs when they go and do something else. So yeah.

So we had listed as one of our questions, what projects do you see to be available in the next five years? And then we talked about, I mean, you mentioned some of the DOE projects. Are there other projects that you see in the pipeline?

Lauren Thew (35:55)
you asked as far as the next five years, right? Small modular reactors, huge fan of it. I’ve got, I’ve done several projects with them. Obviously, as most of us all know, let’s just get one built in the U .S., right? We’re seeing all these other countries and they, you know, whether it’s funding or,

their processes, right? They seem to be moving forward a little bit more quick, quick than us, but a lot of it’s just, you know, the process as far as on the U S side, just trying to get one of these things built. It’s a, when it happens, it’s going to be phenomenal. it’s very neat to see the different types of technology being used, right? Molten salt reactors, you name it. And it looks like right now, I mean, terapower is doing fairly well. I was actually, I read an article not too long ago and how far along they are with the process.

And it’s really neat to think that these 300 megawatt reactors can hopefully, once one’s built, just the size of them is phenomenal and just the different concepts of building them. And I sat in on an ASME session, I wanna say about two or three months ago, and they’re talking about, because labor seems to be on a short side, we…

We hear that, but there’s a lot of labor out there. But anyway, the industry is saying that there’s a labor shortage right now. But there’s a company out there that they were talking about building small modular reactors within a warehouse, okay? And then deploying the small modular reactor at a site versus what we do now, which is we pick a site first and then we build the plant there. The concept behind that is that if you have a warehouse that’s consistently producing small modular reactors,

you have that your labor is all in one concise place right in that in that warehouse building these SMRs and then the SMRs get then deployed to a site versus what we’re so accustomed to, which is like if we’ve got five sites going on, you need five different crews of men and women to sit there and build them. So that that concept to me was pretty phenomenal. I’m hoping that we can we can see that in action someday because that’s going to alleviate a lot of the labor shortage that we’re seeing on and off here.

and just really streamline SMRs in general. So overall next five years, I’ll tell you what, I would love to see an SMR finally built and rolling

Mark Hinaman (38:17)
Yeah.

Lauren Thew (38:18)
the more that our government can get more involved and give us more funding to develop more nuclear power that’s gonna help us out tremendously. I’ll tell you what, when I was in Canada a couple of months ago, the amount of funding that the government supports their projects is so substantial. And we need that here in the United States. Yes.

we are getting some funding, right? Especially with some of these new, the DOE sites and also some of the small modular reactor sites, I’m seeing that they’re getting some DOE funding, but we need more of it. And I think that the more that we can get the government more involved and understanding that I think I read, I think by 2024, 2040, regardless, we need three times as much power to be able just to live, right? With all the electric cars and everything else, that’s a substantial amount of,

power that we’re going to need. And so with that, in order to keep us moving forward in life and everything, personally, all of us, everyone that we know, we’re just going to have to, we need more government funding at the end of the day. So, and unfortunately, once again, that’s way out of my, way out of both of our hands here, but the more we can get them more involved, the better for all of us, especially for the need that is needed for 2040.

Mark Hinaman (39:37)
Lauren, what do you think is the most impactful step that we can take now to building more nuclear? Is that the funding or is there something else that could have bigger steps? Well, I guess you already mentioned the Vogel. If there were more investors for Southern, then we could build more nuclear there. But what else? Does anything else come to mind?

Lauren Thew (39:57)
Yeah, well, I think outside of just the government funding and really getting more on a personal level, it’s really about spreading the word. Right. And that’s, you know, we’re I mentioned earlier, we’re doing a movement, you know, a movement I’m calling right now for Bluestone Group of like I said, you know, that we have to love nuclear in order to to keep moving forward with society and just life in general. Right. And it’s never too late to to reprogram ourselves to understand that.

that nuclear is good. And for us in the industry, we love it, right? But it’s never too late to reprogram society that nuclear is good. And as I mentioned earlier, it’s not just about the nuclear power side of things, it’s nuclear medicine and all these other different components too. And I have seen a substantial change in the public eye this last two years, and especially being, you know, part of several groups and committees that I’m a part of.

with nuclear, you know, we talked about, you know, trying to make nuclear cool again. And I’m finally seeing it now these last two years, which is pretty remarkable. I see it in schools where they talk more about nuclear. I see it on the news and the articles, right? And it’s every single person is going to make a difference, right? And so if I’m not doing my job on a personal level with talking about how nuclear

how involved nuclear is in our everyday lives with my friends, my family, when I speak at conferences, right? And most importantly, you know, when educating children that we have to love nuclear and here’s why, and it’s so important and it’s a huge basis for our everyday living, but spreading the word and like I said, it’s never too late to reprogram ourselves and society that we need nuclear.

Mark Hinaman (41:49)
Yeah, and it’s so relevant. I mean, the human capital piece and the work that you guys are doing to bring the right people to the space. I see it all the time. We need more people working on these problems, not less. We need more capital investment, not less. And yeah, it’s my view that that’ll help bring the cost down if more people are working on it and thinking about it, rather than other sectors. So.

How can people help? How can they get involved if they want to help?

Lauren Thew (42:22)
Spread the word, you know, if, you know, it’s for any company or anyone that works for a company, right? Spread the word on LinkedIn, spread the word on, you know, your Instagram, your Facebook, get people more involved, right? It’s really, it’s just, it’s more of a lack of knowledge on nuclear as a subject overall that I think, you know, it makes things complicated for a lot of people that are not in the industry.

but it’s about spreading the word and I cannot stress that enough. I try my hardest to, you know, post things on LinkedIn, educational purposes, you know, little stuff about nuclear and it’s, you just gotta spread the word. And I’ll tell you what, I went to a conference a couple, probably about two or three months ago and someone thanked me for the stuff that I post on LinkedIn in regards to nuclear, but it’s all about, it’s continuous education.

not just within myself, not just within folks that work for me, within my company, but for the public, right? And like I mentioned earlier, everyone needs to make a difference and everyone needs to take like two seconds within a week and help advocate nuclear power.

Mark Hinaman (43:34)
Awesome. Lauren, let’s give you a chance. Shameless plug. If folks want to get involved, then how should they find BlueStone Group? Who should reach out to you, both if they need work or if they need people?

Lauren Thew (43:43)
Yeah. Love it. Yes. And so we like both sides of that. Right. Always happy to help anyone looking for work. Always happy to help any utility that needs help with technical staff augmentation. But our website is www .bluestonego .com. And then our phone number is 775 -451 -3088. And our email address, very easy. info at

bluestonego .com and my door is always open. You guys can always contact me directly or anyone within our team.

Mark Hinaman (44:20)
So any technical experts or people that need people. Yeah.

Lauren Thew (44:25)
You got it. We’re the people, people. So if you need people, we’re here.

Mark Hinaman (44:30)
Awesome. Lauren, this has been great. To close, why don’t you leave us with kind of your most optimistic view of the future?

Lauren Thew (44:38)
I look forward to seeing where we are 10 years from now and reflecting back to this conversation with you because I thoroughly anticipate that

Within 10 years, we hopefully have a small modular reactor up and going. We have a couple of them.

Mark Hinaman (44:55)
Thanks so much for your time. Great chat.

Lauren Thew (44:57)
Thank you so much, appreciate it.

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