Introduction Highlights of experience and skills with more details presented in later sections

Section 1- Services to achieve excellence in nuclear fuels and plant

assessment/acquisition

Section 3 - Samples of Major Achievements

Section 2 - Experience and Expertise in nuclear fuels and plant assessement/acquisition

Claude Villard

Villard Consultants

21191 White Oak Ave, Boca Raton, Fl. 33428

954-632-4149

ClaudeVillard@VillardConsultants.com

Villard Consultants

Experience you can trust

Introduction

• 40 years of experience in nuclear fuels:

• Experience working with both utilities and suppliers on commercial, technical, economics and safety aspect of nuclear fuels and reactor cores

• Broad perspective on how to approach a wide range of challenges

• Experience in driving results, leading changes, people and teams

• 10 years of experience in managing nuclear plant assessments acquisition projects and financial analyses

Broad perspective

based on varied

experience to help you address

challenges

• BUSINESS ACUMEN AND NEGOTIATING SKILS: extensive experience in managing financial, human and information resources, including procurement, contract development, resolution of contractual disputes, asset valuation and successful acquisitions

• LEADING CHANGES: successful change agent focused on continuous improvement, identifying opportunities, developing and implementing successful change management plans

• RESULTS DRIVEN: proven track record of getting things done through functional or project organizations

• LEADING PEOPLE AND TEAMS: more than 30 years of experience in positions with increasing responsibility at 2 utilities and at a Nuclear Steam Supply System vendor, leading staff of different backgrounds including business, economics, engineering and science

Skills for sucessful projects

Villard Consultants

Section 1: Services

Nuclear Fuels and Plant Assessment

Expert Witness and Prudence Evaluation – In procurement, contracts terms and conditions, contract management, economics for nuclear fuels and power plants

Mentoring - Comprehensive or specific areas, working with the department or project lead to transfer knowledge and experience and to improve processes

Consulting and Contracting – Independent assessments against picture of excellence or to assist or supplement current staff

Training - Taylor made programs in any of the areas described under Consulting and Contracting

Sales and Marketing - suppliers' products or services

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• Support resolution of contract disputes through negotiations, mediation, arbitration or litigation

• Provide input on valuable early-stage questions, such as whether or not the value of the case is enough to make it worth litigating and potential settlement value

• Identify technical, economic, or financial concepts or issues, and whether the expert's findings and opinions have implications for other parts of counsel's legal strategy

• Assess viability of different strategic directions for a case, without the worry of discoverability

• Provide testimony or assist in preparing the testifying expert for deposition and trial and provide feedback to counsel on how the testifying expert can be most valuable to the case

• Make the most of fact discovery in spotting important factual issues, frame discovery requests, identify fruitful issues to investigate in depositions, and even the right personnel to depose

• Highlight critical facts that could be missed without expert interpretation

• Prepare and provide testimony on practices for the industry and on damage, appropriate in the industry

• Provide independent assessment and opinion in prudence in nuclear management decision and costs

• Nuclear fuel witness at Public Service Commission and FERC on fuel costs, fuel cost recovery, fuel accounting and prudence in fuel contracting and costs

Expert Witness

and Prudence Evaluation

• Provide training tailored to your specific needs in any areas described under Consulting and Contracting

Training

• Having worked with both suppliers and utilities, we can represent or provide nuclear fuel suppliers with advice on how to approach the market and achieve maximum success

• We also offer representation services

Marketing

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• Nuclear Fuels Management • Internal development or promotion is highly

desirable and is a clear signal to the organization that senior management is focused on employee development and advancement with attendant positive impact on employee morale, retention and performance

• There are times when it becomes inevitable to hire from outside the nuclear fuels organization or outside the corporation

• In any case, to further strengthen the current organization or to assist in management transition, we offer a comprehensive mentoring program, working with the head of the department

• The program is based on sharing knowledge acquired over 40 years of experience in nuclear fuels, implementing a culture of continuous improvements, anticipation of customers needs for safe and efficient performance and best ways to communicate recommendations to the organization and senior management

• The comprehensive program moves through reviewing and understanding all aspects of nuclear fuels management (Section 2), identifying, reviewing and sharing best practices and improvement opportunities in each area, developing and implementing successful change management plans

• Nuclear Plant Assessment/Acquisition • Provide structure and share experience with in

house personnel for a comprehensive plant assessment, including:

• lessons learned developed over 8 nuclear plant acquisition projects

• Organization and topics necessary for a successful due diligence and transfer of ownership

• Program can be tailored to your specific needs

• See Section 3 for more details on accomplishments

Mentoring Comprehensive, specific

areas or tailor made mentoring programs working

with the department or project lead

Examples of specific areas

Reactor core and Fuel mechanical performance

Outage support (anticipating and getting ready for potential support ; expect the best but plan for the wort)

Best practices in Interfacing with nuclear sites

Aligning and organizing Nuclear Fuels to meet corporatee objectives and to achieve excellence

Plant assessment planning, team organization and execution

Plant acquisition and transition between sales contract and financial closing

Etc.

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• Nuclear Fuels • Work with your organization to achieve excellence through

review of policies, processes, culture, good practices, improvement opportunities and developing change management plans for successful implementation. Our services are offered for all or any one of the following areas:

• Fuel Performance to prevent, monitor and correct failed fuel

• Reactor Core Behavior to prediction and design and setting trigger points for corrective actions

• Reactor Core Margin of Safety program, including systematic identification of margin areas and setting conservative margins for operation

• Fuel Procurement and Conflict Resolution including strategy, bid specifications, best overall selection, important contract features, active review of performance to contracts and reolutions of dispute

• Spent Fuel Sorage planning and options

• Standard Contract management and settlement

• Special Nuclear Material (SNM) Programs for excellence in compliance and tracking SNM

• Fuel Economics and Accounting for process efficiency and areas to improve fuel costs

• Nuclear Fuels Organizations for alignment to corporate goals and excellence in performance, interface with sites, staffing, training, qualifications and assessment of causes of errors

• Information Technology in assisting in the development of computer software and web sites

• Nuclear Plant Assessment • Preparation and documentation of team organizational

structure, key members, guidelines, counterparts, accountabilities, schedule of activities, deliverables and oversight organization forindependent review of project

• Communication protocol

• Reports and periodic status of projects focusing and addressing risks to plant operation and project

• Preparation and management of site visits and during transition to financial closing

• Items important to a comprehensive evaluation

• Detailed project schedules, identification of areas with challenges and recovery plans

• Documentation of team assessment of plant conditions and needed improvements, long term budget as inputs to financial and risk analyses

Consulting and

Contracting

More than 40 years of

experience in nuclear fuels and 10 years in plant

assessments

Significant experience in

working with all levels within companies in

developing and presenting plans

and results in programs to

achieve excellence

Villard Consultants

Section 2: Experience and Expertise

Nuclear Fuels

All aspects of nuclear fuels, including procurement, contract administration, budgeting, accounting, economics, core design, safety analyses, fuel performance, spent fuel interim storage, final disposal and special nuclear material accountability:

Managed yearly budget from $300M to $500M and staff of varied background

Fuel Performance program with vision and integrated strategy to achieve and sustain zero failed fuel during reactor operations:

• Prevention measures, including management commitment and focus, foreign material control and mitigation, fuel design margin assessment, fuel failure risk assessment during core design, preventive fuel monitoring and performance tracking for early indication of degrading performance, coolant chemistry to manage crud and corrosion, conservative rates of power changes and fuel vendor oversight

• Monitoring coolant activities during operation • Correction: failed fuel analysis, root causes and action plans

Core Design, Spent Fuel Storage, Safety and Licensing Analyses • Reactor core behavior and margins of safety

• Reactor core, thermal hydraulic and safety analyses

• Spent fuel storage licensing • Corrective action program related to nuclear core, safety analyses and spent fuel storage

Nuclear Fuels Expert and Witness in many venues including: • Litigations, arbitration and mediations involving fuel contract issues from utilities and

vendor’s perspective • Public Service Commission and FERC • IRS in support of tax treatment related to nuclear fuel tax accounting

Fuel Procurement, Contracting and Conflict Resolution for all Steps of the Fuel Cycle • Strategic procurement plans for souring, timing, diversity of supply, mix of contracts and

inventories

Nuclear Fuels

Nuclear Plant Assessment

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• Balanced mix between short, long term contracts and inventories • Bid specification preparation, evaluation and selection of suppliers • Important elements of contracting and contract negotiation • Negotiations and awarding contracts based on best overall value, terms and conditions

including but not limited to considerations of prices, quality, flexibility and reliability for delivery of products and services

• Contract management for fuel related products and services, engineering services and extended power operation

• Active review of suppliers’ performance to contract terms and conditions and actions consistent with those contract terms and conditions

• Conflict resolution via negotiations, mediation, arbitration and litigation • Best evaluated outcome of disputes

Spent Fuel Planning, Standard Contract Management and Negotiations • Managed the Standard Contracts with DOE for final spent fuel and high level waste disposal,

annual settlement claims, payments and various required reports • Leadership in the strategic planning, policy development and direction of spent nuclear fuel

interim storage and disposal • Ensured senior-level coordination with the nuclear sites, legal department and senior

management • Implementation of options for storage and disposal of spent fuel such as pools, dry cask

storage, reprocessing and use of mixed oxide fuels in commercial reactor

Nuclear Fuels Organization • Developed vision, plans of action, goals and projects for Nuclear Fuels Departments • Purpose and alignment to corporate goals and excellence in performance • Staffing, pros and cons of organization and intergroup communications to support

excellence • Employee training and qualifications, causes of errors and miscommunications • Integrated nuclear fuels functions from acquired nuclear plants into a nuclear fuels

corporate organization and set up formal processes for clear accountability and interface with site departments

• Re-designed Nuclear Fuels organization to improve customer support and right sizing

Fuel Economics and Accounting for process efficiency in projecting nuclear fuel costs, accounting of nuclear fuel, including nuclear fuel amortization and minimizing fuel costs

Information Technology: changed and simplified department budgeting and fuel cost and accounting to a more user friendly and less resource intensive system

Special Nuclear Material Management and Accountability for a nuclear fleet. Led the evaluation of industry events and implemented lessons learned with satisfactory audit by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

As Corporate Function Area Manager for Nuclear Fuels and Reactor Engineering, led a team with representatives from sites and corporate organizations to identify and implement best practices and resolutions of operational issues

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Nuclear Plant Assessment

Experience in this area started with development of policies, processes, procedures, project organization and tracking for the first successful acquisition at a utility with no prior experience. More experience and lessons were learned through subsequent 7 acquisition projects, over 10 years

As Project Manager during nuclear plant acquisition, led teams of experts with diverse disciplines and from different organizations (8 projects): Prepared and documented team organizational structure, project members and accountabilities,

deliverables, counterparts and communication protocol between organizations and reporting to an overview board for independent assessment of project progress

Led activities during due diligence evaluation of nuclear plants before acquisition and during transition between sales agreement and financial closing. Coordinated and scheduled site visits and counterparts meeting. Seamless transfer of ownership on first day in all cases

Provided summary reports and prepared periodic presentations to nuclear and corporate management on status of projects and areas for operational improvements

Monitored detailed project schedules, identification of areas with challenges and recovery plans to ensure

no delay or issues at or after closings

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Section 3: Examples of Major Achievements LEADING CHANGE During my career, I had the opportunities to lead organizations through major changes. The following

describes two of these accomplishments.

Redesigning Reload Engineering Process

Early in my career, I was given the challenge at an NSSS supplier to reduce the time to perform core reload

engineering to avoid extended shutdown of a nuclear power unit. A customer had noted significant wear on

structural components of some of the fuel assemblies scheduled to return to the reactor core and could not

be re-used. This required a redesign of the arrangement of the fuel assemblies in the reactor core,

concurrently with a 2 month refueling outage. The original analyses were done in sequence during the 9

months leading to the outage. Using the standard reload engineering process would have extended the

outage from 2 to 9 months.

The standard reload engineering had 4 major sequential steps: 1) designing the arrangement of fuel

assemblies in the core, mixing fuel from prior operations and fresh fuel needed to support the target length of

operation of the unit, 2) modeling steady state, transient and accident scenarios to calculate core

characteristics used as inputs to safety analyses, 3) performing safety analyses to determine that the core

would be operated within safety and licensing criteria and 4) calculating data to be used in the unit core

monitoring system to trigger either an alarm or a reactor shutdown to stay within safety limits.

The first 2 steps had to be performed for the core redesign. In parallel, I led the groups involved in

downstream safety analyses in tabulating the core characteristics used in the original safety analyses (original

steps 3 and 4). The team also established criteria for these characteristics which, when met, would validate

the results of those safety analyses already performed. The resulting safety criteria document was developed

in less than 2 months and the new core was designed to this criteria. This new process avoided 7 months of

additional down time with significant cost savings to the customer.

Successful Redesign of a Nuclear Fuels Organization

During downsizing, I evaluated the right size and functions of a Nuclear Fuels Organization, without

compromising safety and quality of services. The downsizing was achieved in 2 phases over a 4 year period.

The first phase consisted in the identification and elimination of low value added work. This was done through

benchmarking with other Nuclear Fuels Organizations and interviewing a number of employees to better

understand how they discharged their functions. Recommendations were successfully implemented.

The second phase went further than benchmarking staffing to the best in the industry. It required knowledge

of the fundamental functions of a Nuclear Fuels Department. Experience in nuclear fuels analyses, leading

nuclear fuels projects at a Nuclear Steam Supply System vendor and in leading Nuclear Fuels Organizations at

2 utilities were instrumental for this assignment.

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At the time, most Nuclear Fuels Departments were organized along functional lines. For example, experts in

nuclear core design reported to one supervisory unit and experts in thermal hydraulic and safety analyses

reported to other units. This required internal interfacing between many supervisory groups before delivering

the final products to the sites. In order to achieve the set goal, the organization was changed to supervisory

groups focused on specific power plants with at least one expert for each function reporting to that

supervisor. Each supervisor had clear and full accountability for a nuclear plant and the expertise needed to

efficiently serve its customers.

In addition, along with full attention and expectations on team work among the supervisors for efficient

resource sharing, 3 new initiatives were implemented :

1) Cross training to increase the pool of expertise. For example, an expert in thermal hydraulics was trained

and became qualified to perform work in core engineering and vice versa.

2) Developing a culture of self-assessment to improve efficiencies and quality of services. All employees were

asked to propose and to perform at least one formal self-assessment as part of their performance goals,

starting with those areas with the largest payoff. All employees were also encouraged to perform less

formal assessments and to share results with others that may be asked to perform similar tasks. This focus

on self-assessment was quickly accepted by the organization as a path to succeed in future assignments. It

led to the elimination of functions, projects and related processes that no longer served the vision,

streamlined others and prevented rework by spreading lessons learned within the organization. That

focus was reinforced at many occasions, including periodic staff meetings, held at least every 3 months.

The agenda for the staff meetings had a standing item on celebrating successes in self-assessment and

training the organization in lessons learned and resulting changes.

3) Hiring expert contractors during the transition. These experts were hired on a temporary basis, first to

train the organization in areas needing improvement and second to periodically perform special projects

rarely done as part of regular tasks by a Nuclear Fuels Organization.

The new organization was successful because of clear vision, focus and accountability and the means to

achieve that vision.

This new organization served as the structural base to take on work that had been done by the nuclear fuel

vendors. This further reduced costs, improved fundamental and specific knowledge on how reload analyses

were performed and shortened response time to plant issues without having recourse to a third party.

LEADING PEOPLE

The following project provides an example of achievements in this area:

Integrating New Organizations into a Nuclear Fuels Corporate Organization

After an acquisition of nuclear plants, one of the important tasks is the integration of the nuclear fuels

functions between the Corporate Nuclear Fuels Organization and the corresponding organization at the

acquired plant.

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Right from the start, the project set 2 ground rules for the integration process: 1) all would be free to express

their concerns and 2) changes would only occur after all concerns had been resolved.

At the first meeting, a show of hands for all indicated how they felt about specific changes. Those in favor

would show 5 or 4 fingers and those with significant concerns would show only one finger. Anyone showing

less than 4 fingers was given the opportunity to openly express their concerns at that meeting the focus was

on compensatory measures or alternatives to address these concerns.

It took some time to complete this process but was well worth it. It led to a number of formal documents and

procedures describing the interface and functions to be fulfilled by Corporate and at the nuclear site.

The success of that first experience was also duplicated for all subsequent acquisitions and made the plant

organization a partner in working on best practices to be shared by Corporate and all sites. Many of these

practices came from the sites.

RESULT DRIVEN

Proven track record of getting things done through functional or project organizations.

Successful Nuclear Plant Acquisition Projects

When a major utility became interested in acquiring nuclear power plants, I was tasked with collateral duties

to organize a team, team structure and modus operandi to perform due diligence evaluation of the nuclear

units and to act as the point of contact between the Nuclear Division and the financial experts. This was the

utility first serious attempt at acquiring a nuclear plant and there were no internal processes to support such

projects.

A guiding document was developed to clearly define and document team vision, team members,

responsibilities and expected products, information management system for a repository of all team

documents, a protocol for communication with counterparts and detailed schedules to monitor progress on all

aspects of this project and to take compensatory actions to bring project back on schedule.

The project team was successful in winning the bid and a similar structure and process was also used to ensure

that all activities between the sales agreement and closing were completed in a timely manner and for a

seamless transfer of ownership. This transition project was completed on schedule with less time than

achieved by other organizations with more experience in nuclear acquisition.

The same model, with lessons learned, was used in 7 subsequent acquisition projects.

BUSINESS ACUMEN

Gained extensive experience in managing financial, human and information resources and has been

responsible for annual budgets varying from $300M to $500M, for negotiating nuclear fuel contracts with

values up to $500M and for nuclear fuels long term budget and economic outlook. .

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Made tough decisions on timing for procurement when market prices were going up with no end in sight.

Consistently assumed that uranium long term prices would fluctuate about the mid $40’s, and this has

essentially remained correct over the last 7 years.

Streamlined the nuclear fuel budgeting and accounting systems, using outdated and very cumbersome

software. The opportunity came about when the old system had to be updated to make it workable after

1999 and starting with the year 2000.

BUILDING TEAM

As Corporate Functional Area Manager (CFAM), responsible for long term development and implementation

of best practices for both corporate and sites departments involved in nuclear fuels. The sites departments did

not report to the Corporate Nuclear Fuels Organization. Set up a team with one representative from each site

and corporate to facilitate implementation of best practices and lessons learned from the industry and from

other sites. Instituted weekly meetings with that team to share experiences, events at all sites and corporate

and to develop short and long term plans to review practices and to implement best practices across the fleet.

A separate weekly meeting handled communication between members of working teams on selected areas

with improvement opportunities.

One example of such practices made possible by the good rapport developed with the site organizations was

for the team to go over every step of a refueling outage to determine its specific roles, potential challenges

and plans for response. The team followed the same process as the famed Air Force Blue Angels prepared

itself for their high risk exhibitions. They would close their eyes and imagine their performance and challenges

in order to prepare mentally on how to respond to potential issues. Implementing the same process with the

team led to the preparation of a document which included outage activities where unexpected event would

trigger a request for support from Nuclear Fuels, identification of what could go wrong and contingencies with

assigned individuals, phone numbers, identification and preparation of tools, materials including parts

availability at suppliers and references needed to respond to these potential challenges. The responsible

experts were placed on call during the related outage activities. This shortened out the time required to

respond to outage issues and significantly lowered the level of stress when management and the affected

individuals knew the level of readiness to respond to issues and anticipated challenges.

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