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It was the chance of a lifetime.

Steve Cannon of Bruce Power communications spent a year in England with the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO). He just returned earlier this month.

"I had an amazing time," he says, "both on a professional and personal level."

Cannon had travelled to London once before when he and his wife, Dawn, went there for some work and a bit of vacation. But visiting the city and living there are two totally different things.

He lived on Montagu Square in the Marylebone neighbourhood - where John Lennon lived in the 1960s and where Madonna now lives.

"It was a great place," says Cannon. "Every day, as I walked to work, I passed all these beautiful historic buildings, which I really enjoyed. When my daughter came to visit, she got to see Madonna directing a film. They were shooting it just outside the apartment where I was living, which was a big thrill for my daughter."

Cannon left for England at the end of February, 2010, as a communications manager, to help develop a communications plan for all of WANO, based at the head office in London. WANO was created in 1989, following the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, as a way to unite all the nuclear operators in the world to ensure such an accident would never happen again. WANO has regional centres in Atlanta, Tokyo, Paris and Moscow.

Currently, it is working with Japan to assist with the disaster that has struck the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami March 11.

"That's how WANO works," says Cannon. "Nuclear operators share their experiences and can invite experts from other plants to do a peer review and provide technical support. It's all based on nuclear safety and best practices."

While other experts, such as Peter Milojevic, Station Vice- President of Bruce B, have been seconded to Atlanta to work with WANO and lead peer review teams, Cannon's trip was the first time a communications expert had been sent on a job. 

"It's a great way to identify areas of excellence and areas of improvement," says Cannon. "The best guide to offer the nuclear industry is to have your peers review your plant. WANO is a voluntary organization but every commercial nuclear plant operator is part of it. In fact, the oil and gas companies are looking at it as a model for them to use as well."

Cannon's job was, in part, to develop a communications plan to increase the public profile of WANO itself. "A lot of good work is being done," he says. "There are new entries into the nuclear industry - dozens of countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, that never considered a nuclear plant before. They need to know WANO is there. They need to know the safety culture required before they put a shovel in the ground."

"Each regional WANO centre has a communications official," he says. "I had to ensure that the information being reported was consistent. I put together a website for WANO because the current one hadn't been changed in many years. Now, the website is available to the world so we can get the message out to everybody."

The WANO London office was like a United Nations of nationalities, says Cannon. There were three people from Russia, one from China, two from Japan, one from Slovakia, two from France, plus people from the United Kingdom and the United States. "I was the only Canadian there," he says. "But regardless of the country, the issues are universal. WANO's focus is, first and foremost, nuclear safety."

Cannon hosted a meeting in Paris where he shared the communications plan he had developed and how it would be implemented. It received support from the board of directors.

"Communications had not been front and centre up to that point," says Cannon. He also developed internal communications to help raise the profile of WANO. "We wanted to get the chairman and managing directors, people like Duncan Hawthorne (Bruce Power president and chief executive officer, and a director with WANO), get them out telling the WANO story."

He says the trip was a big eyeopener for him as well.
"I work on the front lines of communications in the nuclear industry and there is a vocal minority - very loud and very anti-nuclear - that you hear all the time," he says. "Then you go to WANO and it's so impressive to see and hear from the industry that safety is everything. It's not just a party line. They put their money where their mouth is. This is a global association, with the focus on best practice for nuclear safety within its members. It has about 100 members, operating 440 reactors around the world."

Cannon travelled a bit while in England. He went to New Delhi, India; Paris a few times; Prague; Rome; Dublin; Belfast; Helsinki; and Atlanta.

"It wasn't all for work," he says, with a laugh. "We have a friend from Port Elgin who now lives in Ireland so we visited her. And we have relatives in England. When Dawn came to visit, we travelled around Europe a bit. Our kids, Amy, 17, and Jesse, 14, had a wonderful time when they were here. Amy and her friend from Port Elgin visited and they couldn't believe we could hop on a train in London and be in Paris in time for dinner."

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Friday, March 25, 2011