My story began in 1968. I became a member of the first undergraduate class in Nuclear Engineering at Purdue. My first advisor was Dr. Bob Bailey. Our class was new and small. We only had a little over a dozen students. At that time, we did not have a School of Nuclear Engineering, so our degree was conveyed through the Interdisciplinary Engineering (IDE) program.

Though small, the academic competition was fierce! Many of my nuclear engineering classes had graduate students or Navy nuclear submarine candidates. Talk about tough! Here I am a young 20 year old surrounded by students with math skills way ahead of mine and Navy officers that knew they had to graduate with distinction to pass the scrutiny of the infamous Admiral Rickover. Their idea of a fun evening was reading the text book over and over. Wow! Thank God for a curve.

But, I made it and graduated in June 1972! Then, the benefits of being a part of the Purdue family began. I accepted a job as Reactor Engineer at the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Michigan. When I arrived the plant was still under construction so they assigned me to the Construction and Start-up Group. What a blessing!

I got a chance to walk all the Nuclear Steam Supply system, crawl through main steam lines, do pre-operational checkout of all the safety systems, and see what gets buried under tons of concrete in a nuclear plant. Along the way, I was enrolled in the reactor operator licensing program and got my Senior Reactor Operator license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. What a blast! Here I am, a 24 year old kid in responsible charge of nuclear fuels receipt on site and then the core loading. I was even on duty when we had our first criticality of the unit. The nuclear detectors typically made a "pinging" sound. But, that night, it sounded like a symphony! It was a lot of fun!

After low power physics testing and power operation, I began thinking about a new adventure. It quickly came. I was hired by Transnucleaire S.A., a multi-national irradiated nuclear fuels shipping company, and assigned to Paris, France! What a thrill! I traveled throughout Western Europe and supervised nuclear fuel loading and unloading at European and United States power plants and reprocessing plants. It was the best job I ever had! I had a great expense account and got to see countries that I had only heard of! It was nothing to borrow a company car and take a few days off in the Alps! What fun!

Finally, near the end of my time there, I candidly asked the President of the company why he hired me. Why me; a 25 year old kid? I never forgot what he said. It has stuck with me for years. He said "well, we knew you had actual power plant experience and we knew", and this is the best part, "you went to Purdue University, so we knew you were a good engineer". Here is a French business man in Paris, France telling me of his respect for Purdue engineering! I have heard that sentiment repeated over and over in my 44 year career!

I decided to come back to the States and start a family. I took the position of the Nuclear Engineer at the ill-fated Bailly Nuclear One plant for Northern Indiana Public Service Company. That plant was eventually cancelled and I decided to switch over to fossil generation. Eventually I became Plant Manager of a 6 unit 1,850 MW power plant. Along the way, I found time to get my MBA from The University of Chicago. But, it all started at Purdue. Today, I handle technical projects as well as financial ones in the company I founded, Rudd Asset Management. We have a dozen consulting engineers that provide power plant consulting and Renewable Power Generation development. It’s been a great ride, and I owe it all to Purdue. I have never forgotten that. Hail Purdue!

Mark Rudd
President
Rudd Asset Management
BSE 1972