There’s a new leader at the helm of GE Vernova's nuclear business, following the retirement of Jay Wileman this summer.

Wileman had served as president and CEO of the Wilmington-based nuclear energy company since 2015. According to a company spokesperson, Wileman’s last day with the company was July 31.

New president and CEO Craig Ranson joined the company in June, working with Wileman during a six-week transition period. Ranson comes to GE Vernova with nearly three decades of industry experience from nuclear energy firm Framatome.

GE Vernova has a sprawling Castle Hayne campus at 3901 Castle Hayne Road that employs hundreds of local employees. In 2022, the company announced its plans to add 500 jobs in the coming years and ceremonially broke ground on the new $200 million Natrium Fuel Facility.

The Greater Wilmington Business Journal recently caught up with Ranson to discuss the first months in his new role, his background, goals and industry trends.

How has your time at GE been so far?

Ranson: “It's definitely a lot of learning. I'm able to see new people and learn some new products that are being deployed to the market from GE Vernova, and that's all a lot of fun.

One of the things that has been so positive in this transition for me is that people are just so friendly and professional and just really intelligent … I thought it was just maybe, at first, unique to the team here on site, but the whole area is that way. Wilmington’s really welcomed me with open arms.”

What’s your background and how did you first get into the nuclear energy field?

Ranson: “I grew up in central Virginia on a family farm. My father was also an electrician, and he worked on the early nuclear power plants back in the '60s and '70s. He'd be away working for three or four weeks at a time, and I'd go up as a young kid and visit and that was my first early exposure to nuclear.

I ended up going to Virginia Tech, studying electrical engineering. I really didn't have any initial intentions to go into nuclear, per se. I started interning with a company called Babcock & Wilcox though … and I found out I really loved controls and robotics, and I specialized in that in my electrical engineering studies.

So when I graduated from Virginia Tech, that company offered me a full-time job. I got to develop robots and control systems … but I did it for nuclear. We did it to be able to inspect systems inside nuclear power plants, basically to deliver robot arms to go where people can't go and make sure these plants are healthy.”

What was your most recent professional role?

Ranson: “For most of my career, I have been with Framatome (formerly Areva and previously Babcock & Wilcox). I had been with them close to 30 years. I’d had a lot of roles. I'd worked in engineering and operations and sales. I was the chief operating officer for North America at one point, and then my final role there was as an executive vice president over install based business. 

It was a good job, but I was limited in my ability to deploy new nuclear power plants because we were servicing the existing power plants – that was our direction. That's really one of the reasons I wanted to entertain making this move to GE Vernova.”

Did any other factors play into your decision to come to GE Vernova?

Ranson: “I had a choice to make. I'm at a final stage of my career, if you will. I've got maybe a five-10 year window in front of me. And do I just keep doing that fun, cool stuff that we were doing there? Or do I take the next step and look at doing that, plus deploying new nuclear plants? I wanted to take that challenge.”

What are your near-term and long-term priorities and goals for the company?

Ranson: “The near-term goals for myself and my team are we need to deliver the design for the advanced reactor, small module reactor – the BWRX 300. We need to deliver that design on schedule and support our first delivery, our installation, which is at (Ontario Power Generation) and the Darlington nuclear power plant near the Toronto, Ontario area.

We've been blessed with the opportunity to actually have a contract to go put the first one in, the first one in the world for an SMR (small modular reactor) like that of the BWRX 300 design in particular, and that's important. We've got to meet our commitments on that to our customer base because once we do that, I think a lot of the other pieces will take care of itself. In other words, there'll be more customers because they'll see we've got a proven project that we were able to deploy together.

The other important component for me is we need to continue to invest in our existing install-based business, the business that’s been keeping the lights on for a long time for us. We need to continue to invest in that, (and) we are. We're spending millions of dollars on capital upgrades to support upgrading our manufacturing lines here and upgrading our facilities.

Nuclear power plants at one point in the United States and around the world were nearing the end of their age if you will. That's changed because the world has seen we need these plants to run longer. They're delivering clean energy, and we certainly need that right now … That's breathed new life into our forecast for our future, and we need to match that with the right level of investment so we can be sure we can support that going forward.”

What is the status of the Natrium Fuel Facility?

Ranson: “We're still moving in that direction. I had a (recent) coffee meeting with Chris Levesque, the head of TerraPower, who we would be serving … I was excited to hear that he's still moving forward with his technology, and we're still supporting them. 

We're doing a lot of engineering work for them right now in preparation, and so I'm optimistic that things are going to continue down that same path because the market's still there. If anything, the market continues to strengthen a bit.

There's something going on right now in the market in terms of increased energy demand due to more manufacturing, and in particular, data centers and AI, driving a need for more electricity on the grid, and that need is being asked for in terms of a low carbon approach. These advanced reactors, like the TerraPower design, can service that.

We're still moving forward, and we're just milestoning this thing out and doing it step by step, and it's got to match what the market demand is, and, right now, it's all very positive.”

What trends are you watching in the energy sector?

Ranson: “The electricity demand forecast is increasing for sure. We went for years with a fairly flat electricity demand … it wasn't growing in the United States or globally. People were using energy-efficient appliances or switching out lights, and what little demand growth was there was was reduced by more efficiency. But now … what we're starting to see in the market is demand really starting to move up because of manufacturing moving back into the U.S. We’re also seeing growth from data centers.”

Clarification: This version of the story clarifies that Craig Ranson is president and CEO of GE Vernova's nuclear business.