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Mike Wallace is Optimistic
By Roger Vaughan
TOP: Arbella during the Oyster BVI Regatta 2008
MIDDLE: Mike aged 25 aboard U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
(SSBN 618), polaris missile submarine, 1972
BOTTOM: Mike and Vicky Wallace and crew, Pirates Party,
Oyster BVI Regatta 2008
One of the boats at the spring Oyster
regatta in the BVI was the Oyster 53
Arbella belonging to Mike and Vicki
Wallace from Annapolis, Maryland, USA.
The Wallaces, with their old friends
Jeri and Stan Jakopin, from Chicago,
and Vicki’s sister Johanne Hainz in from
Florida, were gathered around a table on
the second floor of Quito’s beach bar
and restaurant on Tortola’s Cane Garden
Bay, having a late lunch. The view was
spectacular. Looking west, the island
of Jost Van Dyke simmered in the
mid-afternoon sun. A tape of Quito
Rymer’s reggae tunes was quietly
rocking the place.
Over cold Carib beers and jerk chicken,
the Arbella crew was animatedly replaying
the day’s race around Peter and Norman
Islands. There was lots to talk about
because it had been the Wallace’s very
first race. They’d been game, but
admittedly nervous when a guest
helmsman had taken the boat into the
pre-start fray. A couple of times Vicki had
covered her eyes. Mike had then steered
most of the race with good concentration.
It was clear he was excited about being
on the learning curve.
A gregarious couple, the Wallaces were
dashingly costumed for the pirate party at
Pirates Bight. And Mike was seen jogging
on Virgin Gorda’s steep roads. Wallace ran
the Chicago Marathon in 2001, the
Marine Corps Marathon in 2002 and
again in 2007, the latter two weeks after
his 60th birthday just to see if he could
do it (he could). But in between races,
drinks parties, dinners, and workouts, he
was seldom seen.
He was working. Officially, he was on
vacation, but Wallace is so involved in the
nuclear power industry that he simply has
to be available part of every day.
There was one phone call in particular he
was waiting for. As luck would have it, it
came on the regatta lay day, a full working
day for Wallace. It was from the White
House staff calling for the President of the
United States, confirming Wallace’s special
appointment to the National Infrastructure
Advisory Council. Under the Office of
Homeland Security, NIAC provides the
President with advice on the security of
the "critical infrastructure sectors and their
information systems." There are 18
infrastructure sectors in the United States.
Of those, the nuclear sector holds the
highest security priority.
Wallace’s appointment to NAIC – one of
30 members (he was sworn in on July 8,
2008) – is the result of his dedication to
nuclear energy security over the last seven
years. He says safety comes naturally to
him. "I’m one of those guys who takes out
the information card on an airplane and
reads it, plays out escape scenarios,"
he says. "I want the knowledge to act
responsibly if I have to."
The bureaucracy of nuclear security is as
thick and complex as the walls of a
reactor, and Wallace has run the gamut.
He’s been chairman of the Security
Working Group that represents the 104
reactors operating in the US. He’s been
chairman of the Nuclear Sector
Coordinating Council, that includes
everything nuclear (reactors, fuel
fabricators, the radioisotope community,