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OWNER PROFILE
“I respected the sea, but was
confident I could be safe and
function on and under the
sea. I never once had any
fear of sailing.
”
58 www.oystermarine.com
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 Vicki Wallace onboard Arbella during
passage from Bahamas to Annapolis, 2004
Mike Wallace is Optimistic continued
After graduation in 1969, he spent
six months in a classroom at Mare Island,
California, and six months ‘sailing’ a
land-based, fully-functional Nautilus-type
submarine powered by a nuclear
reactor. His first floating assignment
was the Thomas Jefferson, a ballistic
missile submarine.
His executive officer was Zack Pate,
founder and chairman emeritus of the
World Association of Nuclear Operators.
Pate honed his life-long dedication to
nuclear safety working as assistant to
Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the
nuclear Navy.
Pate says he knew very quickly the new
junior officer aboard Thomas Jefferson was
a cut above the rest. "Mike was always
thoughtful about what he was doing,"
Pate says. "And very good with people,
fair-minded. He was always thinking
beyond where most people think. He was
an inquisitive, open-minded person and
had the respect of those who worked
for him."
When he left the Navy in 1974, Wallace
joined Commonwealth Edison in Chicago,
setting his sights on the highest-flying
nuclear project in the private sector that
had government funding: the "breeder"
reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Breeder
reactors generate new fissionable
material faster than they consume it.
The breeder technology was impressive –
it still is – but Oak Ridge turned out to
be a political football. With cost overruns
over the roof, and President Jimmy Carter
concerned about the plutonium produced
by the reactor leading to accusations of
nuclear weapons proliferation, the Oak
Ridge project was finally cancelled in
1982. But the two-and-a-half years he
spent working at Oak Ridge were
educational for Mike Wallace, both
technically and politically.
He returned to Chicago, working at
ComEd during the day, and attending
University of Chicago at night for his MBA
(in finance). The day job involved two
nuclear plant construction projects in
Illinois: Byron in Rockford, and Braidwood
in Joliet. That’s where Jim Walkington first
met Mike Wallace. Walkington is currently
Senior Vice President (Finance and
Administration) for Constellation Energy’s
Nuclear Group. In 1975, he was
crunching numbers for the construction
of Byron and Braidwood.
"Mike’s the reason I’m here in Baltimore,"
Walkington says. "He’s quite the visionary.
He’s always been in the forefront of the
US nuclear power initiative. Others have
jumped in, but he was the one who saw
the need on the horizon in 1975 when
we were building plants. The energy
business is run by engineers and financial
people. Leadership tends to be left brain,
technically oriented. His innovative
management style sets him apart."
Mike had ideas he wanted to try. He was
casting about for a more exciting job
when ComEd asked him to manage one
of its fossil (coal) fuel plants that needed
a turnaround. Wallace thought that would
look good on his resume, so he agreed.
Then he realized he had no idea how a
fossil plant works. "I’d never even been in
a plant," he says. "I always wondered how
the coal transmitted its heat energy into
the water that would run the turbine.
I had no text book or real experience.
I had to call a friend and ask him what
I should wear!"
Wallace’s first day of work at the fossil
plant is an example of what Zack Pate is
talking about. Wallace is disarmingly
forthright, whether or not the facts are in
his favour. One learns that what you see is
what you get from him. "The various
department heads gathered in my office
for their daily orders," Wallace recalls.
"I said to them, I’m not going to tell you