This image is the cover for the book Station Blackout

Station Blackout

The nuclear safety expert shares a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how he led the response to the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

On March 11, 2011, fifty minutes after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit eastern Japan, a forty-five-foot high tsunami engulfed the nuclear power plant known as Fukushima Daiichi, knocking out electrical power and all the reactors' safety systems. Three reactor cores experienced meltdowns in the first three days, leading to an unimaginable nuclear disaster. The Tokyo Electric Power Company called Dr. Chuck Casto for help. 

In Station Blackout, Casto, the foremost authority on responding to nuclear disasters, shares his first-hand account of how he led the collaborative team of Japanese and American experts who faced the challenges of Fukushima. A lifetime of working in the nuclear industry prepared him to manage an extreme crisis, lessons that apply to any crisis situation.

Charles A. Casto

Dr. Charles (Chuck) Casto, president of Casto Group Consulting, helps great companies in the areas of corporate performance, operations, engineering, plant support, and regulatory conformance. A career nuclear safety and regulatory professional, he has thirty-eight years of experience in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the commercial nuclear power industry, and the U.S. Air Force. He was a member of the Senior Executive Service at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), where he last held the position of Regional Administrator, Region III. He was awarded as a Distinguished Executive in 2012, by President Obama.
Chuck served for 11 months as the Director for Site Operations in Japan during the Fukushima nuclear plant accident. He participated in an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) mission in Japan to help reestablish their regulatory body after the Fukushima accident and helped to establish criteria to restart shutdown nuclear plants in Japan. He has completed three International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) missions including to Slovenia to review their regulatory programs another on an expert team that reviewed the destruction of 32 reactor fuel bundles at the PAKS reactor in Hungary.
His strong history of mentorship and leadership development success is evidenced in his service on a Congressional Fellowship as a Legislative Assistant to a U.S. Senator where he succeeded in developing energy policy issues for the Senator. He has been asked on numerous occasions to resolve many highly complicated policy issues for clients and Congress.
Specialties: Educational and Business ConsultationsCobb County School System Blue Ribbon Education Committee – Chair and memberCobb County School System Facilities and Technology Committee – Chair and memberCobb County Government Citizens Oversight Committee - AppointeeState of Georgia, Department of Early Childhood Education and Learning - ConsultantMalcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Examiner

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