Not to be confused with the Nobel Prize, Doug Noble now has what some at Davis-Besse are calling the Noble prize. The nuclear plant’s Radiation Protection manager (RPM) recently was named the 2018 RP Professional of the Year by his peers at the North American Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) ALARA Symposium.

ISOE operates its North American Technical Center out of the University of Illinois, and Doug has served on its board of directors along with the board of the Health Physics Society for several years, while being part of the international ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) group for “a long time.”

He said the award caught him off guard. “I didn’t know about it,” Doug noted. “It was good to be recognized by them.” Specifically, Doug was saluted for sponsoring several radiation dose reduction initiatives that helped the plant achieve its lowest outage dose ever in 2018 and for leading FENOC’s “Delivering the Nuclear Promise” RP team.

The conference also provided an opportunity to network with other RP professionals about industry topics, including the shortage of supplemental technician resources and new ideas for reducing exposure. Being part of the worldwide group has been beneficial for Davis-Besse. “We exchange benchmarking data as well as ways to help improve our performance,” he said.