Sarah Darmitzel
Project Manager Burns & McDonnell
Sarah Darmitzel is a Project Manager at Burns & McDonnell, bringing 17 years of experience across the energy sector. Sarah began as a structural engineer and specializes in steel and concrete design for power generation, including nuclear plants, before progressing into project leadership. She oversees the design, execution and management of complex projects spanning nuclear, natural gas, renewables and energy storage. Sarah holds a Master’s in Civil Engineering from the University of Kansas and offers a practitioner’s view on the structural and project-management discipline behind delivering the next nuclear fleet.
Seminars
- Explaining what actually drove the overruns at Vogtle and Olkiluoto, and the specific fixes that followed
- Sharing how Korea’s KEPCO delivered Barakah in the UAE on time and on budget, and what made that possible
- Weighing live US projects like Natrium and the X-energy Seadrift build against those retrospectives
Practical Takeaway: Leave with the specific delivery and standardization decisions that separated the on-time international builds from the multi-billion-dollar overruns, and a clear view of which lessons realistically transfer to a US first fleet.
- Building trade-school and apprenticeship pipelines that feed real nuclear craft, with skills testing built in
- Running the training programs and retention strategies that keep people once you have them
- Rebuilding the superintendent and field-engineer bench after a twenty-year gap in nuclear construction
Practical Takeaway: Leave with specific, proven approaches, from apprenticeships and skills testing to training programs and retention strategies, for building a nuclear workforce pipeline that actually holds.
