From Carpenter to Project Manager: A Navajo Career in Nuclear

Sovereign Energy Session · Featuring Wilton Wilson, Palisades Nuclear Generating Station

This month's Sovereign Energy Session brought us a story that started on the Navajo Reservation and runs straight through one of the most closely watched projects in American energy. We sat down with Wilton Wilson, who grew up in Lupton, Arizona, and has spent nearly twenty years in the nuclear industry. He began as a carpenter building scaffolding. Today he is the preventive maintenance coordinator at the Palisades plant in Michigan, the first U.S. reactor ever being brought back online after closure.

Wilton' path carries a detail that is hard to forget. His first job was at Palo Verde, the largest power producer in the nation. Years later, at his grandparents' dinner table, his grandfather mentioned pouring concrete for a power plant west of Phoenix decades earlier. It was the same plant. Two generations of the same family helped build and run it, without either one knowing at the time.

“Before, we were hunting rabbits and getting a little here and there. Now we came across the field of buffaloes.” — Wilton Wilson, on the career growth nuclear made possible.

He was honest about the harder history too. The Navajo Nation carries real wounds from uranium mining and the Church Rock spill, and Wilton said he respects that fear rather than dismissing it. His answer is knowledge and ownership: if Native people get the training, hold the permits, and take a seat at the table, they can make sure work near their homelands is done the right way.

There's a workforce message here that students and families should hear. Wilton never finished his degree. He grew through curiosity, asking questions, earning his P6 scheduling certification, and learning every system around him. His daughter and son work in nuclear now too. The opportunity is wide open for people willing to apply themselves.

Watch the full session:

We host these conversations monthly to bring a trusted voice to tribal communities about nuclear energy. We don't speak for any tribe. We share real stories so communities can decide for themselves. Reach out to keep the conversation going.