Burnett takes Graham High School engineering position

The Graham High School engineering program will be revitalized this upcoming school year as teacher Stan Burnett takes over the course. With over 40 years in the nuclear power industry, Burnett is bringing skills to help shape the minds of Graham’s future graduates.

Burnett grew up on a farm in the west Texas town of Cotton Center and, in 1974, joined the Navy in the branch’s nuclear program. He spent six years in the Navy, with four years serving on the USS Gado as a nuclear machinist. In 1980, Burnett left the Navy and started his career in the commercial nuclear field.

“There is a plant near us here that I worked for (...) for about 11 years, it’s Comanche Peak in Glen Rose. Their operators go through a licensing process and they become either a reactor operator or a senior reactor operator licensed individual, and I became a senior licensed individual at Comanche Peak and also Wolf Creek in Kansas. So I licensed at two different plants,” he said. “Following my time on shift operating the power plant, I took various different jobs within engineering and quality assurance training. I trained operators for a while in several plants as a contract operator until 2007 (when) I went back into the nuclear industry as an employee and then retired from Florida Power & Light in 2017.”

In 2017, Burnett moved back to Texas to be closer to his family and was invited to join Coppell High School as a substitute teacher. It was at CHS that he learned about the alternative certification program (ACP). ACPs provide an alternative route to a teaching certification which can allow teaching while completing the requirements, according to the Texas Education Agency.

For the full story, see the Saturday, July 30 edition of The Graham Leader.