Douglas Brunson
Senior Evaluator, Emergency Management
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
Douglas Brunson serves as a Senior Evaluator in Emergency Management at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), where he is responsible for evaluating radiological emergency preparedness, emergency response, and fire protection programs across the commercial nuclear power industry. INPO is a nonprofit organization whose membership includes commercially operating nuclear reactors in the United States, as well as operating reactors in Argentina, Canada, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, and South Africa. Within INPO’s Emergency Management department, he serves as the senior emergency management evaluator and is responsible for the oversight and readiness of the Industry Response Center (IRC). The IRC is activated following a nuclear emergency to coordinate worldwide industry support to the affected operator. Through his combined experience in licensed operations, industry performance evaluation, and emergency preparedness, he promotes excellence in radiological emergency preparedness and fire protection at nuclear utilities worldwide.
Prior to joining INPO, Mr. Brunson served as a licensed Senior Reactor Operator (SRO) at Southern Nuclear Operating Company’s Hatch Nuclear Plant. In this role, he was responsible for the safe operation of the units and for leading on‑shift response to abnormal and emergency conditions. His duties included serving as Shift Technical Advisor and Fire Brigade Leader, as well as supporting outage operations as an Outage Work Release Supervisor and Clearance and Tagging Official. His licensed operations experience provided direct responsibility for crew leadership, operational decision‑making under challenging conditions, and execution of emergency response actions to protect plant and public safety.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Brunson held engineering and emergency preparedness positions at Duke Energy, supporting nuclear operations through roles in regulatory affairs, system and design engineering, and emergency preparedness. His responsibilities included interface and correspondence with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and site NRC resident inspector, operability determinations, licensing and compliance updates, system engineering support, emergency preparedness rulemaking implementation, and emergency response organization planning. He also supported fleet‑wide initiatives involving emergency management standardization, regulatory compliance, and coordination with off‑site response organizations, contributing to improved readiness and consistency across multiple nuclear sites.
Mr. Brunson holds a Bachelor of Science in Biosystem Engineering (2002) and a Master of Science in Bioengineering (2005) from Clemson University.
