February 9th, 2024: Today, U.S. Nuclear Industry Council (USNIC) announced new leadership for their Back-End Working Group. Rod Baltzer is the new Chair, succeeding Bret van den Akker and Jimmy Toliuszis as Vice-Chair.

Rodney (Rod) Baltzer is the Chief Operating Officer of Deep Isolation. Deep Isolation is a private company focused on the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste using directional drilling to secure waste deep underground safely. Rod is responsible for the company's areas, including waste management operations and interactions with communities, utilities, and government entities.

Rod has over 20 years of experience in leadership positions in the nuclear waste industry. He received a B.S. in Agricultural Economics and Accounting from Oklahoma State University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Jimmy Toliuszis Jimmy Toliuszis is a Project Manager at NAC International; he performed criticality and shielding analyses for storage and transport solutions. Jimmy performed a variety of tasks for the Site and Transportation Services group, where he participated in dozens of cask-loading Transportation Projects division, where he is responsible for leading NAC's transportation jobs, including bid evaluations and proposals, contract development, fabrication technical surveillance, cask fleet management, project budgeting, schedule management, and serves as the customer's primary point of contact. Jimmy has served with NAC for over a decade and has performed the roles of nuclear engineer and project engineer.

As a nuclear engineer, he performed criticality and post-irradiation experiments (PIE) and other nuclear waste shipments; Jimmy has managed the design and licensing of Type B packages with the NRC and CNSC and the shielding analyses for both storage and transport solutions as well as developing in-house corporate programs and verification and validation for computer software.

As Project Engineer, Jimmy performed various tasks for the Site and Transportation Services group, where he participated in dozens of cask-loading operations within the U.S. and worldwide.

Jimmy has managed multiple projects simultaneously as a project manager, including loading and transport operations for the NNSA, DOE, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, INL, and various other organizations. Along with fuel, post-irradiation experiment (PIE), and other nuclear waste shipments, Jimmy has managed the design and licensing of Type B packages with the NRC and CNSC and designed high-level waste (HLW) on-site transfer systems.

Jimmy earned a bachelor's in nuclear and radiological engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Jimmy is an avid golfer, snowboarder, financial news reader, and science fiction reader.

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