Mr. Walt Reil
Senior Business Analyst for Pacific Gas & Electric Company
Past President of the Central Coast Astronomical Society,
NASA / Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar System Ambassador
Walt was born in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, and grew up traveling the world with his family, his father was an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He spent his high school years in the tiny logging, fishing and tourist coastal community of Waldport, Oregon, and the large capital city of Ankara, Turkey. In 1976 he graduated from Oregon State University with a BS degree in Construction Engineering Management. Since that point in time, he has spent the past 35 years in nuclear power plant construction and operation, including the past 25 years with Pacific Gas and Electric Company at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Working in PG&E's Business Finance organization, his area of concentration at Diablo Canyon is financial budgeting and cost reporting and plant operational performance reporting.
He has been happily married to his wife Julie for 37 years. During their early years together, they both worked for Bechtel Power Corporation in San Francisco, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and Elk Grove, California. While working for six years on the construction of the Limerick Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania, they owned a 26-foot Pearson sailboat, enjoying the sailing life on the Chesapeake Bay. In 1986 they moved to Atascadero, California, where Walt started work for PG&E at Diablo Canyon.
Having two girls, his oldest daughter, Wendy, is a 2009 graduate of California State University Fullerton, married in 2010 and is involved in professional videography, as well as being a silversmith jeweler and a volunteer support member of the California Marine Mammal Center rescue organization based in Sausalito, California. His youngest daughter, Robin, graduated summa cum laude from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California, in 2010 in Physics and is now pursuing her masters degree in Aerospace Engineering at Cal Poly. During the summer of 2009 she supported Cal Poly neutrino research located at the Gran Sasso National Particle Physics Laboratory a mile underground in Assergi, Italy. During the summer of 2010 she worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on a team that was developing a new CubeSat project.
Walt has been very active in supporting performing arts and STEM education over the past 20 years in Atascadero, as well as around San Luis Obispo County. It all started when his daughters were in elementary school. At that time, becoming a member of the Math, Science and Technology Foundation of Atascadero, in the early 1990's he designed, chaired and directed a team of community volunteers in installing a complete classroom hands-on science laboratory at the Monterey Road Elementary School, including the purchase of all lab furniture and equipment. In 2001 he received the Atascadero Unified School District's highest recognition for community support of public education, receiving the Phi Delta Kappa Lay Citizen of the Year award. Later he became President of the Central Coast Astronomical Society, a member of the Discovery Institute of San Luis Obispo and board member of the Endeavour Institute and is a support member for the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education's P-16 STEM Education Steering Committee. Over the past seven years he has been a representative for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a volunteer JPL Solar System Ambassador, taking the wonders of astronomy, space exploration and superior STEM education to the public in the form of free, digital, multimedia presentations, which he still performs for schools and community organizations upon request. Since 2009 he has been the webmaster for the Central Coast Climate Science Education website.
Walt became a member of the Endeavour Institute to help foster and bolster STEM education opportunities and activities for children of the Central Coast from Paso Robles to Lompoc. He is a strong promoter and supporter of STEM education outreach. Knowing that America's system of public education, especially STEM education, is in a very serious state of decline, he feels that the Endeavour Institute's mission is vital to our children's and our nation's future progress, prosperity and security.
STEM education is a critical key to America's future, providing the very bedrock foundation of our nation's economic stability, progress, standard of living, and national security. We must provide a premier education, the finest on Earth, for our children, our nation's "Most Valuable Natural Resource".
