In the Spring of 1980, Rick Bradshaw was at a crossroads.
Studying chemistry as an undergraduate at the U, Bradshaw had delayed his graduation for a year to help care for his dying father; now that he had passed, it was time to consider his next steps.
Bradshaw had originally considered going on to medical school and was working as a blood gas technician at the VA Hospital while studying. The experience, however, was not entirely what he expected. Bradshaw liked the precision of the lab work, but found the clinical context to be demoralizing, observing surgeons’ egos on full display, clashing with the mission at hand.
Treading water, Bradshaw found another lab job doing synthetic organic chemistry, but he began to wonder if the academic track wasn’t for him either. Looking for direction and a way to apply his chemistry skills, he made a fateful stop at the College of Engineering.
An administrator, looking for someone to answer Bradshaw’s questions, grabbed the nearest professor at hand. It was David Pershing, who would go on to serve as Dean of the College of Engineering and President of the University.
“We made a connection in ten minutes,” says Bradshaw, “and then proceeded to talk for the next three hours.”
Bradshaw immediately made it his mission to join the graduate program in Chemical Engineering.
“I was searching, and Dave was emphatic and interested,” Bradshaw says. “It was a Friday afternoon when he asked me to come work for him, supporting graduate research. On Monday, all of his graduate students welcomed me with open arms. I fit right in.”
Bradshaw is now President of High Bridge Associates, a company focused on project management and control systems in the nuclear sector. Their work entails long, complicated projects, including maintaining and upgrading the security systems on nuclear weapons, all while operating under the stringent requirements set forth by the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“There are no slackers,” Bradshaw says. “Everyone believes in the mission and are devoted, honest, sincere, hard-working people almost without exception.”
Bradshaw’s first post in the field was as a civilian for the US Navy at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, earning board certification as a Shift Test Engineer, the individual in charge of the engine room and reactor plant during overhauls on nuclear submarines. Afterwards, he worked on the design and construction of commercial nuclear power plants, and later, on nuclear waste remediation and storage efforts.
Bradshaw joined High Bridge Associates in 2009 to help develop and implement the project management system for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in southern France, a 500-Megawatt fusion reactor currently under construction. The company’s project management systems also form the foundation from which all nuclear weapons programs adhere to today.
He credits those years spent working with Pershing for the discipline necessary to work in such high-risk environments. But Bradshaw’s risk-tolerance isn’t just found in his professional life; he’s been an avid rock climber for more than 50 years. He has used climbing as an excuse to travel taking him to exotic destinations around the world on both single pitch sport climbing and multi-day traditional climbing on big walls.
Climbing, especially big wall climbing, has a lot in common with big projects,” Bradshaw says. “If you get overwhelmed with the magnitude of the climb or the project, your anxiety is going to interfere with the overall mission. You can’t look at the wall and say, ‘oh, gosh, I haven’t made much progress. Instead, you have to look at it one step or task at a time while keeping the overall climb or project in mind.”
With interest in nuclear engineering rising alongside the need for alternative energy sources, Bradshaw thinks the time is right for prospective students to take on this journey.
“What’s important is to have a concept of where you ultimately want to go,” Bradshaw says. “It can change over time, but you should always have that mission in your mind so that as you move forward in life — when you come to a crossroads — you have a basis to make a decision. It’s going to push you more in that direction.”