Radiological Sciences Alumni Build Company Rooted in UML Experience

For Eric Darois ’75, ’84, a vision took root during his days studying radiological sciences at UMass Lowell. He wanted to build a company to support users of radiation and radioactive material. It would be called Radiation Safety and Control Services, RSCS for short — a name inspired by one of his mentors on campus.

“One of the key two-semester classes in the radiological sciences program was RS 401/402, Radiation Safety and Control. When I took this class, it was taught by Prof. Ken Skrable, who was inspiring, energetic and passionate about the subject matter,” Darois says. “So, I added the word ‘Services’ to the end of the course name because of Ken’s influence on me, and that became our company name.”

Darois was confident that he would eventually reach his goal of launching the company. “I always believed it would happen,” he says.

However, like most dreams, it took a while before it would come to pass. By the late ‘80s, Darois was working at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire. Alongside him in the company’s radiation safety department were two other alumni of UML’s radiological sciences program, Fred Straccia ’77 and James (“Jay”) Tarzia ’84, ’87. Darois’ RSCS dream quickly became a regular topic of conversation among them. Over time, Straccia and Tarzia bought in. 

The three men continued at their Seabrook jobs, often working nights and weekends in their basements to lay the groundwork needed to start their own firm. RSCS officially launched in 1989, with radon testing and mitigation services as the early staples of its business.

Their first big break came in 1992; a supervisor at Seabrook put the men in touch with a small radiation-calibration company he knew. Not long after, RSCS was able to purchase the company and expand its business from that base. The pace of things picked up. By late ’92, the company had rented its first office space, in Stratham, N.H., and placed ads in the local Yellow Pages for radon testing, “with offices in three states.” (“Between the three of us, we had homes in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire, so we figured that qualified,” Darois says.) Soon after, the men began teaching classes in radiation safety to clients. They continued working full time at the Seabrook power plant while family members worked part time at the new Stratham office. 

“We didn’t know how hard we were working,” Darois says. “We never slowed down long enough to notice. But we liked what we were doing—we liked it then, we like it now. So it never really felt like work.”

Straccia was the first to cut loose from Seabrook, in 1996. “It was a big leap for him,” Darois recalls. “But he was the only one of us who didn’t have kids.”

Tarzia left a year later, and Darois followed a few months after that. By then, the company had landed a major client: Connecticut Yankee was decommissioning its nuclear operations in Haddam, Conn., and hired RSCS to shepherd it through the process.

Darois remembers the call he got from Tarzia: “He said, ‘You gotta leave. You gotta come help me. There’s a lot of work here.’ 

“It wasn’t great timing. We had just had a fire at our house and were living in a trailer [during the repairs]. So my wife wasn’t thrilled, to say the least. But in the end, it was a joint decision.”

For the next several years, the men lived three days a week in a bed-and-breakfast in Connecticut, working long hours on the nuclear giant’s decommissioning.  The shutdown, and RSCS’ role in it, would last most of the next 10 years.

As the company grew, a natural division of labor evolved. Straccia was responsible for most of the work involving radiation measurement, while Tarzia oversaw the administrative end of things. Darois’ specialty was — and remains — the “more technical stuff,” such as decommissioning cost estimates and other complex calculations. “But all of us are knowledgeable about each of those areas. We’re all health physicists [radiation-protection experts],” he says.

A year past the 30th anniversary of its founding, RSCS is now a thriving, multifaceted company with more than 200 employees. Based in Seabrook, N.H., it has established itself as a leader in nuclear decommissioning, environmental monitoring and regulatory compliance.  While roughly 60 percent of the company’s work is derived from the decommissioning of power plants, the firm provides consulting services to other major clients with nuclear components — Boston University and the U.S. Naval Center among them, according to Darois. In addition, the company continues to offer courses in radiation detection, measurement and protection to nuclear-dependent clients.

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there are 96 nuclear power plants licensed to operate in the U.S. All will eventually need to be decommissioned, suggesting that there is probably no near-term end in sight for the demand for RSCS’s services — a subject on which Darois has mixed views.

Ultimately, he says, because green-energy companies — like those focused on solar, wind and hydro—get the bulk of government subsidies, it’s challenging for the nuclear industry to compete in the wholesale electricity market in several regions of the country. “They get the subsidies, so they set the standards,” Darois says. “It’s an unfair system, but it’s the way it is. And given what we do here for a living, it’s a little hard to complain.”

Meanwhile, the UML-RSCS connection continues to thrive — most recently in the person of Roberto Ciardi, an international student from Empoli, Italy, who is currently an intern at the company. Ciardi is working with scientists at RSCS and at UMass Lowell to complete his master’s thesis, which involves researching new technology for data collection and the automation of advanced radiation detectors. Upon completing his thesis, he will receive his master’s degree in embedded software systems from the Sant’Anna School of Pisa in collaboration with the University of Pisa.

Ciardi is not the only beneficiary of RSCS’s legacy of engagement with UML. Over the past 10 years, the company has supported the university through equipment donations, thesis-research assistance and a number of internship programs, several of which have led to career beginnings for UML graduates. There are currently 16 UML alumni, from 25 to 68 years old, employed at RSCS.

Darois, who credits the university with endowing him with “a passion for our profession” and “an excellent blend of theoretical and practical problem-solving skills,” sees UML as a critical reservoir for future talent, and for the nuclear industry itself.

“As the average age of the nuclear workforce now exceeds 50 years old, we need to be cultivating young professionals to ensure the continued viability of nuclear power as a clean energy source,” he says.

As a means to that end, the company, as of last December, had contributed $20,000 toward an endowment that will establish a perpetual scholarship fund for students in the university’s Radiological Sciences program.

“We are fortunate to have alumni like Jay, Fred and Eric who understand the critical importance of developing talent,” says Kennedy College Dean Noureddine Melikechi. “They are taking a leadership role in building the pipeline for future professionals in the field.”