John Raymont, founder, president and CEO, Kurion Inc.

John Raymont, founder, president and CEO, Kurion Inc.

WINNER – Business Services
John Raymont
founder, president and CEO
Kurion Inc.
As the CEO of a six-person start-up, John Raymont accepted the challenge in April 2011 to clean tens of millions of gallons of radioactive water at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station that was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami.
It was a race against time — the rainy season was only weeks away, and Kurion Inc., a nuclear waste management company, was attempting to build the first ever external water-cooling system for a nuclear reactor before the plant flooded and heightened the catastrophe.
Under Raymont’s leadership as president and CEO, Kurion designed and built the cooling system in just eight weeks amid a crisis that caused almost daily changes to specifications.
Over the next seven months, it eliminated about 70 percent of the 12 million curies of radioactive cesium from wastewater removed from the site, helping to stabilize the plant and protect the environment.
This situation exemplifies why Raymont founded Kurion in 2008.
Through his leadership, Kurion developed a two-step waste management platform that is less expensive, modular and scalable to meet the distinct needs of nuclear plants and government waste sites.
The first phase acts like a series of sophisticated water filters that filters waste and segregates it for disposal.
The second phase uses externally applied inductive energy to bond the waste into glass inside the final disposal canister, immobilizing the radioactive elements.
Raymont’s mission is to find a solution to the 200 million gallons of nuclear waste worldwide.
Through his entrepreneurial spirit and innovative approach to an industry that is historically slow-moving, he seeks to provide a legacy for his children and grandchildren that delivers the environmental promise of clean, safe and secure nuclear power.
HOW TO REACH: Kurion Inc., www.kurion.com