PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NuScale Power, LLC announced today that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors elected John L. Hopkins, president and CEO of NuScale Power, LLC, as its vice chairman. Hopkins succeeds Michael Ducker, president and CEO of FedEx Freight, and will serve a one-year term.

In 2012, Hopkins was named chief executive officer of NuScale Power, headquartered in Portland, Ore. In this role, Hopkins is responsible for leading NuScale efforts to design, license and bring to market game-changing technology for economic, scalable carbon-free nuclear technology with unprecedented safety attributes.

“John has done a great job of promoting international trade and helping open up new global markets for companies and investors,” said Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber. “He has a deep understanding of two of our most pressing issues—energy and infrastructure—and we look forward to his leadership and expertise as we work to spur stronger economic growth and create jobs and opportunities for Americans.”

Prior to joining NuScale Power, Hopkins held several executive positions in his 24 years of service with Fluor Corporation, a Fortune 500 international engineering and construction company.

While at Fluor, Hopkins served as group president of the company’s Corporate Development and new Ventures Group, led Fluor’s Corporate Sales Board, headed Fluor’s Government Group, served as group president of Fluor Global Services, and led the company’s global Operations and Maintenance business unit. In these various capacities, Hopkins was responsible for Fluor’s strategic planning and global sales and marketing, spearheaded account management activities as well as new ventures and emerging markets opportunities, and was engaged in corporate finance, government relations, and corporate affairs.

Hopkins’ international experience also includes having served as the senior executive member of both the Fluor Netherlands and the Fluor United Kingdom board of directors, as chairman of the board for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, and as a director of the Business Council for International Understanding.

Hopkins is a member of the executive board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Nuclear Energy Institute board of directors, and senior policy adviser of I Squared Capital.

About NuScale Power, LLC

NuScale Power, LLC is developing a new kind of nuclear plant; a safer, smaller, scalable version of pressurized water reactor technology, designed with natural safety features. Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR), a global engineering, procurement and construction company with a 60-year history in commercial nuclear power, is the majority investor in NuScale. As the sole winner of the second round of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) competitively-bid, cost-sharing program to develop nuclear small modular reactor (SMR) technology, NuScale’s design offers the benefits of carbon-free nuclear power but takes away the issues presented by the cost of installing large capacity. A nuclear power plant using NuScale’s technology is comprised of individual NuScale Power Modules™, each producing 50 megawatts of electricity (gross) with its own factory-built combined containment vessel and reactor vessel, and its own packaged turbine-generator set. A power plant can include as many as 12 NuScale Power Modules to produce as much as 600 MWe, gross (570 net, nominal, after house loads). The reactor coolant is driven by natural circulation and can be shut down safely with no operator action, no AC or DC power, and no external water. NuScale power plants are scalable - additional modules are added as customer demand for electricity increases. NuScale’s technology also is ideally suited to supply energy for district heating, desalination and other applications. NuScale is headquartered in Portland, Oregon and has offices in Corvallis, OR; Rockville, MD; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; and Chattanooga, TN.