 Every Army needs frontline troops, and the NRC's essential foot soldiers are its on-site inspectors, also known as resident inspectors. We frequently describe them as the eyes and ears of the NRC, and with good reason. Each US nuclear power plant has at least two such resident inspectors. Multi-reactor sites would have more inspectors, and their work is at the core of the NRC's power reactor inspection program. They come from a variety of backgrounds. Some served in the US nuclear navy prior to joining the NRC. Others worked in the nuclear industry, and still others are recruited directly out of college. Most come to the agency with engineering and science degrees. Regardless of where they worked previously, prospective resident inspectors must undergo an extensive and rigorous training program designed to ensure they have the proper knowledge and skills to carry out their duties. Before they head out into the field, prospective inspectors must demonstrate their abilities via testing. The exam is administered by an inspector qualification board, which consists of at least three members, and evaluates how well an individual can integrate and apply inspector competencies to field situations. A resident inspector's training does not come to an end once he or she is determined to be fully qualified. All inspectors are required to complete at least annual refresher training to maintain a high level of performance. A typical day for an NRC resident inspector on site includes coming in and reviewing operations logs, engineering logs, observing operations performance of tests and evaluations. We also do extensive reviews on risk-significant systems that are important to site safety. The on-site inspectors will come in at all hours in the day, on top of being available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for emergency response. We will typically come in to observe activities performed on back-shift hours overnight and in early morning hours. We observe work activities and testing of plant equipment to ensure that the licensee is meeting their requirements as they relate to the federal regulations. The resident inspector program is not new. Indeed, it has been in place for decades. It was launched in 1978 prior to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island to improve the NRC's inspection program. The goal was to do so by providing increased knowledge of conditions at plants, improved ability to independently verify the performance of plant personnel, and improved incident response capability. Resident inspectors live in the communities around the plants they help oversee. But in order to help maintain inspectors' objectivity, there are restrictions on their interactions with plant personnel. The first thing that we do to ensure objectivity of our inspectors is we impose a seven-year limit on the amount of time that they can be assigned to a particular plant. This is to ensure that they don't become too comfortable, too familiar, if you will, with the procedures and the processes that the licensees conduct on a daily basis. To ensure that they maintain a questioning attitude about those activities that they're inspecting and observing day to day. The second thing that we do is we ask that our inspectors maintain a professionally distant relationship from the licensee's employees. There should not be any appearance of collusion, any appearance of conflict of interest. They should not be in bowling leagues, for example, with people that they regulate. The third thing is that we try to restrict the inspection activity to those issues or areas or plants that they were not previously affiliated with when they were working directly for the industry. This maintains a certain amount of objectivity and prevents the appearance of lack of objectivity with our inspections. All told, the agency has about 150 resident inspectors, including some who are based at nuclear fuel production facilities. More information about the NRC's React Riverside process and its resident inspector program is available on the agency's website at www.nrc.gov.