Insights > Meet the pros: Ashleigh Lyons

Meet the pros: Ashleigh Lyons

01/08/2024

Ashleigh Lyons, an Entergy Nuclear project controls specialist
Ashleigh Lyons, an Entergy Nuclear project controls specialist

Meet Ashleigh Lyons, a project controls specialist based out of Echelon, Entergy Nuclear’s headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi, and the chairperson of her office building’s Veterans Employee Resource Group.

Lyons and her team monitor fleet spending and analyze financial forecasts to ensure they are correctly projected, saving our customers’ dollars.

Lyons began working at nuclear headquarters in January 2023. In 2018, she started a position at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station. She began her career in nuclear in 2014 working with Duke Energy and earned her bio-textile engineering degree at North Carolina State University.

Lyons was born in Melbourne, Florida, where her father was based in the U.S. Air Force. When he retired from the military, she moved to the coast of North Carolina at age four. Lyons has always had strong ties to the military due to her close connections with family and friends who are members or Veterans. She says being the chair for the Echelon VERG comes naturally to her.

“My work ethic is from my father and my grandfather’s military backgrounds,” said Lyons. “My first job was selling tickets for people to tour a battleship. I learned to earn my worth, be honest and work hard through my military connections.”

Recently, Lyons attended and helped plan a flag ceremony in New Orleans before a Saints game for Entergy Veterans.

“I want Veterans to know they’re recognized and appreciated, whether it’s through a lapel pin at Echelon or a flag ceremony at the Superdome,” she said. “When we walked from the tunnel onto the field for the flag ceremony, the looks on their faces were priceless. It’s so important to support and appreciate our military members not only overseas, but also when they come back home.”

For Lyons, the appreciation and gratefulness of active members and Veterans of the military makes her volunteerism worth the hard work.

“We take what we have for granted so easily,” she said. “I received a handwritten thank you letter from one of the soldiers we sent care packages to with board games. She said she could play the games with her family on FaceTime. It meant so much to me.”

Lyons attended the National American Young Generation in Nuclear conference this year, where she represented the fleet for the Best Chapter in Professional Development Award and was also awarded one of the yearly excellence awards. Shortly after the conference, Lyons was elected as the professional development chair of the Echelon chapter and is being nominated again for awards for work done in 2023.

“It was such an eye-opening experience to be recognized for volunteering that I would do whether I was recognized or not,” she said. “Giving back to my community is so important to me, whether it is for children or Veterans or the whole community. At the end of the day, it’s about who you impact that matters the most.”

Outside of work, she enjoys fishing. Saltwater fishing in south Louisiana is her favorite, and she has made some very impressive catches, such as a redfish that was 44 inches long and a snook that was 43 inches long and an impressive 45 pounds that was caught in Stuart, Florida.

Learn more about Entergy Nuclear by visiting entergy-nuclear.com and follow @EntergyNuclear on X/Twitter.