• Born in Imperial, Nebraska.

• Married to Kati for 27 years and has two sons, R.J. and Justin. He also has a granddaughter, Kelly, and a grandson, Tate.

• Describes himself as safe, conscientious, loyal, fair and tenacious. His co-workers would describe him as safe and hard-working.

• His favorite boss was Steve Rex, a lineman and foreman who worked at CSU for 20 years. During the eight years that he worked with Steve, he learned a new lesson every day.

• Enjoys raising and showing Maine Anjou show cattle. He also likes to tool leather.

Early Years

I have worked in the utility industry for 22 years. I am the first person in my family to work as a lineman. My friend Wayne Wells told me he had the best job in the world and that I needed to try it. He was definitely right. It has been very rewarding. My first job working for a utility was hand-digging holes as a groundsman. I am now working as a crew supervisor for the Northern District.

Day in the Life

My day starts at around 4 a.m. I report to work at about 6:30 a.m. and work until 5 p.m. In addition to working our regular hours, we're on a 24/7 call-out, and we get called in about twice a month. We're also on crew standby one weekend a month. I manage a crew of about four to 10 line technicians, and I'm responsible for keeping them safe. Right now, my crew is working on 600-A feeder lines to upgrade our system.

Training Apprentices

For the last 17 years, I've helped with on-the-job training. It's rewarding to see the apprentices progress from knowing very little to becoming full-fledged journeymen linemen. I teach them how to put pipe in and terminate wire on the underground system. They also learn how to install and maintain the different switches that we have in underground and overhead transformers.

Challenges and Rewards

One of the biggest challenges today is finding apprentices who truly want to be linemen, rather than just wanting to do it for the money. To help with the skilled labor shortage, our utility partnered with a college to put in a line school in Colorado Springs. We just finished our second class in June, and our third class starts in August. Six retired Colorado Springs Utilities retired linemen help to teach the classes.

Another obstacle is supplying customers with reliable power. We are constantly upgrading our generation and trying to build up our system so our power is more reliable.

Safety Lesson

I learned the importance of safety back in 1992. A 15-year veteran lineman accidentally backfed a transformer, and I had the high-side jumper in my hand with my leather gloves on. I took a shock of 7,200 V, and I went to the hospital, but I ended up not having any major injuries. I learned that accidents can happen to anyone, everyone needs to be more cautious and that training the line technicians is of the utmost importance. The reason why I'm still here with all my fingers and toes is because I keep grounds clean and have good working practices. I want to pass on these safe work practices to my crew so everyone can go home to their families at the end of the day.

Storm Moment

One experience I will never forget is when an apprentice was hooking up a house service on a ladder, and he, the ladder and everything else fell in the hot tub below. That happened in 2006 in Hutchinson, Kansas, after an ice storm. Our crew went to help out. No one was hurt, but the whole event was humorous.

Working Hot

I'll never forget when I was an apprentice and my lineman at that time took me up in the bucket and told me to reach out and touch the hot phase. I looked at him at told him, “I thought that is what you told me to never do.” Now we do hot work daily. We wear rubber gloves and use insulated buckets, line hose and rubber blankets. We're customer-oriented at my company, and we like to keep the power on. If there is a safety reason as to why we can't work hot, however, then we can take out a customer with no questions asked.