Danny Schlief
Senior Methods and Training Specialist
Klondike, a Georgia Power company
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Growing up, Danny Schilef always knew he wanted to find a career that would let him work outdoors. As a youngster with a big hunting and fishing background, Schlief started looking around for outdoor work just out of high school in the early 1980s. His friend's father worked for the local utility at the time, and through him Schlief found out about openings on the generation side of that utility.

Schlief spent only about three months in the generation department before he saw internal postings about openings in the line crews. “I was young and ready to go to work, and this was outside work,” Schlief recalls. “I didn't know a lot about it, but it sure looked like something I might enjoy.”

Today, Schlief reports that his post-high school instincts were right, and that he has enjoyed the variety and challenge of electric utility line work for more than 20 years. He started as a helper, then obtained a heavy-equipment operator's license. He spent 18 months as an apprentice lineman in the late 1980s, became a journeyman lineman in 1991 and served as one until 1998, all with Georgia Power in the suburban Atlanta area. In 1998, he moved up to distribution supervisor and held that role until 2003, at which time he moved into Georgia Power's training department, where he is now a senior methods and training specialist.

Schlief's experience both on the line and as a trainer has given him an interesting perspective on the past and future directions of utility line work.

“When I first hired on, we had what we referred to as a bull gang,” Schlief recalls. “It was a large number of people, probably six or seven on the crew, and they did all the major large jobs, overhead conductors and big lines. You also had the smaller two- and three-man crews that did the service-type work. Probably today the largest would be [a] four-man crew. Coming up when I did, the other difference was you just knew it was labor intensive, a real physical job. That was and probably continues to be the most underestimated part of it. We have some great equipment, but it is still a very physical job that takes its toll on the body.

“We are now going through what every other company is going through,” Schlief continues, “and that is the aging workforce. We have our baby boomers exiting, and we have our younger generation now who we are in the process of training in. We went from the generation where people came up working outdoors, on the farms, and having some expectations as to what hard work was, to today, where we have what I call the Nintendo Age. These are our future linemen, and first we have to teach them how to work and then we can teach them about line work.”

Schlief counters that by saying one subsegment of younger linemen tends to impress him with both their work ethic and dedication to the job: those who come from a family with someone already in electric line work. “We have a lot of families that carry on from generation to generation,” he says. “Being in the training department, it is kind of interesting to watch the ‘prodigies.’ You can tell the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. We are seeing a lot of third- and fourth-generation apprentices, and I often think, he must have had a line built in his backyard. I've even had one guy come in and I realized I had coached him, years ago, in pee-wee football. In some cases I have actually supervised their fathers. As I said to another trainer the other day, ‘We must be getting old!’”

Among Schlief's most memorable work experiences have been storm-restoration work on hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, Katrina and Ivan. Hurricane Hugo in 1989 in South Carolina sticks in Schlief's mind because it was his first major storm work. Hurricane Katrina recovery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, remains etched in his mind due to the scale of destruction.

No matter the destruction, Schlief says storm-restoration work provides incredible rewards. “It is amazing how well customers treat you,” he says. “Getting the electrical service back up is the most important thing on their minds. They are always grilling food for you out on the block, making sure you have enough to eat. Going on storm restoration is good money, but even more than that, it is about helping others.”

Rarely, Schlief points out, do you hear about major accidents or incidents during storm restoration. “You raise your guard to the very best when situations are the hardest,” he explains. “Very rarely do we ever get anyone hurt on storm restoration, because you are looking for everything all day long”

Schlief adds that safety has always been a top priority at Georgia Power, one that only continues to strengthen over time. “We've shifted over the past few years to focus on individual safety,” he notes. “Day to day we ask, ‘How is your safety today?’ We have always had a monthly safety meeting, but now each day and each week we have safety planning or job safety briefings.”

Schlief loves his current senior training specialist role. “I have the best job,” he says. “It has enough outdoor setting, in addition to some indoors. We structure our classes so we do half a day of fieldwork. It makes it so much more educational. You have to do things out in the field in order to demonstrate what we want the apprentices to do out there. We also spend a day or several days with the crew at the job site, helping them learn.”

As to what it takes to be a good lineman, Schlief says the main criterion is that a person must “know this is what they really want to do.” The person who knows this and sets their mind to it, he says, will garner tremendous satisfaction. “No matter what crew you are on, you can always look back and see what you've accomplished.”

Schlief closes with a couple of favorite moments from his past 20-plus years in line work. “In 1998, we won the International Lineman's Rodeo in Kansas City,” he says. “Once you get past the prime age of being able to play softball, you want some outlet to compete. I climbed in the rodeo and was also on the ground for our team.

“Then there was when Hurricane Danny came into Mobile,” he says. “It was kind of a flop for a hurricane, but it was neat getting a shirt from that storm crew with my name — Hurricane Danny — on it!”

Art Samaron
Barehand Crew Foreman
Systems Construction
Xcel Energy
Amarillo, Texas, U.S.

Art Samaron built his life on the line from the ground up more than 20 years ago, in the small town of Earth, Texas, just outside Amarillo. Samaron joined the utility just out of high school, signing on as a groundman, pole tester and contract employee of what was then Southwest Public Service.

“Back then, the linemen always climbed a lot,” Samaron recalls. “I used to look down the line and it was the most fascinating thing to me, maybe 15 linemen strung out on the poles. I just thought it was the coolest thing, and I knew I wanted to get into it then.”

Samaron, though, remained on the ground for the next five and a half years, at which point he was laid off in a cost-cutting measure. He went to Red River, New Mexico, where he worked as a cook for about a year before he got a call to come back to the utility, this time to train as a lineman. Four years of training later, Samaron was where he wanted to be: high above, stringing electric transmission lines.

“I'm in transmission, so our daily work involves stringing new line,” Samaron notes. He does double-duty as foreman of a barehanding crew, a group of four that does all the barehand work for a large territory stretching from western Kansas through Carlsbad in southeastern New Mexico. Based out of Amarillo, Samaron lives much of his life on the road. “If we are at home four or five months out of the year, we have had a good year,” he says.

Among his more memorable road experiences is the restoration of lines brought down by storms or other disasters. In the Texas panhandle last year, for instance, drought conditions and the resulting wildfires took out scores of both transmission and distribution lines. “It was crazy,” Samaron comments. “We were up fixing lines and you could still see farms burning. We worked 28 days straight, long hours day and night, to get power restored.”

Hard work is nothing new to Samaron, who grew up in a family of 15. He has seven sisters and seven brothers, with two of his brothers also in the electrical field. They are both journeyman inside-distribution linemen.

Of the toll electrical line work can take on one's own family, Samaron says things have gotten better in recent years with the proliferation of cell phones. “Make no mistake about it, we do dangerous work,” Samaron notes. “Before the cell phone, my wife used to have to wait for my call from the hotel room every night. You just hope you make it back home every day.”

Safety training and procedures have also improved over the years, Samaron adds. “Today, safety is our main concern,” he says. “But when I hired on, you did not hear that much about safety. If you climbed a 100-ft pole [then], you didn't safety off, you free-styled all the way up. Now you safety sling around the pole and never remove it.”

Other changes Samaron has seen include better equipment, such as more bucket trucks that can reach higher lines. One result, he says, is that utilities have moved to smaller crew sizes. “When I first hired on, we had 40 or 50 men here in construction services, and now it is down to 24,” he notes. “We do the same amount of work and cover the same territory, but with the newer equipment, the work is different.”

Different or not, Samaron says that he is a lineman for life. “I have never regretted this [job],” he says. “There is nothing more demanding than being a lineman. It is a challenge beyond all challenges. But the rewards are there every day when you accomplish something and can go back home to your family. We are one huge family here on our crews, and that is a good feeling, too. Now that I am little older, I enjoy instructing the newer, younger guys on how to do this. I am happy where I am, and I intend to finish my career as a barehand foreman.

“Once a lineman,” Samaron says, “always a lineman.”