Search
Insights > Hooked on Line Work
Hooked on Line Work
06/08/2016
I’m standing alongside veteran instructor Todd Wheat as he smiles with appreciation as an agile apprentice is already about 25 feet up a 35-foot utility pole. Other recruits are in various stages of the task--from examining their equipment to being five feet off the ground. The instructor and I are outside the designated pole-climbing training yard at Baseline Safety and Skills Training Center in Little Rock. The young man was busy kicking gaffs, metal pole-climbing spikes, into the pole and any observer could see his joy in discovering how well he took to a task most people outside the utility brotherhood would consider unnerving.
A brotherhood, it certainly is. From what I could tell, the kick-off of the 2016 Linemen’s Boot Camp inspired at least three leaders I’d worked with on various media stories to drive to Little Rock to check in on and observe their apprentices: Forrest City line supervisor Eddie Bosnick, Hot Springs senior lineman Steve Bleifus and Searcy line supervisor Scott Williams.
Back inside the main classroom, Ron Suhm, a senior training specialist with Entergy’s technical skills training division, is teaching a training module to seven other apprentices. Seven apprentices each are assigned to Team A and Team B, rotating days which group will be in the yard versus the classroom.
Safety is Priority Number One
In Ron’s classroom, as is the policy throughout Entergy, safety in all actions is a requirement and priority number one. Other class rules are designated by a handwritten poster:
- On time!
- No tobacco in here
- Clean up
- Respect
- Brothers’ Keeper
- 5 Key Smith Driving rules: A-aim high in steering, G-get the big picture, K-keep your eyes moving, L-leave yourself an out and M-make sure they see you
- Have Fun!
“We’re not a democracy but we’re always open for a good idea,” Ron directed at me, friendly but firm, when Team B members assured me that their team identification didn’t reflect a letter grade. I may have taken some liberties with Ron’s rule number seven, volunteering during the class a Survivor reality-show solution for the teams to choose their own names.
Inspired Managers Supporting Employee Growth
Ron’s managing all aspects of boot camp for the first time. Last year, Ron’s leadership team encouraged him to step up and be the lead instructor for the 2016 boot camp. Dennis Weaver, the Arkansas and Mississippi training supervisor, and Ron traveled outside of Arkansas for professional development classes and later advocated for representatives from the Association for Talent Development to deliver a Train-the-Trainer class for the entire department, with each trainer receiving a certificate of completion.
Since that time, all new trainers have attended the ATD Trainer Certificate Course at various locations around the U.S. “I traveled to the Power House, Entergy’s facility in Jackson, and came back with specific tactics I could utilize to help me grow as a trainer as well as become a better leader in the classroom,” said Ron.
John Morehead manages the trainers for all Entergy operating companies. While Arkansas’ trainers demonstrated employee practices of ownership and effective teamwork, John recognizes a motivated, well-trained employee is a productive employee. He warns about falling into “a comfort zone where individuals teach the things or groups they are most comfortable with” and sees the value in providing trainers with career growth opportunities that champion collaborative exercises and group discussions.
Ron informed the 14 recruits and their guest instructors ahead of my first visit, introduced me during the second week and invited me to drop by any time.
With all of the new information flooding in and tough, physical exercises to master, entertaining questions from the “public relations lady” was the last thing on their minds. They were polite even though most of them surely could commiserate with the first-week description from one proud mother whose son “came home walking like a bowlegged cowboy with his calves bleeding from climbing.”
But, I wanted to go beyond “yes ma’ams” and was fortunate to visit three times during the 12-week course. I sat in during Ron’s module training, witnessed serious faces during testing, observed and spoke with guest instructors and coach observers in the outdoor training area, shared a lunch of deli sandwiches and potato chips with the class, and spoke with seven apprentices, with Ron’s permission, for an extended private visit as well as several one-on-one talks as the weeks progressed.
In lineman’s terms, I met the apprentices before they earned their nicknames, when they were first getting used to climbing poles and maneuvering a fall protection device called a SuperSqueeze and came to know some later as Peaches, One Shot, Tape Worm and Joker.
One apprentice likened the atmosphere of boot camp to what it’s like to be the new guy on a football team: “You don’t go in telling people what to do. You listen and get your assigned job done, that way you can earn their respect.”
A Boot Camp of Firsts
In addition to being Ron’s first boot camp, this year’s class is unique on several fronts: 14 apprentices, from two generations, representing four of our five regions. Collectively, the class may be Entergy Arkansas’ most diverse yet. Consider their career and family backgrounds: a master electrician who remained optimistic and persistent in his pursuit to work for Entergy, an oil field worker, a state prison guard, a bartender, an entrepreneur, a state trooper, an Accu-Read employee who decided to switch from removing single phase meters under load to embodying a customer’s hero, a teenager from a legacy lineman family and a son of a chief clerk from West Markham Service Center.
About communicating with apprentices across generations, journeyman lineman John Wilkins from Batesville says trainers need to be creative.
“It’s different the way you talk with them--,” John says as he keeps his eyes focused on Team A apprentices tackling a scenario he’s assigned them in the training yard. John’s one of several boot camp coach observers who will provide counsel during the 12-week course. And, he’s a media pro. He was featured in The Weather Channel’s docu-series “Lights Out” about Entergy Arkansas linemen.
He glances back at me. “…and how they talk to you!”
I nod encouragingly to hear more about these helpers who are being trained and prepared for the mental, physical and emotional challenges of putting their lives on the line.
“Yeah, send that to me,” says an apprentice.
“Send that insulator,” John coaches.
Brothers’ Keeper
John says boot camp prepares the employees with knowledge and skills through scenarios in which apprentices must learn how to communicate clearly and effectively with one another.
Apprentice Evan Fraser, the master electrician in the class, is back on the ground and I catch up with him. He says from his experience in boot camp the instructors help apprentices to strengthen their ability to trust in themselves and in their crews.
“We’re learning how each of us has his own personality and if you see someone who’s normally outgoing get quiet you know to reach out: ‘Hey buddy, are you okay?’”
That peer check for pole buddies is just one of the ways apprentices and linemen keep a questioning mind. The brotherhood of linemen live by a creed to watch each other’s back and to make sure everyone goes home safely.
State troopers know a thing or two about hazards on the job. Just ask apprentice Zach Varnell who had earned a position on the highway patrol’s elite SWAT team. He describes discussing with his girlfriend his anguish over leaving a job he loved for Entergy and was deeply concerned, at the beginning of boot camp, about what he perceived as a loss of a position of honor and prestige. “I just don’t want to let that go,” he told me after class.
In a private group discussion during the second week of boot camp, seven apprentices discussed the notion that a lineman answers a noble call. “I’m learning about the utility brotherhood and I’m excited to learn more about that,” said Zach.
Keithan Williams from Hot Springs is the newest hire of the bunch and by Week Two had earned the name Joker. Along with his lighthearted demeanor, he can get real serious about what drew him to Entergy. He’s been with the utility since the end of February and extolls the utility’s strong support for craft workers through competitive salaries and pensions. “With a high school diploma you can earn a respectable living and provide for your family,” the 26-year-old said.
Boot camp exercises also teach apprentices how to delegate and how to work side-by-side their instructors. Remember, when they return to their service centers, senior linemen will continue their instruction. It’s on-the-job training every day for four years.
During one boot camp exercise in Week Nine, Keithan worked side-by-side coach-observer John from Batesville. There’s a new confidence in the energetic recruit who had earlier played a role delegating a job to another crew. A video posted on the utility’s Facebook page provides a snapshot of life inside the training yard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edHwwmbMJ6E&index=3&list=PL7MsY2EpXHRX65R2tmL5qI0KUjbx8Fn7d
The mentoring exercise? How to rig up a crossarm to be sent up a handline to the lineman on the pole: John instructs Keithan to get rid of the slack in the rope itself--specifically between the anchor tie-off points he is using to attach the handline.
Joe Frans, John’s supervisor in Batesville, calls himself founder “Harvey Couch’s third hire” and may be Entergy Arkansas’ original Joker. The 36-year Entergy veteran says he’s having “to order John a new hard hat, his head is outgrowing his old one,” after more than 4,000 people viewed John coaching the Millennial Joker.
Observations upon Graduation
Zach Varnell, now called Trooper by his colleagues, summed up what many of the 2016 apprentices shared in conversation over the last twelve weeks: in a connected world, if customers can’t power their homes and businesses, life stops. “I have the utmost respect for first responders,” said Zach, when he was recalling his life as a state trooper. “Most people who see state troopers just want to get on with their lives and see the lanes of traffic cleared. It wasn’t until I completed Linemen’s Boot Camp that I see the similarities—hazards on the job, responding to 24-7 calls and knowing that what we do for our communities is vital. I wanted to know I was going to matter when I took this job. Now that I’ve made it through boot camp I realize I didn’t understand the magnitude of what being a lineman was all about. It’s humbling for me to look around at our instructors, and the years of experience they bring to the job, and know that I am now welcomed into this brotherhood.”
No utility job can ever be made completely safe, but the job can be made safer if people remain alert to the risks and communicate, says the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Under Ron Suhm’s leadership, the 2016 Entergy Arkansas Boot Camp apprentices will go back to their service centers knowing how to do just that. Trainer Todd Wheat also provided instruction as did the following guest instructors: journeyman serviceman David Fleeman (Lonoke), senior lineman Scott Davis (Little Rock Baseline), journeyman serviceman Brad Bryant (Harrison) and senior lineman Travis Collins (Pine Bluff).
Can you play a part in powering the lives of thousands of Arkansas customers? Consider joining our well-trained workforce.
