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CPOPE
06-11-2008, 05:36 AM
Forget the highly trained professionals in fields like biotechnology and software engineering. Forget about technology infrastructure or government-backed incentives to draw new investment to the state.

All of that means nothing if nothing happens when the light switch gets flipped.

Making sure that the lights come on is the job of 100,000 utility line workers, a stout breed that blends inconspicuously into the daily streetscape. Utility workers, and the infrastructure they maintain, are routinely taken for granted, but their absence will surely be noticed.

Tens of thousands of those workers are nearing retirement. Yet there aren't nearly enough young power industry workers in the pipeline to take their place. The nation, in turn, faces a shortage of utility workers as it gears up for the biggest wave of construction in decades to meet soaring power demand.

The crunch already is affecting many cities around the nation - slowing new hookups for electric service, delaying post-storm power restorations and prompting utilities to skimp on maintenance. It cuts across all job categories, from line workers and plant operators to senior engineers.

"It's creating a real serious crisis," said Michael Brown, a consultant for Hay Group's national energy practice. "Everything in this country runs on electricity."

But attracting new people to the job hasn't been easy.

"We have a hard time finding linemen. A good lineman can go anywhere in the country and find a job," said Jim Dravenstatt-Moceri, assistant business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 352, which represents the Lansing Board of Water and Light's 21 journeymen line workers and five apprentices.

The utility has an opening for another lineman it is currently trying to fill.

Preparing workers

Elsewhere, community colleges are helping prepare people to work on utility lines. Alpena Community College, for example, has 40 students in a program that gives participants a head start on an apprenticeship as a line worker.

The classes teach electrical theory and power line safety, said Roy Smith, instructor of utility technology at the college.

"I tell people that this is the perfect job for someone who never wanted to grow up," said Smith, who worked five years as a lineman in northern Michigan. "As a kid, I used to climb trees and play with toy trucks. As a lineman, you climb poles and drive big trucks."

The jobs are also lucrative. The Lansing Board of Water and Light, for example, pays a journeyman line worker $31.48 an hour, or more than $65,000 a year.

But becoming a lineman is no simple task. It requires a four-year, 8,000-hour apprenticeship to get a journeyman's card.

And then, the working conditions can be a challenge. Linemen are called out to scale utility poles during ice storms or to work in the middle of the night to fix power outages caused by storms or traffic accidents.

Many utility companies are turning to homegrown solutions for the worker shortage. Like the Board of Water and Light, Consumers Energy has an apprentice program, with about 70 people participating.

"These guys work their butts off to get people back in power," said Cindy Westerhof, director of people services at Jackson-based Consumers Energy.

"They take a lot of pride in what they do. It's a great feeling to see the lights come back on."

High-wire risks

Line workers handle wires bristling with up to 765,000 volts of electricity. Each year, electric shocks and fires injure or kill dozens of line workers who aren't adequately protected.

"You're always thinking something could happen," said Ray Bryan, an employee of Dominion Power in Virginia.

The wiry lineman, who sports a sun-beaten face and easygoing manner, said that the benefits of the job outweigh the risk.

"I like being outside and working with my hands and not being cooped up in an office somewhere," he said.

There's a sense of prestige, too.

"Linemen consider themselves to be the Marines or the paratroopers of the utility industry. They really are the front lines when disaster hits," said Mark Nixon, Lansing Board of Water and Light spokesman.

But fewer people seem to be signing up for a career like that.

Signs of the crunch:

? In Seattle, there's a five-month wait for a new-home residential power hookup, instead of the normal two months, said Jorge Carrasco, superintendent for Seattle City Light, the city-owned utility.

? Dominic Rivara, business manager for IBEW Local 51, blames long power outages in central Illinois after a late November ice storm on undermanned crews for Ameren, the local utility. About 40 percent of the 236,000 customers who lost power were still without service five days later. State regulators are investigating.

Ameren's Leigh Morris blames the storm's severity, saying Ameren has "adequate staffing."

? John Holt, president of IBEW Local 1900, said Potomac Electric Power, or Pepco, in Washington, D.C., has scaled back its tree-trimming and pole-replacement programs because of manpower shortages, slowing customer hookups and repairs.

Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin disputes that.

More needed

And locally, the IBEW believes that the Lansing Board of Water and Light is in danger of falling behind in its need for line crews. It estimates the board needs another four to six electrical line workers.

"If the Board would attempt to fill or hire (these employees) from now to the first of September, I would wager that you could not do it. Why? The shortage of qualified candidates and the attrition rate over the next year of qualified employees," IBEW Local 352 Business Manager Joe Davis wrote in a letter presented to the board last week.

Paul Davidson of the Gannett News Service contributed to this report. Contact Barbara Wieland at bwieland@lsj.com or 267-1348.


By Barbara Wieland, Lansing State Journal