How'd you get here, Curtis Hartenstine?

Rarely is our career path a straight line, as we see with Tri-State Wildfire Mitigation Program Manager Curtis Hartenstine, who has been at Tri-State since June of 2023 and is based out of our generation and transmission cooperative's Northern Colorado Maintenance Center in Frederick, Colo.

Hartenstine sees is job, however, as being everywhere Tri-State has assets across Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming or New Mexico. He recently took time to discuss his job and work history at Tri-State. 

Curtis Hartenstine, Tri-State Wildfire Mitigation Program Manager

What were your first few jobs?

Paperboy! Dishwasher, construction laborer, candy-striper in an old folks' home, McDonalds French fry technician were the first jobs I had growing up.

What did you take away from those experiences that you use today?

All work is honorable and important, so long as you commit yourself to doing your best at it.

How does your work connect with Tri-State’s strategy?

Wildfire mitigation directly touches the Reliability & Resiliency area of focus. Our primary goal is to prevent an accidental ignition from occurring, and we do that by maintaining awareness, wildfire system posture, and asset condition, to provide reliable delivery of electricity to our co-op members.  

There are two primary functions to our wildfire mitigation program: 1) what is the risk we face, and 2) what can we do about it? 

The first objective we refer to as situational awareness - how we define wildfire risk in our service territory and the likelihood our assets would cause a catastrophic wildfire. Our situational awareness program involves landscape level modeling, precision satellite assessment of vegetation conditions, daily fire weather updates provided by a service and observations from field personnel. 

The second objective involves all the tools in our Wildfire Mitigation Plan. This document discusses how we manage that risk through practices like vegetation management, system operational settings, legislative/policy work, communications, system hardening, rigorous maintenance of our assets and more. It's important to note that just about all the wildfire mitigation work Tri-State does is conducted cooperatively among staff in Asset Management, Transmission Maintenance, Environmental, System Operations, Finance, External Affairs, Communications, Legal, GIS, and Engineering.

Have you had mentors that made an impact on you?

I achieved my Eagle Scout when I was just under 18 years old. This was a culmination of many years of scouting under the guidance of several wonderful scout leaders during a time in my life where I really needed that support. In particular, my Scoutmaster, Jack Gilbert, was an extremely powerful and positive force in my life. Not sure I’d be here without him.

What is a career achievement you’re most proud of?

That I have always kept learning, kept growing. I've never shied away from the challenge of jumping into something new, even if I had limited knowledge in the work. I've done many things, and they all complement each other, but I was never an expert in any of it until I committed to it and took the time to learn and grow. 

Have you learned things at work that apply to your life outside work?

Absolutely - I have learned so very much about being fire wise and being prepared for wildfire in your community/home. I volunteer at Lyons Fire Protection District as a wildland firefighter to share what I know and assist my community. 

What are you looking forward to learning or doing in your career?

While I have worked for utilities in the past, I had not worked for an electrical utility prior to Tri-State. This required me to learn a great deal about the industry from electrical engineering concepts, how line workers actually build/maintain all of the infrastructure, operations, industry legislative affairs etc. However, I’ve found the pairing of my understanding of fire propagation/behavior and mitigation techniques with the industry skillset at Tri-State makes for a very robust Tri-State wildfire mitigation program.