Line Maintenance

Empowering Cooperatives: Inside Mesa Hotline School’s Dedication to Excellence

avamariecarmichael@gmail.com — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 19:33:00 +0000

Empowering Cooperatives: Inside Mesa Hotline School’s Dedication to Excellence

Every May, over 500 line workers, teachers and volunteers gather in Grand Junction, Colorado at the Mesa Hotline School for the two-week annual learning event. The school attracts participants from across the United States, emphasizing safety and reliability in electrical transmission and distribution. It’s an energetic and transformative learning experience with the aim of equipping people with the knowledge and skills needed to keep the lights on for the communities they serve.

David Williams knows the feeling well.

“I remember walking into this school in 1988 and looking at the guys that were running the school and thinking, well, I'll probably never reach that level.”

Thirty-six years later, Williams was back on campus, this time as the president of the school. From being an apprentice to earning his journeyman certification, then holding a variety of positions on the school’s governing board while also working as the operations superintendent at Mountain View Electric Association, Williams has had a front row seat to one of the best examples of what Cooperation Among Cooperatives looks like.

What is Mesa Hotline School?

Founded in 1966 by Empire Electric Association and Yampa Valley Electric Association, the Mesa Hotline School emerged from a growing need for specialized training in electrical line work. It was initially established to serve the rapidly expanding rural electric cooperatives but has evolved into one of the premier training facilities for line workers across the country.

Now every spring, the school hosts two, week-long intensive training sessions for line workers from 78 cooperatives, municipal utilities, investor-owned utilities and Tri-State Generation and Transmission that make up the membership of the school as well as students from Colorado Mesa University’s Electric Lineworker Program. The classes are facilitated by a team of board members, volunteers, instructors, and industry vendors committed to advancing the skills and knowledge needed to deliver reliable, safe and dependable electrical services.

The hotline school takes place towards the end of the school year and CMU technical instructor Nick Reimer knows the positive effect the training can have on students. “Mesa Hotline School is probably the greatest networking opportunity that these kids will ever get in their careers,” he details. “It's all concentrated here on their home turf and everybody's here for the same reasons: to train and to learn.”

With the wide variety of courses and expertise on display from the instructors, it would take around 7-8 years to attend every class offered during these sessions. Topics have evolved to include as many aspects of the trade as possible including overhead and underground distribution, installations, fault locating, switching, hot-sticking, rubber gloving and more.

The Importance of Transmission for the Future

Every year brings something new, but this year several groups came together to build a transmission field. Tri-State was proud to contribute to this effort by donating poles, wire and crews that made this new learning opportunity possible.

Reimer already described the school’s training field as Cadillac-esque, and with the new transmission capabilities, this program can now offer an important skill that more and more line workers will need in the future. As the need for and use of electricity grows, building new facilities is an option to ensure consumers have safe, reliable energy.

A Shared Responsibility to Power the Future

For those that know it well, the Mesa Hotline School is remarkable in the ways that it hasn’t changed since its founding. It still operates thanks to members that combine their resources and knowledge to provide the ultimate training experience. The new transmission line is just the most recent example of adaptability and cooperation in the school’s long history.

“We’re a group of co-ops and utilities and municipalities that understand how important it is to give our people the training that they need, and we share that responsibility,” said Williams.

Everyone leaves Mesa Hotline School understanding the seriousness of the industry with the varied training showing that there is always something to learn, another way to get better or a new technique to stay safer.

For the last sixty years, the school has stood as a testament to the cooperative spirit of the electric utility industry, ensuring that line workers receive the continuous education essential for this demanding but rewarding profession.

Thanks to their commitment we can feel confident saying that whatever the future holds, we’ll power it.

About Tri-State

Tri-State is a power supply cooperative, operating on a not-for-profit basis, serving electric distribution cooperatives and public power district member-owners in four states. Together with our members, we deliver reliable, affordable and responsible power to more than a million electricity consumers across nearly 200,000 square miles of the West. Visit www.tristate.coop.    

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Transmission Crews Restore Three Lines After Tornado Damage

avamariecarmichael@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 18:21:33 +0000

08/17/2023

Transmission crews restore three lines after tornado damage

Transmission Maintenance crews responded quickly and in force to restore electric service in southeast Colorado, northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming after tornadoes damaged three of our transmission lines over a six-day period. Their dedication and skill, along with that of the Engineering and Construction department and Inventory Control department, ensured the resiliency of our transmission system after severe weather extensively damaged or destroyed 40 structures.

In each case, Keith Carman, VP of Transmission Maintenance, activated Tri-State’s storm procedure, which kicked off a series of processes to respond to emergency outages quickly and efficiently. Here is a look at what happened and how we recover from storm damage to our lines.

A powerful storm in northeast Colorado, which included a tornado, hail and wind, damaged our Alvin-Sandhills 115 kV line and bent and flattened vegetation in some areas.

Behind the Scenes of the Lamar-Vilas 115 kV Line Restoration

The Lamar-Vilas 115 kV line tripped at 5:04 p.m. on June 23 when a tornado plowed through the line in southeast Colorado, causing six structures to collapse and damaging two other structures. Tri-State member Southeast Colorado Power Association (La Junta, CO) also experienced damage on one of their 69 kV sub-transmission lines, which they were able to re-energize about 4 a.m. Saturday, restoring load in the region.

Tri-State’s initial transmission responders were on site Friday night to evaluate damages, secure the work location and to clear the damaged structures. Challenges of the restoration included muddy conditions after the storm, overnight travel and work, followed by continuous work until the job was completed. 

“This was a powerful storm,” said Cody Hale, Line Maintenance Superintendent (West). “Some Southeast Colorado Power employees told us the tornado ripped up eight to ten inches of topsoil.”

Meanwhile, Tri-State's Senior Transmission Line Engineer designed the replacement structures and itemized the needed materials Friday night through early morning Saturday. The redesign was completed by 6 a.m., including the drawings and materials list.

“When incidents like these occur, our transmission field crews are the first on the scene to evaluate the damage, make it safe and initiate clean-up efforts,” said Chris Pink, Vice President of Engineering and Construction. “However, the process of rebuilding can't normally commence until Engineering has finalized the design and specified all the necessary components and materials.”

Everything needed for this line restoration was available in our warehouse in Sidney, Nebraska. Our warehouse personnel began loading materials at 6 a.m. Saturday, and our driver was on the road at 9 a.m. Material was on site in southeast Colorado by 2 p.m. Saturday.

Tri-State Ensures Uninterrupted Operations with Strategic Emergency Inventory Management

Tri-State’s Board of Directors decided many years ago to keep material for five miles of our three most common lines constantly in stock as our emergency inventory, according to Mark Dreyer, Inventory and Asset Recovery Manager. The emergency inventory is based at our Sidney warehouse, which has the most space to store it.

“This has served us well throughout the years to have this material in inventory when events like these happen,” Mark said. “In addition, it is key to have good communication and coordination among crews in the field, engineering and the warehouses to get everything done safely and quickly.”

Tri-State crews completed the replacement of all damaged structures Saturday evening, and the line was energized at approximately 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 24. Transmission crews responded quickly to help from Pueblo, Craig and Brush, Colorado, and Ogallala, Nebraska.

“I would like to give a shout-out to everyone who stepped up and put forth a truly tireless effort with this restoration,” said Doug Dean, Senior Manager of Transmission Maintenance (West). “Most of all, it was completed safely and professionally every step of the way. Special thanks to the Transmission East crews that responded quickly to help from Brush and Ogallala, and everyone that responded from Craig, Pueblo and the Sidney warehouse. We also want to thank Engineering and Construction for working through the night to get the field folks what they needed. This was a team effort by all and a demonstration of being Tri-State strong.”

Round Top-Sentinel 115 kV Line Restoration

The behind-the-scenes efforts described above in the Lamar-Vilas 115 kV line section were set in motion again three nights later when a tornado ripped through our Round Top-Sentinel 115 kV line in southeast Wyoming just before 7 p.m. on June 26. We lost 10 single-pole structures. The three Transmission Maintenance East (TME) line crews safely rebuilt the 10 structures and returned the line to service at 9:40 p.m. on June 27.

“There was great teamwork and collaboration among all departments within Tri-State on this job,” said Ryan Kelly, Line Maintenance Superintendent (East).

About Tri-State

Contributor:

Melanie Culver 

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