City of Bay City recently issued the following announcement.
On a hot summer day when the temperatures are in the 80s and getting closer to 90 many of us opt for a tank top, shorts or something else a bit cooler. But when you’re a lineman you’ll be wearing a long-sleeve fire resistant shirt, pants – and if you’re going up in a bucket – rubber sleeves. The attire certainly adds a few degrees to an already intense job. Learning to safely work with electricity requires years of training and a healthy respect for what can be a dangerous job. It’s something Bay City Electric Light and Power Line Worker in Charge Phil Helmreich fell in love with a couple decades ago. “My interest in Electric started when I was working in trash. I remember thinking, ‘I want to do that’ when I saw a lineman working,” Helmreich explained. “At the time I didn’t know it’d become my career.”
Like many people who got their foot in the door in the City of Bay City, Helmreich’s nearly 21-years of public service started in what is now the Sanitation Division. He had spent time working on farms and was looking for more stability. “I wanted a good job with insurance and that’s what the city offered,” Helmreich said. From there he moved into Parks, before landing in Forestry. It’s there the he learned to use ropes and bucket trucks while removing or trimming trees around the city. When a position opened in BCELP in 2005, Helmreich made the move. “I was given the opportunity based on what I learned in Forestry. From there it was all on-the-job training.”
Nowadays our apprentice linemen attend a line school before being hired at BCELP. From there they have to complete an additional four years of training complete with 7,000 hours of hands-on work before becoming a journeyman lineman. When Helmreich started all that training – from apprentice to journeyman – was done in-house. “We learned from the old school guys. You had to earn their respect,” Helmreich said. “We had one shot so we gave 110-percent every day.”
Now it’s Helmreich – and his generation of linemen – who are helping mold apprentices into journeymen. As Line Worker in Charge, many days Helmreich is the guy on the ground making sure everything is done properly and safely. On this day – he was up in the bucket along N. Henry Street working with two of our apprentices who are nearing the end of their 7,000 hours. They were installing switches along this stretch of lines. Those switches allow our team to turn on and off specific sections of power lines. When there’s an outage – those switches allow us to narrow down the problem area more quickly, ultimately getting the power back on faster. “We take a lot of pride in fixing problems when they occur,” Helmreich said. “We also work to prevent as many issues as we can through projects like the one on Henry.”
The summer time is when BCELP and the Line Division is the busiest. Some days they’re working on maintenance projects, others it’s new construction, and once in a while, an outage. In the last couple of years a lot of work has gone into a new Trumbull Substation and replacing aging power lines along Ionia Avenue. That’s not to say the winter or rainy days are quiet. In the winter there are many things that can be done inside, and of course there’s shoveling to be done so our trucks can leave quickly when needed. On rainy days, the focus is often on truck cleanup and maintenance. Year-round our linemen are hard at work – handling dangerous equipment, sometimes in extreme weather conditions. Helmreich and the others wouldn’t have it any other way. They enjoy serving our community in a way few people are able to! “It’s been a good place to work and a good career,” Helmreich said. “We’re very fortunate and are grateful for the opportunities.”
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Bay
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