Short Circuits APRIL 2019
I N
T H I S
C L I C K
T H E
I S S U E
T I T L E
T O
V I E W
Letter from Chris
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Positive Habits for Energy Efficiency 4 Weather Emergencies for Outside Workers 5
What it Takes to Restore an Outage
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OMS Quality Assurance
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Dental Benefits
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Graduation Annoucment 10
Team Changes 11
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L E T T E R
F R O M
C H R I S
‘Always On’ is MTEMC’s mentality
Hardly anyone is unaware of what 9-1-1 stands for. The universal emergency telephone number was established by Congress and went into limited operation in 1968. More than 50 years later, 911 is still going strong.
While we don’t rely on 911 for notification of outages, MTEMC is positioned to devote manpower and resources to restoration efforts safely, efficiently and as quickly as possible. This is part of our system reliability emphasis.
We memorize the three digits as school children or earlier with the assurance that someone will always be standing by, ready to help, whenever we need to report an emergency. These three numbers have brought peace of mind to millions.
While the engineering, construction and operation of a robust electricity delivery network is the foundation of reliability, the “Always On” mentality of everyone—from line workers to the system operators, office employees, warehouse folks, all of Team MTEMC—enables us to meet and exceed our service responsibility.
The 911 dispatchers receive calls, determine the nature of the emergency and notify appropriate agencies or lifeline-service providers. This speeds response time, cuts down on confusion and has been proven to save lives and protect property. Because literally everyone depends on electricity, utilities like Middle Tennessee Electric provide a lifeline service. Other providers include law enforcement, fire departments, emergency medical responders, telephone and wireless communication companies, hospitals— any agency or business whose operation is considered vital to public welfare.
This is why we place such emphasis on making notification of power outages speedy and convenient. Twenty years ago, many MTEMC members kept magnets with the outage reporting phone number on their refrigerator doors. Today, they can still call or, if they’re digitallyinclined, report outages through the MTEMC web portal or via the myMTEMC mobile app on their phones. Members can also track restoration progress on MTEMC’s online outage map.
This is why, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, MTEMC stands ready to respond to power outages, whatever the cause. We are “Always On,” always responsive to our members, communities and the public.
In many cases, Systems Control will have detected the outage and affected area, but it is important to hear from our members. “Always On” means always being available, always keeping lines of communication open and always informing our members.
I am preaching to the choir, of course. MTEMC’s line workers and support personnel are dedicated to restoring power, day or night, in all weather conditions, wherever the problem is located, however major or minor.
I take great pride in the fact that MTEMC, through a combination of human commitment and technology, is “Always On.” I hope you do, too. Thanks for your dedication and hard work.
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E N E R G Y
E F F I C I E N C Y
Positive Habits for Energy Efficiency Phillip Price, Energy Services Coordinator
I want to remind you that there are many things we can do for ourselves to increase our energy efficiency. One such thing is an annual “Spring Cleaning” which has several meanings. The first thing is to be sure to check, clean, or replace your air conditioner’s filters about once every 30 days and/or even every two weeks depending on activity in the home, number of pets, etc. Don’t trust the “90 days” it says on the filter because that’s an ideal and people’s situations are always different. Also, in spring, there’s pollen in the air, wind, severe weather, etc., so be sure to keep an eye on your filter and change it before it clogs up your system. Another good springtime energy-saving habit to get into is to always check your weather stripping and caulking, especially the thresholds and windows. When re-caulking, first remove the old caulking to prevent the old application from deteriorating and messing up your new application. If you don’t know how to do this, you can find tutorials for this and for other energy-saving tips by searching on YouTube or Google. You can also reach out to myself, Don or Lynn for more information.
I also recommend seasonal cleaning of the actual outdoor air conditioning unit because you don’t want to restrict air flow around it. Often times we hide the outdoor unit with landscaping or fencing, but the outdoor unit can become clogged with debris and lower the efficiency of the system. So, take a moment to make sure you haven’t blocked the air flow to the outside unit. Speaking of air flow, if there’s one thing that’s often overlooked it’s making sure a home’s air vents are uncovered and interior doors are open. Your system operates better when air can move in and between rooms. Air conditioning systems are not designed to only condition air in one part of the home but instead around the entire house. Finally, be sure to clean appliances, especially ones with fans…like your refrigerator. By ensuring your appliance fans are unclogged, your appliances will run cooler and use less energy over time.
Now is a great time to spring clean, and your energy efficiency should get the same level of cleaning as any other part of your home.
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S A F E T Y
Weather Emergencies for Outside Workers Donny Parker, Senior Safety Training Coordinator
It’s that time of year when thunderstorms, tornadoes and lightning can pop up on any given day. As part of our job responsibilities, we must have a plan. Working inside of an office building is what many of us do and we have what we call our emergency action plan. All of us know that if we have a tornado warning that our emergency shelter is just a few steps away down the hall. But what about our field workers? Our lineman, meter readers, engineers, telecommunications and SMA team are all exposed to these hazards. If they don’t have what we call our emergency shelter, what do they do? Let’s talk about that for a moment. Today we all carry smartphones and have access to more information than we can consume. One of the benefits is weather apps, alerts, and of course, a text message
from family, co-workers or friends. So, be sure to sign up for weather alerts. You’ve signed up for an alert, but what do we do if we get alerted that bad weather is coming? It’s not like we can go to our emergency shelter like our office teammates. Proper planning can increase our safety success when working outdoors. As part of your daily routine, you should have what we call job briefings. During your preplanning, talk about the hazards associated with the job and what the weather conditions are. As part of this discussion, you should discuss some of these safety practices. As with anything related to safety, have a plan, stay informed and be weather-ready.
Be Safe! Safety Practices • Identify shelter areas before work begins. • Avoid open fields, the top of a hill, tall trees or other tall objects during storms. • Stay away from conductive items such as metal buildings, fences, poles, etc. • When thunder roars, go indoors. For our field workers, this means to get inside your hard-topped vehicles and roll up the windows, and if you have time, drive to the closest shelter. • Don’t start anything that you can’t quickly stop. High winds, dark clouds, and lightning are great indicators for us to seek shelter. • Systems Control notifies all crews when lightning or bad weather is on the way, but you should be aware of the weather in case a pop shower shows up.
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R E S T O R I N G
O U T A G E S
What It Takes to Restore an Outage Tony Trice, Operations Supervisor We don’t want our members to experience an outage. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to prevent every outage that occurs, but when members do lose their power, we are there to restore them typically within 2 hours. However, an extended outage can happen and may lead to some negative interactions with our members. We want to take a moment to look into what is going on behind the scenes of an outage when it occurs, so you can help members understand why restoration may take longer than expected. When an outage happens, advanced meters notify Systems Control to the outage. Control Operators will then attempt to restore power to as many as possible by rerouting around the outage. This may cause a member to experience their lights coming on and off a few times in a short period of time. While our operators are working on restoring power from their end, the closest serviceman has been called to assess the initial outage. This entire process is done within minutes of the initial outage.
Once the initial outage has been assessed, and depending on the severity of the outage, additional linemen are called to pick up equipment and materials from their local office to fix the problem. From the time they are called to the time they arrive on scene could take half an hour depending on the location. In the event of a broken pole or major equipment issue, it could take almost an hour for the additional crew to pick up the needed equipment or materials from the local office and arrive on site. As you can see, often the longest part of an outage is getting the right people and the right materials on site to restore the outage.
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R E S T O R I N G
O U T A G E S
“Every outage is different, and every situation brings its own challenges.” Restoring power to members after crews arrive on site is then relatively quick. Many outages can be resolved within a few minutes, but there are others that may take longer like a broken pole situation. In the instance with the broken pole, linemen will tell you that no two pole placements are exactly the same. While they do follow guidelines and safety practices, each situation the crews encounter requires them to assess and repair based on their years of experience and knowledge. Ultimately the power is restored, and the linemen can return home to their families or back to their previous work sites. Every outage is different, and every situation brings its own challenges. Members do not see the whole outage process like we do, so having a general understanding of what’s going on during an outage restoration gives you a great opportunity to change a mem-
ber’s experience with us from negative to positive. If a member is upset because of an outage, listen to their concern and kindly give them some idea of why it might take time to restore the outage. Don’t get into the details but show sympathy to how they are feeling in the situation. If you want to know more about the outage process, reach out to one of the linemen in your office or a Systems Control Operator. We’re proud of our outage response teams and the work they do to restore power to our members.
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O M S
Q U A L I T Y
A S S U R A N C E
OMS Quality Assurance Lance Lamb, OMS/QA Supervisor Middle Tennessee Electric is home to more than just poles and wires, member services and accounting. As we’ve grown into one of the largest electric cooperatives in the country, Team MTEMC has grown to need the assistance of more than fundamental departments like operations and member support to function. One such area of growth we’ve experienced is in our technology and the experienced people needed to run it. As an OMS (Outage Management System)/QA (Quality Assurance) Supervisor, I work closely with operations, engineering and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to ensure that the data they are using is correct. By making sure the data is correct, it improves our ability to respond, prevent and report outages, which leads to a higher reliability rating. Along with QA Analyst, Christi Mooring, we form a quality assurance team that is the bridge between the operations and vegetation management system users and GIS. You could say we’re a support group for the end users. We also handle any database issues users might have which keeps us quite busy.
Together, our primary responsibility is to make sure that OMS, Clearion (vegetation management software) and GIS are working together correctly. OMS and Clearion are separate layers on top of GIS. We try to keep the model as accurate as possible so that the crews are confident with the system. Because they are separate layers of data, they can create errors, and it’s up to the OMS Quality Assurance team to straighten those out as quickly as possible. Possibly the main reason for our efficiency is that we both analyze and test constantly and extensively. Anytime a new software version comes out, we’re the guinea pigs, and we test it like crazy. Our ultimate goal is to keep it accurate for both Clearion users and the OMS users so if they have an issue, we can take it from them and get them a solution quickly.
Team MTEMC is made up of a diverse and highly qualified group of committed professionals. The OMS Quality Assurance team is just one of the many niche areas of expertise needed to help us provide outstanding member service.
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H R
B E N E F I T S
Dental Benefits Angela Jordan
What dental benefits do we have? Our dental benefits are provided by Delta Dental of Tennessee. We have two plan offerings, the Low Plan and the High Plan. With both options, you have access to providers in the Delta Dental PPO or Premier Networks. The main difference between the Low and High Plans is that Adult Orthodontia is covered only on the high plan, and the calendar year maximum is $500 per person higher. See chart below for plan comparison:
How and when can I enroll in them? During open enrollment, or if you experience a qualifying event, like getting married, having a baby, or loss of other coverage.
How am I able to access my account? You can create an online account at www.deltadentaltn.com where you can check your claims online, print an ID card, find in-network dentists, etc.
What’s the key message you’d like employees to know regarding their dental benefits? Remember to take advantage of your preventive services, which includes 2 cleanings at no cost each year.
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ENTRIES G R A D U A T I O N
A N N O U N C E M E N T
We’d like to recognize all those who’ve graduated since last year, including those who work for Team MTEMC. If you would like to have yourself or your graduate included, please send a digital photo along with the information below to adam.elrod@mtemc.com. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Graduate Name: Parent(s) if applicable: Graduating School: Post-Graduation Plans: College Attending, Entering Workforce, Technical School Attending, etc.
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T E A M
C H A N G E S
Promoted
Brandon Johnson
Casey Jones
Coty Oldham
Justin Schultz
Second Year Apprentice Linemen » Third Year Apprentice Linemen
Second Year Apprentice Linemen » Third Year Apprentice Linemen
Second Year Apprentice Linemen » Third Year Apprentice Linemen
Second Year Apprentice Linemen » Third Year Apprentice Linemen
Jamie Hazelwood
Chase Patterson
Taylor Higgins
Marshall Lorance
Third Year Apprentice Linemen » Lineman/ Serviceman
Second Year Apprentice Linemen » Third Year Apprentice Linemen
Second Year Apprentice Linemen » Third Year Apprentice Linemen
Third Year Apprentice Linemen » Lineman/ Serviceman
LEBANON
FRANKLIN
LEBANON
MURFREESBORO
LEBANON
LEBANON
MURFREESBORO
MURFREESBORO
Retired
Jonathan Fitzpatrick MURFREESBORO
Third Year Apprentice Linemen » Lineman/ Serviceman
Cassandra Eaddy CORPORATE
Member Support Specialist » Smyrna Member Support Specialist
Dan Major LEBANON
Working Foreman 33 YEARS OF SERVICE