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Business Office: 800-447-4509
(8 a.m. - 5 p.m. • Monday - Friday)
Power Outage Reporting
(Day, Night, Weekends & Holidays)
800-752-0025
SERVING THE SUWANNEE VALLEY OWNED BY THOSE WE SERVE 11340 100th Street • Live Oak, FL 32060
CEO’S CORNER
(8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. • Monday - Friday, Lobby Hours)
Michael S. McWaters Executive V.P./CEO
The right tool for the job — having it can be the difference between a quick task or a frustrating afternoon. Fixing things around the house can be challenging when you’re missing the proper tool.
Even though everyone may run into that situation during their Saturday chores at home, it’s one challenge our linemen should never face on the job. At SVEC, we work to ensure all our employees, especially those who work in potentially hazardous conditions, have the tools they need every day.
That’s no small task for a cooperative that maintains an electric system across 2,000 square miles in four counties. As you can read in this month’s newsletter, keeping the vehicles and equipment that SVEC linemen rely on in safe working condition is a full-time job that requires careful planning and investment.
You can also learn more about the cooperative’s investment in local students through the Youth Tour. SVEC has been proud to participate in this program for nearly 40 years because of the opportunities it provides for young people in our community to learn about the role cooperatives play in our nation.
Those investments may be different in nature, but they’re born out of the same cooperative value of serving you. Whether it’s ensuring our employees have the tools they need to provide reliable power or creating learning opportunities for the future leaders of our community, improving life for our members is always the primary goal.
In February, SVEC hosted five of our area’s outstanding high school juniors as they visited Tallahassee for the Florida Electric Cooperatives 2017 Youth Tour. This is the 39th year SVEC has sponsored local students to take part in the Youth Tour, with all their expenses paid by the cooperative.
Selected by their school guidance counselors, this year’s participants were Riley Boss, Bryce Puckett, Leesa Price, Seth Reaves and Kendra Tucker. While in Tallahassee, they toured the state Capitol, visited the governor’s mansion, witnessed oral arguments in the Florida Supreme Court, and even participated in a mock bill debate on the floor of the House of Representatives.
But of all the activities in their busy schedule, the agreed favorite was an evening at a trampoline park, where the students were able to relax and have fun.
The tour gives area students an opportunity to learn about how state government
works and the important role electric cooperatives play across the nation. Boss says she had never really thought much about local government or the electric cooperative, but the Youth Tour has given her a new appreciation for the work they do.
“It’s really cool to be able to experience that firsthand and see just how much of a difference they make in your everyday life,” she says.
Boss and Puckett were both selected to represent SVEC at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Youth Tour, which will take place in Washington, D.C., this June. There, they will have the chance to meet with other students from across the country, tour museums and monuments in the nation’s capital, and meet with lawmakers from their area. facebook.com/sveccoop
trucks
and
are both crucial tools for linemen that face very different forms of wear and tear.
SVEC vehicles keep linemen on the road and the lights on
James Black still remembers watching his father work through the exhausting process of installing a new electric pole more than 50 years ago. Without the help of modern equipment, it was a time-consuming and physically draining task.
“They hand dug their holes and set the poles with an old A-Frame truck. It was basically just a boom and a cable they had to pull the poles up with,” he recalls. “Then they had to climb everything. They didn’t have bucket trucks, so they used belts and climbing hooks to get up the pole and did hot work with sticks.”
Now supervisor of the service department and a 44-year employee of SVEC, Black says those memories give him an earnest appreciation for the impact better equipment can have on safety and reliability.
Most members have probably seen an SVEC bucket truck on the side of the road working on a line or have noticed tractors clearing right-of-way in overgrown areas. But what they may not realize is that those vehicles are just a small part of a fleet of approximately 100 vehicles covering SVEC’s service area.
According to Bruce Branche, SVEC’s maintenance supervisor, that fleet contains 57 regular trucks, 13 bucket trucks and four derrick trucks,
along with several tractors and mowers.
“We even have a boat and our own wrecker,” he adds with a chuckle.
That may seem like a lot of vehicles, but SVEC has a lot of ground to cover across four counties. Branche estimates that their vehicles can cover 1 million miles each year, putting as many as 40,000 miles on a single truck in some cases.
Keeping vehicles with that kind of mileage in working order is no small task. That’s why SVEC has a shop onsite dedicated to handling regular maintenance for the entire fleet.
“Every truck we have that runs up and down the highway gets serviced every 5,000 miles,” Branche says. “If we see anything wrong, we repair it because you never know when there might be a storm or a broken pole and you’ll need every truck you have.”
Regular maintenance includes changing the oil, switching out the air filter, and making sure all the parts are greased, as well as checking small things like lights and windshield wipers. For vehicles like derricks or tractors that don’t have as many miles, equipment is brought in every 300 hours.
Larger issues with the engine or transmission
can be taken care of in-house as well. In fact, the only thing the SVEC shop isn’t equipped to handle is a major paint job.
That dedicated service means the cooperative’s vehicles rarely have problems that put them out of commission for more than a day or two. It also means equipment is rarely kept out of service by annual Department of Transportation (DOT) inspections.
“Every year we’re required to do DOT inspections on trucks weighing more than a ton, but we hardly ever find anything that would keep a truck off the road because we steadily bring them in for oil changes and fix any problems then,” Branche says.
All the cooperative’s vehicles are also dielectrically tested every six months to ensure that electricity can’t go to the ground through them and endanger linemen. This requires visits twice a year from a team with special equipment to check booms, ladders and buckets to ensure employees’ safety.
More than anything else, Branche identifies the safety features as the biggest improvement in equipment since he first started at SVEC. When he
arrived, the cooperative was still using some vehicles that were built in the ’60s.
“The older units we had were as safe as they knew how to make them at that point, but the features on the equipment we use today are so much better than they were,” he says.
Those include conveniences like adjustable mirrors so that different drivers can see the road behind them easily and Bluetooth compatibility so that they can report to one another over the phone without using their hands. But one of the most important perks has been the availability of air conditioning.
“When I came here, we didn’t have a truck with AC in it, and now that’s in everything we buy,” Branche says. “We don’t spend money frivolously, but if you take a lineman working out there in 100-degree heat with all his sleeves and protective equipment on, he’ll be burning up. When he needs to get somewhere cool, having the AC makes his job easier and a lot safer.”
Black has seen even bigger changes in his time with SVEC. When asked what the most significant is, the answer is immediate.
“Bucket trucks,” he says without hesitation. “Those have probably saved many lives, sped up work, and let you do more with fewer people.”
He recalls working on major lines that would sometimes require climbing 15 poles in a day, leaving exhausted linemen to continue working in hazardous conditions.
“With a bucket truck, setting up that many poles in a day doesn’t tire you out as much,” he says. “We still have to practice safety procedures, but you’re in less danger of falling, and contact with wires is much safer.”
The same is true of clearing right-of-way, his first-ever job with SVEC. Before the cooperative had tractors to work with, stray limbs had to be cut down by hand with a chain saw and carried back to a chipper.
“We had a five- or six-man crew for that job, and with the equipment we have now, we send two guys out who can do more in a day’s time than that whole crew could do,” he says.
Those improvements have been, in part, due to the availability of better technology. But Branche has also noticed a greater investment in quality equipment from the cooperative as a whole.
“Management over time has begun to realize that in order to serve our customers better, we need to spend money on equipment,” he says.
“Sometimes that means having a part overnighted so there aren’t four men who can’t work because a truck is in the shop. You have to make that choice, and I always choose to get the truck out there.”
As a way of balancing efficiency with reliable service, the SVEC shop is also working to implement a system in which older vehicles are regularly cycled out and replaced with newer equipment. When that happens, members have the chance to bid on any of the cooperative’s unneeded equipment.
“It’s a program we’ve implemented that improves our reliability while cutting costs on things like warranties,” Branche says. “Another benefit is that you don’t keep a truck until it’s completely worn out, so the return is a lot more, and we can put the money received for it toward new equipment we want to buy.”
At the end of the day, keeping SVEC’s equipment in top shape is just another way the cooperative is invested in keeping the lights on for members.
“The more reliable our equipment is, the less people are out of power and the better service we can offer the members who own us,” Branche says. “Ultimately, that’s who we work for.”
Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative is not-for-profit and member-owned. In accordance with one of the seven cooperative principles, Member Economic Participation, it’s the policy of the board of trustees to retire capital credits annually if the financial condition of the cooperative will not be impaired. In light of the continued financial strength and sound management of your electric cooperative, the board has elected to retire approximately $850,000 in capital credits to be returned to members this year. You can expect to receive a capital credit retirement if you were a member of SVEC at any time from 1986 through 2011. Retirements of $5 or more will be distributed to members by check. Members with a retirement of less than $5 will receive a credit on their bill.
Welcome to journeyman linemen Benjamin Grantham and Billy Starling, as well as right-of-way crewman Jerrad Boles.
Billing Your Power,
Your Plan, Your Choice
Tired of monthly electric bills? MyChoice Prepaid Billing makes it easy to keep track of your account balance and pay for energy as you use it. Visit svec-coop.com/mychoice or call 386-362-2226 to sign up today.
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