Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to the Buzz, a podcast by Boone Electra Cooperative. The Buzz is a monthly message to our community celebrating what it means to be a member owner of your local electric cooperative, Boone Electric Cooperative, your co op, our community.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Buzz, Zach. I'm Zach Smith, communications specialist here at Boone Electric Cooperative and today we are continuing our discussion on the seven cooperative principles.
Cooperative principle number six, cooperation among cooperatives is today's topic and joining us for that is Boone Electric Cooperative's manager of operations, Jimmy Goodnight. Jimmy, welcome back to the show.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. Cooperation among cooperatives is, could be a very wide subject and it's interesting because it's sort of the opposite of principle number four, autonomy and independence. You of course know the old saying, if you've been to one co op, you've been to one co op.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: But.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: And that's still true, but we cooperate with other cooperatives a lot and particularly so in the rural electric cooperative industry.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: For sure we do more work together with other co ops today than we probably ever have in the past.
So I think it's something we're getting better at every day which makes us only stronger as a unit as the one co op.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: The reason that you're here today, I guess I should start with, is for us to talk about mutual aid, which when I hear mutual aid, the first thing I think about of course is the bad stuff, power restoration, because somebody got hit with a storm. But like you were just mentioning, it takes a lot of other forms and it isn't always necessarily immediately after something terrible happens.
[00:01:52] Speaker C: Correct? Yes, we rely on mutual aid.
We are much more comfortable today using than we were probably 15 to 20 years ago.
Everybody's on board, everybody wants to be available to help. When we go to whether it be a hurricane on the Gulf coast or whether it be a tornado or storm in the Midwest. That's what we think about generally when we talk about mutual aid. But we do a lot of other things. Most recently we sent some crews to another co op down south to help with the conversion. They were converting one of the towns that they served to a different voltage which requires switching every transformer over.
So that's something that wasn't necessarily storm related, but it's something we could go help with the day for the day and help them with a project. We've sent guys, other crews to other co ops to string in wire when they might not have the resource to do that on their own.
So we assist with that.
We'll string underground. We do have a lot of underground. So if somebody, another co op needs some help with that, we're always available to do that. So there's a lot of different forms in which our mutual aid is evident, I guess you would say. And it's not just storms you mentioned.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: That seems that cooperatives are more comfortable and make themselves more available these days than, you know, say, probably closer to the beginning of your career. Why?
[00:03:22] Speaker C: I think there's a few different reasons. It seems like storms are maybe not more prevalent, maybe larger, I don't know. But it's more about, in my mind, the practice of it. You know, you do it once, you do it twice.
It's easier to ask when, you know, you have crews one phone call away and we're one phone call away from another co op who needs crews. So it's very easy for us to put a lot of people, a lot of equipment into place for, for a storm event, a major event, what we call it. So I think the more that we've done that over the years, the better we've gotten at that process.
So it's a lot easier to put those people in place.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: The grid distribution wise is constructed in such a way that the stuff that you work on here, they might use different names for some of the things, but you know, when we go to the Gulf or wherever to help with a storm, they're basically working on the exact same system. And so that ability to help is. Is that much easier.
[00:04:29] Speaker C: That is. Yeah, that is exactly correct.
Early on, we all use the same construction specifications for, for all the power lines. We still do that today, although it's been updated many times over the years.
We can go to any state in the union and if they say we're going to build a certain construction unit like a C1 is what we call it, we know how to do that. So any co op, they do use different names, they use some different materials. But if you're going to put that structure back, you always know you can go to our spec book and say this is the structure that goes back there with variations in materials. If we go help, say a municipal or an iou, those construction standards are different than what the co ops use. So it's a lot slower to put back in place what was there or what you think should be there because it's just a different construction.
It's much more efficient within the co ops because of the construction standards that we have in place.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: I know we're talking about cooperatives, but because you mentioned municipals and IOUs, our mutual aid also doesn't just extend to cooperatives sometimes. We recently sent some crews to go help with the storm damage after the tornadoes in St. Louis earlier this spring.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: Correct. We have, we've done that a couple of times over the years. We've helped other utilities. Invest your own utilities. We've, we've called on help from the city of Columbia in the past because they're right across the street. We very rarely turn down a request for help unless we are in a bind ourselves.
So that, that is by design. We know we're going to need help. And the reason our system works is because we can help other co ops. Other co ops can help us. Any outside requests, we, we want to help with that as well.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: When we send a crew to go or we, we set up, you know, who's going to be team one and if it's needed, team two and so on. You've always got to have people here at home. And that's sort of the first step in that process is okay, what can we. Who can we afford to let go help because we may have damage ourselves or even if we don't, obviously we have ongoing maintenance and things that in construction that still has to keep going. And that's sort of the part of it you, you think about the team that goes. You don't really think about all the.
[00:06:52] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: People back here having to, you know, make up for those people being gone.
[00:06:57] Speaker C: So, yeah, we do.
Every time there's a request, we have to balance making sure that we have enough people at home to do the work that we need to do as well as respond to a storm. We talk about the storm, the mutual aid a lot. But the guys at home or the people at home are definitely take on a larger portion of the workload because we're. We're sending people on the road. So that's a big deal. It's something that we very much tell the guys. We appreciate you guys staying home because you're, you're the reason we can send people to respond to mutual aid. They're all the same. They want to help. That's what they do. When things get bad, they, they go out and fix stuff. So they're wired that way.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Right. That's kind of their. I was going to say that's kind of their default mode. When, when they know something's broken, even if it's not here, they.
[00:07:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Always volunteer to go.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: So they're very supportive of the guys on the road. The guys on the road are very supportive. The guys at home are covering While they're gone, all the people in the office and all the people back here that are supporting that work also have a greater workload when our guys are gone out of town. So it does take a village.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Whether it be in Colombia or whether it be in Sudan or Guatemala, it takes a village. And these people, they all do a great job and they all allow us to do the mutual aid, whether it be in the United States, out of country, wherever that is. But that's all made possible by the people back here. Our board that supports that work, we.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Talk, we use that phrase, the cooperative family, a lot. And it's never more evident than when we have to go somewhere else or other people have to come here to help us. And we. We all have to work together and get along. And like you said, there's something that needs to be fixed, and we all do whatever our thing is that we need to do to help get it fixed, correct?
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: So when there is a major event, whether that's a hurricane in another state or it's something. We've had a lot of these incidents, unfortunately, here within Missouri, where there's a tornado or a major storm, that requires the assistance of another cooperative, how does that process work? Because we don't just send people down there. There's a whole organizational flowchart, essentially, that happens, right?
[00:09:15] Speaker C: Correct. Yes. Our statewide association, amec, the association of Missouri Electric Co Ops, they have a risk management portion and they manage most of the mutual aid. So if we need crews, we determine what we need, and we make one phone call to them, and they do a great job of putting it out to all the other co ops. Some of the co ops, if they're affected, they won't have people to send. But the unaffected co ops, wherever that may be, north, south, east or west, or even out of state, they'll reach out and they'll say, we'll say, hey, we need five construction crews. They'll get on the phone, it's not very long, maybe a couple hours, and they say, hey, we got you five. Here's where they're coming from. They'll be there whenever you need them, tonight, in the morning, whenever that is. It's a very efficient system. We're not left to calling a bunch of different people. We make one phone call and get pretty well any. Any crews we need.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: So it's a lot to organize, but they get it mobilized very quickly.
[00:10:18] Speaker C: I think the last one we responded to on the Gulf coast was 150 linemen and all the equipment.
And I Think they had that pretty well arranged by the end of the day. So several hours, all these people are getting ready to head one direction, which is pretty significant during your career.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: What are some of those that stand out to you?
[00:10:42] Speaker C: One of the last ones I worked before coming into my current capacity was Hurricane Katrina, which we're all familiar with. That was a big one. Missouri sent a bunch of people on that, which lasted several weeks. Probably the biggest one, and I forget what year.
Probably around the 09 time frame. The ice storm that hit the boot hill probably took more resources from everybody, us included, over a longer period of time than any other that we responded to.
I think Boone Electricity sent a total of 33 people over the course of maybe six weeks to two months. It was a long.
We were down there a long time. And not just linemen, storeroom help, supervisors. Right away, people. That was a very big event that we sent a lot of people to. If you look back at our list, there's many, many, many storms of various varieties. Hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, windstorms. When we get on site, you know, there's people coming from a lot of different places and they usually meet at a certain co op.
The biggest issue on any mutual aid event is safety for the guys. It's one thing to work on your own system. You're. You're pretty familiar with where lines feed. When you're on the road on a. On a different system, you don't know that if there's wire laying there, you don't know where it comes from. You don't know what's on one end or on the other. It adds a whole level of risk as far as everybody's safety, not just on the electricity side, but trees falling, water, wildlife.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I hope.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: There's a lot of complexity that goes into working away from your own system. So that's something we recognize. Things we put in place, whether it be work practices or protective gear, that the guys have to be aware of. And the first thing we do when we get to any co op is generally speaking, a safety meeting. Here's what our system does. Here's our voltages.
Here's how we're going to structure this. Here's who you answer to, here's the hours we're going to work, that kind of stuff.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Because some of that information. I know the voltage, for instance, that will dictate some of the equipment that they need to use. You have certain gloves that are for certain voltages.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: Yes, we're a 7620 volt system. Boon Electric is we use Class 2 gloves that are tested at 20,000 volts. If we get on a system with a different voltage, they have to use different gloves, and that goes. There's several different voltages out there. So that's something we have to be aware of.
And the guys have to know, you know, we're working on this system or we're working on this.
You have to be aware enough to know what gear you have to have.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: I had the fortune of spending about a day with the Boone Electric crew before I worked here when we were down in Florida for Hurricane Michael. And they were working on a huge span of poles and wire that had just been completely taken out.
And I think three different people drove by to stop and tell the guys how appreciative they were and brought them food and everything. So the mutual aid and mutual appreciation certainly extends beyond just the co op employees. The co op members are very appreciative as well.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: Generally speaking, people are very appreciative.
We've gotten calls from way out of state here and at the office, from somebody, say, in Georgia or Mississippi, say, hey, we saw your trucks. You know, we appreciate y' all being down here. People are. Are generally good in a tough situation, you know. Yeah, a lot of these people are been out of power, maybe lost houses or. But they still have a lot of grace.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: That's kind of the thing that stands out most to me from that experience is, like you just said, I mean, people's lives were completely changed in the span of, you know, the minutes that it took this thing to roll through and destroy their home, everything they owned that was inside of it. And, of course, they're going through one of the hottest times of year, no power. And they couldn't be happier just to see that somebody's working on it. That's. That says a lot, I think, about the kind of work that they do.
There's another kind of mutual aid that I wanted to talk to you about because you have some firsthand experience with it. And we. We talked to Clay a few months back about his experience in Guatemala. But you've also taken part in the international program, right?
[00:15:22] Speaker C: Yes. Me and a couple of other guys, Jamie Conroe and Steve Baumgartner, went to Sudan back in 2008 to work on a cooperative project over there. Boone Electric. Our board has been supportive and management has been supportive of the international program. So we've been to several different countries over the years with several different guys trying to spread the co op message and build some power lines and some generation to help some.
Some countries that are. That are a little less fortunate than we are. So it's a great program. We try to do it, you know, whenever possible. Back in Sudan in 08, great trip. We were over there for a while, built some power lines, got some houses energized.
It's just a good message that we are happy to be a part of spreading worldwide.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Tell me a little bit about that trip. Specifically. Doing that kind of work around here day to day is one thing, but volunteering to go to the. In this case, literally the other side of the globe to go do that and take part in something like that. What was. Why was that interesting to you?
[00:16:33] Speaker C: Like we talked earlier in our jobs, we're kind of wired to.
To fix stuff, right? That was an opportunity.
People in need, just like a hurricane or anything else, it just happened to be in a different part of the world.
So I think we all want to embrace that opportunity and if there's help that can be given, then we want to be able to do that. It's just an opportunity to help people. And we're very fortunate here.
We're aware that other countries are not that fortunate. And if we can spread some goodwill and we know how powerful electricity is in improving people's lives, if we could be part of that, just like the people were in 1936 when Boone Electric started here, if we could be a part of that, we absolutely want to do that. So.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Well, thank you for joining us today, Jimmy, and explaining that in greater detail. It's one of those things, like we said at the beginning, we talk about it a lot whenever there's a storm and the power needs to get back on. But there are many more layers to it that aren't always evident from all the photos of damage and things of that nature. So thank you again for coming and talking to us about that.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: All right, thanks for having me and.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us here on the Buzz. Be sure to come back next month and until then, we'll see you somewhere down the line.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Thank you for tuning in to the Buzz, a podcast by Boone Electric Cooperative. To subscribe or for more information, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram X and LinkedIn. And of course, you can always visit us 24.7@BooElectric Co Op, Boone Electric Cooperative, your co op, our community.
