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A monthly employee publication of the Bonneville Power Administration
June 1998
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A monthly employee publication of the Bonneville Power Administration
June 1998
There were early signs that Judi Johansen was cut out to be a leader. For one thing, she was student body president of her undergraduate alma mater, Colorado State University. As a lawyer, she chaired the Electric Power Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Natural Resources.
Johansen will be BPA’s 12th permanent administrator in the agency’s 61 years. At 39, she is the second youngest person appointed to the job. (Only Don Hodel, who was 34 at the time of his appointment, was younger.) Despite her relative youth, she brings substantial experience to the job, including 16 years in the electric utility business. Three of those years were at BPA where Johansen was — in sequence — acting director of the Fish and Wildlife division, senior policy advisor to the assistant administrator for Power Sales and vice president for Generation Supply. Johansen left BPA to become vice president of business development for Avista, the wholesale power marketing arm of Washington Water Power.
She lives in a Portland suburb with her husband, Kirk; daughter, Anna Huanan; and a somewhat infamous three-legged cat by the name of McKenzie (after the river). Like her predecessor, Randy Hardy, Johansen is an adoptive parent. In fact, one of her warmest memories of BPA is the shower her colleagues threw her just before she and Kirk traveled to China to adopt Anna.
Q. How do you feel about returning to BPA?
I’m really excited about coming back. I was back in the building recently for the first time in about a year and a half on business for Avista. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the people that I worked with until I got there, and it was a great feeling. Remembering that, I’m really looking forward to it.
It’s going to be a challenge, but I have no illusions — or delusions — about what the job is because I saw Randy in that job, and I’ve been in this industry for 16 years. I think I have a pretty good understanding of what it’s going to be like. With that all being said, I’m really excited.
Q. Why?
Well, I want to be a catalyst for helping Bonneville find the right spot in the restructured industry with a good fit for the fish issues and for the renewable and conservation issues. I’m excited about that, and it’s going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of tough decisions to make those things come together. I’m up to the challenge, but I think we’ve got a narrow window of opportunity to pull those things together, and I want to be a part of that.
Q. Why did you leave BPA in 1996?
I wanted experience in the private sector working in the restructured industry on the marketing side, and I had expressions of interest from three very wonderful companies in the region. Washington Water Power made me an offer that I just couldn’t refuse. I’m going to miss them a lot. The hard part about coming back to Bonneville is leaving friends I made at Washington Water Power and Avista.
Q. Are you taking a salary cut?
Oh, yeah. (Laughs) Huge! (More laughter.)
Seriously, this job is going to have a tremendous impact on my lifestyle in terms of stress on myself and on my family and, to a lesser extent, the pay cut issue. But public service is public service. So, we’re not here to make money. It’s a huge sacrifice for my family to allow me to do this.
Q. What was the selection process like? Was it as convoluted as it sounded?
The highest that I went in terms of the hierarchy was meeting with Secretary Peña. Within the White House, the highest level was Katie McGinty [the President’s top environmental advisor] and Bob Nash, who’s the director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, but I never had to talk to Al Gore or Bill Clinton, although, according to the press, it [her candidacy] was brought to their attention.
But the process was — it’s still ongoing — relatively short for me. It lasted less than a month. I was fortunate in that I didn’t put my name in six months ago, and I didn’t have to survive lengthy debates. I’d say the process epitomizes the polarization in the region over the fish issues and the restructuring issues. So, it wasn’t unexpected, although it certainly was a bit of a roller coaster.
I feel like a phoenix. In the morning I was dead [as a candidate], and in the afternoon I would rise from the ashes to come to life again, as did Angus [Duncan] and Roy [Hemmingway] at times. It was really pretty funny. My friends would call and ask, “Well, are you dead or are you alive?” And I’d say, “Well, I’m dead.” And they’d say, “Oh good, after a bit you’ll be alive.” And, sure enough, the music finally stopped and I was alive.
Q. Why did your candidacy prevail?
I had very broad bipartisan multi-state support. From the state of Washington, I had the governor and the two senators on the political side. I had support from the publics for the most part, and from Puget Power and Washington Water Power. So, Washington was pretty darn solid. In Idaho, Gov. Batt, Sen. Craig, Idaho Power and the Idaho co-ops were all there. And I had John Keys [Bureau of Reclamation] saying nice things about me.
In Montana, I had Montana Power and Montana eastern and western G&T. Support from Sen. Max Baucus was a huge factor, especially since he is the ranking delegation member. In Oregon, Gordon Smith supported me, while the rest of the delegation was neither endorsing nor supporting a candidate but mostly pushing for a selection. I talked to [Rep. Peter] DeFazio the day after he was quoted in the article saying “Who is she?” And he seemed fine with me, but I’m sure he’ll want to see more of me than that. Gov. Kitzhaber really was the only major opposition.
Q. Has having been gone from BPA for a while given you a different perspective on the agency?
Working for an energy marketing company has given me real first-hand experience with what the markets are and what the markets aren’t. So, I’ve got some pretty firm views on the markets themselves and where the value is on the electric side and where the value is on other products that get mixed into this, such as energy services, natural gas and some other things. I’ll be bringing that experience and knowledge with me. I’ve also got a whole new set of friends and contacts, people I never even heard of before. It’s a whole different world out there, being an energy marketer and trying to get a business up and running.
And that relates to the second point. Avista is a business where we literally started from ground zero in terms of sales and assets and built a company up to the point where, in terms of volume, it is the fifth largest marketer on the West Coast and ranks 26th in the nation. This is pretty phenomenal given where we started last August.
So I know what it feels like to live hand-to-mouth and get a business going. It’s been invaluable, and the people that I worked with at Avista are extremely talented and insightful when it comes to marketing and understanding markets and understanding how to treat customers, how to streamline the negotiations process and how to be flexible. That is of tremendous value to me.
And I also learned that BPA is very competitive. If we are diligent on the cost cutting and we can continue to manage the fish issues, Bonneville’s going to do very well. Being at Avista, looking across the river and being a player in the market where Bonneville is playing, I feel pretty good about BPA’s competitive position.
Q. What about you as a person? What are you like?
When I was with [BPA] Generation Supply, the way I most enjoyed working was to literally be on the floor with the employees who were doing the work and to learn from them what they were doing and how it fits into the overall operation. I learned more about the business this way, and I was able to foresee issues before they became immediate fires that had to be put out.
So don’t be surprised to see me walking around on your floor unaccompanied. My style of assimilating information is to talk to lots of different people, so I’m going to put my walking shoes on, and I’m going to talk to a lot of employees on an informal basis. I want to find out what their issues are and how things are going and that type of thing. I’m like a bee going to each flower to get a little bit of pollen.
As a person, I think I can be fairly lighthearted. I tend to be the one cracking the jokes in the back of the room, which is probably irreverent. But I think levity is important. Sometimes we don’t have enough of it, and that’s true of any work situation. I want to have fun, and I want people to feel like their work is both fun and meaningful. I’m not Pollyanna enough to think that I’m going to achieve a 100 percent fun factor at Bonneville, but I want people to think that fun and laughter are a good part of working there.
Q. What are your fondest memories of your previous time at BPA?
[Without a hesitation] Generation supply picnics!
Working with Walt [Pollock] on a number of things. There were a lot of invigorating issues. Even though they were very difficult issues, I really enjoyed working on them — Tenaska, ESA consultations. I even worked a little on the Trojan shutdown.
And I remember the shower people threw me when Kirk and I headed off for China [to adopt their daughter]. We had absolutely noth-ing because we were going a month earlier than we had planned. The feeling of support was wonderful.
Take the old mayo jar full of slips listing household jobs, combine with the personal ads in the local weekly and spread on an electronic bulletin board. Expose it to the work force for the rest of calendar 1998.
The fully baked product should be a slick way of introducing some talented employees with a little time on their hands to managers desperate for some short-term help. And vice versa.
Known as the Job Jar, the program carries the weighty official label of Employee and Manager Referrals for Occasional Assignments. By any name, it is a match-making service pilot program that will begin this month.
The program is the brain child of Petey Fleischmann, supply systems analyst in Corporate Purchasing and Property Management, in her role as an American Federation of Government Employees representative on the Partnership Council. The Partnership Council is a group of union and management representatives who meet monthly to identify workplace problems and to find solutions for them.
“It began with complaints from employees and my own follow-up personal observation that some employees were underused at times,” she says. “In the reorganizations, some employees ended up overworked and others occasionally underworked. Having employees without enough meaningful work at times has financial and morale costs to the agency.”
She pitched her thoughts to the Partnership Council. After some discussion, Terry Esvelt, vice president for Energy Efficiency and a management representative, joined with Fleischmann to brainstorm the issue. They came up with the idea of a Job Jar in which employees could alert managers that they had time and energy available.
Back at the Partnership Council, Sandy Smith, manager of the Power Business Development Pool and a management representative on the Partnership Council, added the idea that managers might have needs for extra help and that could be incorporated into the Job Jar.
The details are still evolving (This Week will announce them as they are firmed up), but the broad outline is a page on the Intranet on which employees, with the permission of their managers, can post their availability and managers can post their needs. The employee posting would be anonymous – simply a list of skills and times of availability. The manager listings would carry a name. With a little help from Margaret Lee, personnel management specialist in Human Resources, the two groups can match up.
“The idea,” says Smith, “is to keep this as simple as possible, for the program to have as few requirements as possible.” There is to be nominal paperwork to go through Human Resources; it is not a detail; there are no promotional opportunities; it is for short-term needs; and it can’t include any overtime or comp time. “We don’t want the program to die of its own weight,” says Smith. “We want it to be simple for employees and managers.”
As part of the campaign to keep the Job Jar program as simple as possible, the pilot program is open only to annual BPA employees (not contractors) in the headquarters building. This avoids complicating issues such as travel and taxes.
“It is a pilot,” says Smith, “because we aren’t certain how much interest there is.” Fleisch-mann hopes there will be a lot: “BPA employees are talented and highly motivated and have a tremendous work ethic. They want to stay busy and be productive. This program could do a lot for worker and manager morale.”
The effort known as Human Resources redesign is entering the implementation stage. “The intent is to reduce costs while maintaining or even improving service,” says Mark Roberts, team lead for the Human Resources, Diversity Management and Equal Employment Opportunity redesign. “The quality of service can go up even as costs go down,” he says.
Redesign is about BPA adopting industry best practices while eliminating redundancy, increasing efficiency and reducing costs. “The HR redesign splits out the oversight and policy people from service providers,” says Roy Smithey, special assistant to the senior vice president for Business Services. This means the people who set and enforce the rules and regulations are not the same people responsible for providing client service.
“It has to do with role clarity,” adds Mark Danley, member of the HR redesign team. “This model says you do your job, and I’ll do my job.”
The model makes it the client’s job to be more responsible for making informed choices. This could be daunting, except, Smithey explains, the HR service providers will be more proactive about understanding their clients’ needs, informing them of policies and identifying options to meet those needs. “They won’t just sit and wait for you to call,” he says.
Smithey describes how the HR redesign will help BPA be commercially successful. “We’re vigorously re-inforcing a customer service ethic,” he says, “figuring out how to provide a reasonable level of internal customer service in a cost-reduction environment.”
Smithey says that industry benchmarks suggest that about 80 percent of the requests for help on human resources topics are repetitive – lots of people have the same questions. Only about 20 percent require specialized help from subject-matter experts.
In the current system, the subject-matter experts are scattered around the agency, and it can be difficult for employees to know where to go for answers. “With the redesign,” Roberts says, “you don’t need to know who to go to.” One phone number and a web site available to all employees will take care of most questions. A service center will include resources for employees and provide business partners that will work with the business lines to assess and meet their needs.
Roberts points out that the redesign is accelerating a process already underway at BPA to make Human Resources more responsive to client needs. For example, BPA already has an Employee Services Hotline, staffed Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 503-230-3230 in Portland. Efforts are underway to take advantage of technology that will take some time to implement but will increase efficiency in the long run. “Peoplesoft [software] applications are designed for the casual user,” Roberts says. That means even the technology shy can get answers fast.
The implementation of the HR redesign will pick up speed as the summer progresses. The shared services board, made up of the chief operating officer, the senior vice president for Business Services and the heads of the business lines, is determining the next steps. When the steps have been laid out, the implementation plan will go to the bargaining units for review.
Implementation of the HR redesign will take place over the next several years. Roberts describes the phased-in multi-year implementation as less disruptive for clients. Making new investments, training staff and educating clients will take some time. “There’s a lot of opportunity for employees to influence this as we get down to implementation,” Smithey says. “This is about building business relationships.”
“I don’t see this model as taking service away from people,” Roberts says. “It gives them more choices.” In today’s competitive environment, choice is what it’s all about. — Martha Swain, public affairs specialist in Power Products, Pricing and Rates
Everyone not involved in the “shared services” redesign may need some reminding of what it is all about. “It’s the third great re-engineering after we did Transmission and Power,” says Steve Hickok, acting chief operating officer. A bit different from re-engineering, however, the shared services redesign focuses explicitly on costs and on continuously improving services that already are providing value.
Shared services is the delivery of staff and support work to business lines. The goals of shared services are to meet internal customer (client) needs and to create value, improve service levels and reduce costs.
The redesign is taking place in most functional areas of the Business Services Group. Two small pilot studies conducted last summer covered Travel and Management Consulting. Separate redesign teams are now addressing four areas — Human Resources, Diversity Management and Equal Employment Opportunity; Agency Financial Planning and Cost Management; Information Management; and Workplace Services.
The redesign of the Business Services Group is using the shared internal services model, which has been used by such leading companies as Houston Lighting and Power, Ontario Hydro and British Columbia Hydro. Shared means clients and providers are jointly responsible for the results attained. Internal means that services will be provided only to BPA clients. Services means the work performed for the clients.
The redesign supports the competitiveness of the already-re-engineered business lines. “BPA competes in a commodities market,” says Guy Kyle, management analyst in Internal Consulting. “We need to be as efficient as possible. The redesign has been an ambitious effort to get users and providers together to partner on solutions.”
“We’ve created the ideas for change,” says Roy Smithey, special assistant to the senior vice president for Business Services. But, he adds, “The change isn’t here yet.” Smithey explains that the redesign envisions a multi-year implementation plan, and “In 2001 we need to be there; we need to hit the cost target of a 50 percent reduction in costs from the FY 96 actual costs.” The Business Services Group has already made progress by reducing its costs by 27 percent and its staffing by 30 percent. The business lines are also reducing their costs as a down payment on the total process cost reduction targets.
What’s bright yellow, looks like an oversized bread box and plugs into a 110-volt outlet?
Ask Lou Tauber.
Last month, Tauber, a supervisory general engineer in the Transmission Business Line, put his electric car (and his electric bicycle and a friend’s electric motorcycle) on display for Earth Day. Employees got a chance to see the new technology up close and ask questions about it.
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“When I found this car in 1992, it was a disaster,” says Tauber. “It had been abandoned and the only thing that worked was the electric motor that was already connected to the transaxle.” Tauber bought additional parts for it and then put in the extensive effort it took to get it to run. “I’ve been driving it around town for about four years now,” he reports. The car is a 1979 electric Renault LeCar. It charges out of a 110-volt outlet and can go for about 30 miles on one charge. “I’m in the process of modifying it to be able to go 60 miles,” says Tauber. “All I have to do is change the battery configuration and add more batteries.” Besides its size, the most noticeable thing about the car is how clean it is. Since there is no gas motor, there is little dirt. The electric motor is powered by sealed batteries. Maintenance is minimal. Tauber checks the battery connections every six months and changes the brushes on the motor every 95,000 to 110,000 miles. “The motor life on an electric car is one-half million miles,” says Tauber. |
Top: Children from the day care center join employees to kick tires on Lou Tauber's electric car. Bottom: Tauber, third from the right and partially hidden, explains how the electric bicycle and electric motorcycle work. |
Working on electric vehicles is more than a hobby for Tauber. He is promoting the technology because it is environmentally friendly and very economical. “I’m trying to encourage businesses to provide charging stations for employees,” says Tauber.
What’s the future for this new technology? “Currently, Solectria and Ford offer an electric pickup and Geo offers the Metro sedan,” says Tauber. “Within three years, Toyota and Honda will have electric vehicles available for the general public. That will provide buyers with one more option when they’re out shopping for a car used mostly for commuting.” — Cheri Larson, public affairs specialist in Communications
A push for better customer service was behind the part of the re-engineering process of 1996 that arranged the retail power sales organizations into two groups: the Eastern Power Business Area and the Western Power Business Area.
The eastern area, or “hub” as it is often called, organized its staff into core customer teams, or CCTs, to more quickly respond to customer needs.
The team meets: from left to right, Scott Coe, Janet Rickman, SUe Harp, Brenda Brown, Tim Patrick (standing), Nancy Schimmels, Scott Wiley (standing) and Joe Hanson. |
The eastern area, or "hub" as it is often called, organized its staff into core customer teams, or CCTs, to more quickly respond to customer needs. The general concept of the CCT is to have a group of employees assigned to work on specific accounts so they can develop a base knowledge of the customers. When a customer need arises, the CCT members have enough background to be able to dig right in to the issue at hand. The second basic concept of the CCT is that its members are from enough disciplines that the team can take quick action on any customer need. |
The CCT is led by an account executive who brings together the expertise of staff from the hub and from Portland. The hub provides secretaries, contract specialists, financial and economic analysts, and issues resolution specialists. Portland provides members from billing, legal, environment, scheduling and transmission and reserve services as well as others with needed expertise.
Here’s how it works:
9:05 a.m.:
An account executive receives a call from a customer about a possible power sale. The AE discusses the customer’s needs and makes some suggestions. The customer thinks it could be interested in following through on the ideas but would like more details and numbers.
And, by the way, the utility’s monthly board meeting is tomorrow morning, so those details and numbers are needed this afternoon.
9:25 a.m.:
The AE pops two Valium and calls the relevant CCT members together. The CCT members include someone from pricing support, an analyst for load data, someone from contracts support and an issues resolution specialist. The team defines the issues and agrees who will do what. The members decide to check in again with each other at 11.
9:30 a.m.:
The team members rush to their desks to work on their specific tasks.
11:00 a.m.:
As agreed, the hub members of the CCT reconvene around the conference table.
The price has been calculated and the team spends some time reviewing the assumptions that went into its development. Discussion ensues until all details have been worked out to the AE’s satisfaction.
11:27 a.m.:
The AE calls the customer back with an outline of the “deal.” The customer has a few questions about specifics.
12:06 p.m.:
The AE meets with the CCT again to hammer out the final details. The issues resolution specialist is assigned the task of putting the formal proposal together by 2 p.m. for everyone to review. Pricing is double-checked.
1:15 p.m.:
The customer calls the AE back with another idea on the product.
1:57 p.m.:
The AE E-mails the proposal to the other CCT members to proof for any errors in assumptions or product description.
2:15 p.m.:
The proposal is cleared by everyone on the CCT. The AE retreats to the peace and quiet of an empty conference room to review the proposal and to make sure BPA is about to deliver a product that will meet both BPA’s and the customer’s needs.
3:00 p.m.:
The AE faxes the proposal to the customer.
3:05 p.m.:
The AE calls the customer to ensure that the fax arrived. The AE and customer run through the proposal line by line. The customer is very happy with the terms and price and asks that the AE come to the board meeting prepared to talk about current market prices.
With the help of the Portland trading floor and risk management groups, the hub CCT members pull together a package of information on market prices and go to work creating a presentation package for the AE to take out the next morning.
4:30 p.m.:
The CCT members draw straws to see who will stay late and get the presentation package completed.
6:30 p.m.:
Lights out. Job is done.
6:00 a.m.:
The AE leaves home for the 150-mile drive to the customer’s office.
12:00 a.m.:
The utility board votes to accept the BPA proposal.
12:04 p.m.:
The AE calls back to the office to let everyone know the proposal has been accepted and to start working on the contract. The customer wants to have a special board meeting to go over the contract in two weeks.
4:00 p.m.:
The AE arrives back at the office. The CCT meets to talk about the needs of the contract.
Have the CCTs been successful?
It looks that way. So far this year, the eastern hub has signed 26 power sales contracts totaling nearly 500 average megawatts.
And, the hub has received evaluations of 19 transactions with customers. Eighteen rated the service as “exceptional.” One rated the service “very good.” Scott Coe, account services manager in the Eastern Hub
Success Share emphasizes targets. As important as they are to BPA’s success, employees need to remember that the yearly targets are based on concepts that don’t change each year — the agency’s strategic business objectives.
The seven SBOs, shown below, are meant to be enduring guides to the areas in which BPA must excel. They were explained this way in “Understanding the BPA Business Direction,” which went out with the FY 1997 targets: “The SBOs derive directly from our responsibilities. They are straightforward and written to withstand the test of time. They are designed to be enduring and constant guides to realizing our vision. Every project, every individual action, every issue should be tested against whether or not it is consistent with our SBOs and our values.”
During the employee survey to be conducted later this month, employees will be asked to do some of that testing by explaining the relationship between their job and BPA’s business direction, which is expressed in the targets and the SBOs.
The mid-year report on the six Success Share targets is much like the Northwest’s spring weather — unsettled.
Some targets look reachable, some look out of reach at the moment and progress on some has yet to be measured.
As was the case at this time last year, surveys measuring progress on three crucial targets have yet to be conducted. Results of the overall constituent/tribal satisfaction index, the over-all customer satis-faction index and the goal of having at least 80 percent of BPA’s employees understand BPA’s purpose and business direction and link those to their work will be reported in This Week as they become available. The surveys will be conducted in June and the results may be available in late July or early August.
Efforts on one target appear to be progressing on course — the internal business processes and supporting systems target of having outputs defined, process managers assigned, project plans developed and FY 98 planned work completed on billing, inter-business line transfers, revenue recognition, scheduling and payroll/personnel.
Results on two Success Share targets are looking doubtful at the moment. The financial target of agency net revenues of at least $81 million looks doubtful. Projections through the second quarter show net revenues to be negative as revenues are projected to be down and expenses seem to be up in some areas. These are only projections, however.
The biological opinion target also looks unreachable. The winter reservoir requirements were missed because of maintenance work at Grand Coulee and Dworshak dams and because of problems with hourly coordination at the mid-Columbia projects.
Payout levels are based on the number of targets the agency reaches: hitting four targets results in a 50 percent payout, five in a 75 percent payout and six in a 100 percent payout. The dollar value will be computed at the end of the fiscal year.
| Mid-year progress 1998 BPA Agency-Wide Targets | ||
| Conclude sales of at least 1000 aMW for the post-201 period with prices at or above BPA's costs, with at least 50% of these sales going to in-region purchasers at cost. | Currently on target |  |
| Meet Biological Opinion operational requirements for fish mitigation and recovery. | Currently below target |  |
| Continuing increases in the number of adult salmon (including steelhead) returning to the Columbia River, resulting in continuing increases in the number of naturally spawning salmon. | Too soon to tell | |
| Overall constituent/tribal government satisfaction index of 6.9. | Survey in June | |
| Increased regional awareness of BPA's stewardship role. | Too soon to tell | |
| Four or fewer unplanned outages at 94% of the points of delivery, excluding transfer points. | Currently on target | |
| No BPA-initiated California-Oregon AC Intertie separation (loss of all three COI lines) causing loss of firm load beyond that provided for as part of an established safety net. | Currently on target | |
| Overall customer satisfaction index of 7.5. | Survey in June | |
| Agency net revenues > $81 million. | Currently below target | |
| Business lines and Corporate Group do not exceed cost targets. | Too soon to tell | |
| Total capital expenditure < $263 million. | Currently on target | |
| At least 80% of all employees understand BPA's purpose and business direction and are able to link them to their work. | Survey in June | |
| Outputs defined; process managers assigned; project plans developed; and FY98 planned work completed on the following: Billing, Inter-business line transfers, Revenue recognition, Scheduling, Payroll/personnel. | Currently on target | |
| Outputs defined; process managers assigned; and project plans developed for agency cost management/accounting system. | Currently on target | |
| Agency Business Information Management Strategy in place. | Currently on target | |
| BPA managers and executives demonstrate continuous improvement in the key leadership competencies of building effective teams; motivating others; customer focus; and process management. | Survey in July | |
| BPA has fewer than 2.5 recordable injuries per 100 employees. | Currently on target | |
The history of the agency — and electricity — live not only in photographs, grainy film, folk songs and legend. They reside in hand-me-down books and in ties that bind. Tim McCoy, a computer specialist in Rates, is living proof.
McCoy’s father-in-law, Ole Nielson, worked for BPA in its early years, from the 1940s to 1974. He started as a guard and retired as a substation maintenance foreman in Salem. Over the years, Nielson passed along his reference books on electricity to Tim. Some of the texts pre-date the agency, having been written around 1910.
“I’m not really sure what’s in them, after all I’m not an electrician! But they’re interesting just as books. They helped those who built the original transmission grid,” says McCoy.
McCoy’s electrical connection doesn’t stop with the books. When he lived in Seattle, his wife, Jan, worked for a law firm specializing in power-related legislation on the state and national levels. His father, Franklin, is retired from Portland General Electric after spending 28 years as a lineman. And his brother, Mike, retired from BPA in 1994. He’d been with the agency for 22 years as a mathematician.
Tim’s a relative newcomer to BPA, beginning work in 1990 as a Unisys contractor and later becoming a BPA employee. “With all my family connections to the agency and the electrification of the Northwest, I guess it was destiny that I’d eventually end up at BPA, though I never thought about it in those terms.”
Maybe it wasn’t really a conscious decision, but it does complete the generational circuit rather nicely! — Ken Kane, public affairs specialist in Communications
Scotch broom seems to be everywhere at this time of year. The plant with the showy display of yellow flowers seems to have been planted along roads and power rights-of-way to brighten them up.
What could be wrong with something so pretty?
The problem is that scotch broom is an alien invader, a noxious weed, that is reproducing out of control. The woody perennial was introduced from Europe in the late 1800s as an ornamental shrub and was later used to stabilize soils on road cuts. It has an advantage over native plants in that the natural enemies that would limit its growth weren’t imported along with the broom. Consequently, approximately seven million acres of Western Oregon are now infested with scotch broom.
Its rapid proliferation has displaced native vegetation. According to Dennis Isaacson with Oregon’s Weed Control Program, “Scotch broom can interfere with reforestation. It competes very aggressively with young plantings of Douglas fir. We have seen some plantings actually fail because the competition from scotch broom is so aggressive.”
For BPA, the plant presents a different problem. Since broom is a “pioneer” plant that rapidly invades disturbed areas, it has an affinity for transmission line rights-of-way. The right-of-way providing an avenue for the plant to spread is only part of the problem. BPA’s Mark Newbill, a natural resource specialist in the Transmission Business Line, says, “As the broom takes over the power line’s ROW, our access to towers and lines to do repairs and maintenance is limited.”
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BPA's Aircraft Services has teamed up with entomologists from Oregon's Weed Control Program to mount an aerial assault by dropping scotch broom seed weevils (Apion fuscirostre) on heavily infested sites. According to Oregon's Tom Forney, the seed weevils, also European natives, "have been up to 85 percent effective in controlling the seed produced by scotch broom in those areas where the weevils have become well established." Recently, biodegradable paper cups, or "bug bombs," containing the weevils were dropped on broom infestations along the Allston-Clatsop and Clatsop-Astoria rights-of-way. Forney emphasizes that, while the weevils will feed on the broom seeds, which will limit the broom's spread, they will not kill the existing plants. |
Top right: Weevils in a loaded "bug bomb." Top left: Dark patches in the Allston-Clatsop right-of-way are scotch broom. Above: Denis Isaacson of the Oregon Department of Agriculture collects scotch broom seed weevils. |
Research continues in the search for biological control agents that will attack the plant itself. The use of biological controls is only a part of BPA’s program of Integrated Pest Management that uses a combination of techniques to control noxious weeds.
Spring would be more beautiful to BPA’s maintenance crews if the rights-of-way were a lot less yellow and lot more accessible. — Tony Morrell, Environment, Fish and Wildlife
The Transmission Business Line held its first Non-Monetary Awards program on May 14. Despite cold wind and rain, over 400 TBL employees attended the ceremony to help honor 67 fellow workers who contributed to the TBL’s success. The program took place at the Ultra High Voltage Lab on the Ross Complex. Many employees commented that they liked having the ceremony in the lab despite the broken floor heater. Said one attendee, “I think having the ceremony at the lab really reflects what TBL is all about.”
Senior vice president Harvey Spigal emceed the event, vice presidents Fred Johnson, Chuck Meyer, Vickie VanZandt, Alan Courts and Marg Nelson presented awards to employees within their respective organizations. Former TBL senior vice president George Bell and acting administrator Jack Robertson were special guests. Bell presented the George Bell Award for Exceptional Community Service to Bill Ward, chief substation operator III, and Jim DeBoer, aircraft patrol observer. Robertson presented the Exemplary or Courageous Act Award to David Williams, lineman foreman I. Following the ceremony, attendees braved the weather and huddled under large canopies to enjoy the food, camaraderie and music by RIF and the Early Outs. The really brave stayed to try to win T-shirts handed out as door prizes. TBL plans to hold the program annually. — Melanie Jackson, public affairs specialist in the Transmission Business Line |
Top to bottom: Jack Robertson presented the Exemplary or Courageous Act Award; there was a good turnout; Melanie Jackson hands Harvey Spigal his award; George Bell announces the winners of the Exceptional Community Service Award. |