|
|
|
December 1998
Leading with their good grasp of BPA’s business and how they fit into it, employees hit the mark on almost every target BPA set for fiscal 1998.
“When employees really understand what we’re doing and know how they can contribute, we go a long way toward pulling together to achieve real results,” said Chief Operating Officer Steve Hickok. “It made for a remarkably successful year.”
In the 1998 BPA work environment survey, 87 percent of employees correctly identified BPA’s official business purpose statement and were able to accurately describe how their jobs linked to specific BPA strategic business objectives or targets.
The employee survey results set the stage for our other achievements, like the 1998 customer satisfaction survey. The 7.5 index target for customer satisfaction was a 14 percent increase over last year. When management set that target, some thought it couldn’t be done. Yet, collectively, the business lines came so close that the difference is in the noise. The Power Business Line, in particular, saw its customer satisfaction ratings go up 22 percent.
This past year, BPA met requirements for increased flows at the dams for fish survival and still met revenue targets for power and transmission sales. Every business unit met its cost target. And safety and transmission reliability were where we wanted them.
One disappointment was constituent/tribal satisfaction. And even there, while we didn’t hit the target, we improved significantly.
Overall, a very good year. What do we do for an encore?
The executive committee has adopted the agency targets for 1999. BPA is meeting with the labor unions on targets for next year’s Success Share, and expects to be able to announce those in mid-December. Hickok gave this overview of what the agency targets will mean.
Customer, constituent, and tribal satisfaction continue to be on the agency screen. But look, too, for some specific targets for improvements in individual business lines. There’ll be a focus on making BPA a better place to work and improvements in rewards and recognition. Also, better workload distribution, more development opportunities and reducing “turf.”
A unified fish plan is there, with the National Marine Fisheries Service getting ready to issue its plan for salmon restoration late in 1999. Hickok said, “we want to position the hydro system to be impervious to future decisions on fish for at least the next 10 years.” Expect also a real emphasis on BPA’s public responsibilities, on BPA reflecting the region’s values, and on what the region wants BPA to be.
And costs and revenues? “In 1998 the business lines produced better net operating margins with average water than they produced in 1997 with record high water,” said Hickok. “That was an incredible performance. For 1999, we’d like to repeat the incredible. Realistically though, that will take cost reductions as well as continued strong revenue performance,” Hickok said.
“The executive team provides the bearings – the information on where we are and where we’re going,” Hickok said. “But it’s up to the business units to get us there. They’ve certainly proved this past year that they’re up to the challenge,” he said.
Pat Zimmer is a writer in communications
Success Share celebrations -- Managers hosted employees at Ross and Portland celebrations last month.
|
BPA met 14 of its 17 agency targets for fiscal 1998. Of the remaining targets, BPA came close on two but didn’t quite reach the targeted results. Six of the agency targets were part of the Success Share program for the year. We met five of the six and BPA rewarded employees with a 75 percent Success Share payout. BPA’s agency targets covered four target areas – public responsibilities, high-performance organization, customer satisfaction and finance. See page 4 for the Strategic Planning group report on the summary of BPA’s 1998 targets and results. Public Responsibilities included seven targets. BPA achieved five, missed on one, and dropped one. |
|
High-performance organization included six targets. BPA achieved five and missed one.
Customer satisfaction had one target that was also part of the Success Share program.
Overall customer satisfaction index of 7.5. BPA met the target with an average index of 7.4 for all three business lines. The COO said that the result from the customer survey was within the margin of error for the survey instrument. Business line improvements over 1997 included 22 percent for power, seven percent for transmission and 13 percent for energy efficiency.
Finance had three targets for 1998 and BPA met all three.
-- BPA’s Strategic Planning group
Shared Services kick-off – About 200 employees attended a kick-off meeting for the new Shared Services group at the Portland Conference Center in early November. The new services group combines most administration and business support services under one organization. It serves the power and transmission business lines and BPA’s corporate groups.
So he’s no stranger to the COO post. But Hickok says some things and faces have changed. And BPA has different challenges for its work place in the future. Just what are those challenges and how does the new COO plan to handle them? Pat Zimmer of the communications group interviewed Hickok to find out and filed this article for the Circuit.
Circuit. What does a COO do?
Hickok. A Chief Operating Officer’s job is to drive the agency’s strategy. He or she translates strategy into actions and keeps the organization focused on the goals.
Circuit. How do you do that?
Hickok. In several ways. At the start of each operating year, I talk with the vice presidents and we define what they’re going to accomp-lish. In the multi-year time frame, we call this business line flight planning. In the operating year, it’s the VPs’ performance contracts.
Circuit. You’ve been in and out of the front office over the past several years. What’s changed between your two stints?
Hickok. A lot has changed since I last occupied this seat in 1994. Wholesale deregulation has taken hold, salmon have been listed as endangered species, BPA has downsized significantly, and we’ve separated into two bus-iness lines. And of course so many of the peo-ple are different, which makes for a different chemistry among the executives and managers.
The new administrator came in with a new vision of what it will take for BPA to succeed and deliver on its mission. Much of it was similar to goals that Randy Hardy had. But there were some important differences. The major new elements are a unified fish strategy, separation of BPA so the region can form its single integrated grid operator or operator-owner around the BPA grid, and the “greening” of BPA’s power and transmission businesses.
A final difference is a big emphasis on the kind of place BPA is to work at – the nature of the relationships between employees and managers, among other employees, and the systems that support the employees in accomplishment of their work.
Circuit. What do you want to achieve in this job in FY 1999?
Hickok. A lot of my focus will be on the systems we use to help get work done. The human resources systems, like rewards and recognition, are very important. We’re getting a workgroup together to study and make recommendations for an overhaul. And if we do get Congress’ approval on the Administrative Efficiencies Project, we may also be looking at the entire realm of HR policies and practices as well.
I’m also very focused on the Business Solutions Project. The care and feeding of our customized information systems is killing us. We need a single data warehouse, a single architecture, a single format – and this is 180 degrees counter to our culture. Everybody will be affected, and it will create universal discomfort. But when we get through it, I believe it will be tremendously liberating. It will be the kind of thing where we’ll look back and wonder how we ever did without it.
Circuit. What can you tell us about the Administrative Efficiencies Project?
Hickok. Sometime early next year, we expect to ask Congress to approve some broad principles for our personnel, procurement and property management policies and practices. And to direct us to develop a new system that fits these principles. If we get approval, the next step is to design the changes – new policies and practices for compensation, rewards, hiring, performance management and so forth. These should help BPA be more competitive and a more attractive employer.
I know some employees are concerned about the changes this might bring. But my real belief is that this will be an even better place to work when we have better systems that really are tailored to what we need to do. We all have frustrations when our systems won’t allow us to hire or retain the right people, for instance. It hurts performance and morale. And we intend to work very closely with the unions and with employees throughout to make sure that their voices are heard and their concerns are met. Fairness and greater opportunities have to be hallmarks of the next system.
|
Circuit. What do you like about this job? Hickok. There are lots of great jobs in this agency. I really enjoyed the Power Business Line, and I hadn’t planned on coming back to be COO. But I do care deeply about how well this place works to support our people. This job gives me the best opportunity in BPA to affect more of this on a broader scale. Circuit. What are you going to do about helping managers to be more effective in this next year? |
Weekly employee forum – Employees meet with Chief Operating Officer Steve Hickok during a Monday morning forum. The COO discusses current issues and answers questions on any topic. |
Hickok. The VP contracts will call for individual development plans focused on the key managerial competencies, like building effective teams, developing and motivating others and managing conflict. VPs are also accountable for working with their subordinate managers to help them develop these competencies. These are management attributes that are really important, and we’re not going to compromise on them. And we’ll continue to use 360-degree feedback and competency-based interviewing.
We’ve also asked the VPs to make improvements in recognition, workload distribution and turf reduction. I’m not set on the particular ways they’ll do that, but I am concerned about results. Employees expressed concern about these issues in the last survey, and VPs must show improvements in those areas to be judged successful at the end of the year.
Circuit. How do you plan to stay in touch with employees?
Hickok. What I most enjoy is actually experiencing a day in peoples’ work lives. For me, that’s more fun and interesting than question and answer sessions at staff meetings or dropping in on people unannounced. I like to see first-hand how employees get their work done; what their challenges are; how they depend on others; and how others depend on them. Recently, I went over to Dittmer and worked a dispatch shift. Don’t worry, the dispatchers kept their hands on the controls and mine off. But I was able to experience what they do and go through, and talk with them about some of their concerns. That was tremendously enlightening. It’s something you can’t get from a briefing book, no matter how well you understand the work in concept.
Circuit. How will talking to people about what they do help you in steering the course?
Hickok. There are a number of systems improvements where I think it will help to understand what it really takes to get the job done. You can’t grasp the work process problems of the business line separation, for instance, until you sit with the schedulers and the billers and see how the separation of power from transmission is causing confounding complexities – enormous new challenges for the people working there.
Circuit. Are the Willie Nelson sightings going to continue at BPA events?
Hickok. Without a doubt. Willie lives! (Note: An employee meeting early this year mixed fun with business. Hickok added his own touch of humor at the event when he appeared in the character of country western star Willie Nelson, ponytail and all.)
Many sources say that we need better science information on salmon. The more we learn about salmon, the better decisions the government and region will be able to make to help save this tremendous Northwest resource.
BPA supports a unified fish plan for the region in 1999 and is funding fish science efforts. Some of the research may be interesting to people outside of BPA’s fish staff. So this Circuit issue has an article about a study near the mouth of the Columbia River. Early next year we’ll have an article about ocean research on salmon.
The January Circuit will debut a new feature – a crossword puzzle. Quite a few people like to work crosswords and others may enjoy these challenges. We found two puzzle aficionados who volunteered to design crosswords for the Circuit.
Besides being fun, such puzzles are educational. Each Circuit puzzle will have a theme related in some way to BPA, the region, our culture or history. To start things off, the January puzzle theme will be dams of the Northwest.
In the past month we’ve had E-mail from readers about recent Circuit articles. Apparently some BPA historic sources may not be accurate. Bill Murlin of media resources wrote about the quiz answer on Woody Guthrie in the October issue. Murlin said BPA paid Guthrie $266.66 for one month in 1941. Guthrie wrote 26 songs, most about the Columbia River and its dams.
If anyone should know, it’s Murlin. As we reported, he researched Guthrie’s past at BPA prior to our 50th anniversary in 1987. Murlin found old songs and information that had been stored away or slipped through the cracks since 1941. The next time we write about Guthrie, I’ll remember to check with Bill Murlin to get the straight facts.
We also heard from an employee about the October article on the 1973 oil embargo. Sharon Munce in transmission told about shut-tle vans that BPA ran during the gas shortage. She drove one of two eight-passenger vans.
The BPA vans made several trips each day between Portland and Vancouver. They carried mail, supplies and passengers to and from headquarters and the Ross Complex. They also stopped at the airport, GSA and other places as needed. Munce has some amusing and not so funny stories about BPA’s shuttle service back then.
Finally, you’ll recall the photo spread in the November issue from BPA’s 21st Mile aid station in the Portland Marathon. BPA and Kiwanis Club volunteers staff the aid station each year. Last month the Marathon sponsors gave an award to the BPA group. Aid station captain Don Davey of energy efficiency accepted the plaque at the Marathon dinner.
The plaque is on display at the fitness center. It will later go in the BPA trophy case near the AraMark Café. The Marathon volunteers deserve a pat on the back. They made the event more fun – if not a little easier – for a few dozen fellow employees who ran or walked the 26.2-mile course.
-– Jack Odgaard, editor
Satsop, the defunct nuclear power plant site in western Washington, could have become a “Bart Simpson” theme park. Instead, local public groups rededicated the site on Nov. 17 as the Satsop Development Park. They hope it will attract technology and other businesses.
BPA and the Washington Public Power Supply System have been working for years to transfer the site to the Satsop Redevelopment Project. The SRP includes Grays Harbor County, Public Utility District No. 1 of Grays Harbor and the Port of Grays Harbor.
As part of the transfer, BPA and the Supply System would provide the SRP $15 million for needed infrastructure such as roads and more modern telecommunications. That’s a lot less cash than BPA would have had to spend to tear down the unfinished concrete structures. It’s also a much wiser use of ratepayer money, says Paul Norman who heads BPA’s Power Business Line.
“BPA is proud to have an opportunity to take part in this project,” Norman says. “For us, it’s an opportunity to renew BPA’s commitment to help local economies, as well as an opportunity to revive the Satsop site,” he says.
BPA has a long history of working with local communities, usually on energy related projects. The Satsop project is different and was prompted by unusual circumstances.
The Supply System had acquired 1,600 acres at Satsop. It had invested about $3.8 billion in buildings, roads, utilities and other infrastructure on more than 400 acres of the site for two nuclear power plants. But it stopped construction in the early 1980s and the power plants were never completed.
In 1996, the SRP approached BPA and the Supply System with a proposal to convert the site into a business park. BPA and the Supply System agreed to fund a study to take a closer look at the proposal.
“It’s taken a lot of hard work by many good people and we are almost there,” says BPA’s Tom Osborn, a public utilities specialist in Richland, Wash. The parties still need to resolve some final issues before they can complete the transfer. But Osborn says, “This project has provided all of us with an opportunity to breathe new life into a site that seemed destined for destruction.”
It’s also a classic example of a “win-win” solution for many. The citizens of Gray’s Harbor County win because the site will provide business diversity, economic development and much-needed jobs. The county has been hit hard by reduced fishing and logging. BPA, the Supply System and regional ratepayers win because they will save money by not having to tear down the site. And the SRP provides a fresh beginning for Grays Harbor County and the local area.
The parties expect to sign the site transfer agreement by the end of the year. The hard work and cooperation by all parties could well make the Satsop site a success story after all.
Crystal Ball is a writer in communications
Satsop site speakers included (l to r) Gov. Gary Locke, state senator Sid Snyder who represents the Grays Harbor County area, and BPA’s Paul Norman, vice president of Power.
Pundits liken career achievements to “climbing a ladder to success.” While they didn’t climb a ladder per se, more than a dozen BPA employees in late October climbed stairs to success. Literally, 1,700 of them in all.
Fourteen people and two teams of stair climbers took part in the annual “Run on the Banks” stair climb in Portland. The YMCA sponsors the highest stair climbing competition in the U.S. as a benefit to support “Y” teen programs. The Associates sponsored the two BPA teams that helped raise $20,000, and that was matched by two local “Y” supporters.
BPA has fielded one or two teams of stair climbers every year since the Run on the Banks began in 1995. The event was organized by government and non-profit agencies to help disadvantaged youth.
Teams and individuals compete in age and gender categories as well as overall. More than 500 climbers took part in this year’s event, and 58 teams of six climbers competed in the men’s, women’s, co-ed and age group events.
The vertical run up stairs began at Portland’s tallest building, the U.S. Bank Tower. After scaling its 44 floors, climbers shuttled over to the second tallest building, the Wells Fargo Tower, to climb its 42 stories.
The BPA Stairmasters team won first place in the masters division. Team members were Steve Baltazar, Roger Whittaker, Fev Pratt, Rod Boling, Kevin George and Ed Mosey. The BPA Climbers team finished fifth in the co-ed competition. Members were Henry Tieu, Lori Blasdel, Viet Duong, Crystal Ball, Doug Alexander and Angela Penney.
Overall, Baltazar finished ninth, Whittaker tenth, and Tieu 23rd in the men’s competition. And Penney finished 25th among 200 women who raced.
Several climbers from BPA also finished high in their age divisions. Baltazar was first in his age bracket; Whittaker and Tom Mannen finished second in their brackets; Tieu and Boling took third places; Mosey, Penney and Patty Baltazar took ninth places; and Pratt took tenth in his age group.
Some of the BPA stair climbers have competed every year. “There is an easier way to see the top of these buildings,” says Steve Baltazar who has competed all four years, “but it doesn’t support such a good cause.”
Employees who took part in the annual Run on the Banks stair climb competition this year practiced in the BPA stairwells at headquarters.
While the power industry deals with de-regulation today, another energy revolution is underway. In a few short years it could prove as big as that of the computer industry that saw the evolution of the PC since the mid-1980s. The implications for BPA are significant, as 100 staff members learned at a seminar on Oct. 28.
The meeting on new technologies focused on “distributed” resources. The term applies to small power sources that are close to or at the end use of the load. These are sources that can stand alone to power a home or small business. They don’t draw energy from the electric transmission or distribution grid. But they might also be able to deliver power into a grid.
The most promising of the new resources appears to be fuel cells. They create electricity through a chemical reaction from hydrogen, which is produced from fuel such as natural gas or methanol. The primary byproduct is ultra-pure water. The overall efficiency of the fuel cell system can exceed 90 percent, when heat from the processor is recovered and used.
The need to electrify emerging nations is one of the driving forces for distributed resources.
Kim Zentz of Avista Labs said, “There are 1.8 billion people in the world with no electricity.” Avista has designed a fuel cell to power a single home.
Jim Newcomb of E-Source, a research group, said, “There are more cell phones in China than there are in the U.S. The reason is because they have no wires.” He says that developing nations could go straight to distributed generation and avoid the cost of building transmission grids.
In developed nations, the transmission grid itself may be one of the first places to use distributed resources, speakers said. And BPA can play a significant role in the new technology that would benefit it and the Northwest.
“This is about ‘greenco,’” administrator Judi Johansen said. BPA can help move into new technologies and enhance the value of the fed-eral power system, including transmission, she said.
Other utilities are moving with the technology. Califor-nia’s Pacific Gas & Electric is issuing a request for proposals. It invites distributed resources to compete against the cost of new transmission to improve grid reliability east of Sacramento.
The support by transmission providers will be more than cursory in the future. They deal with dynamic power flows and shrinking reserve margins. At the same time, the economy needs more reliable power. So small distributed power plants can offset the need for new transmission lines and upgrades in many cases.
Speakers at the recent seminar looked at possible BPA roles in the future with distributed resources. And why BPA should want to explore and support the new technology.
BPA already has a 5-kilowatt fuel cell to be used where diesel back-up generation would otherwise be installed. And last month the first Northwest home powered by a fuel cell was unveiled in Bend, Ore. Northwest Power Sys-tems of Bend built the system as a test for BPA. “The BPA unit supplied all of the power required (by the 2,200-square-foot home),” said Alan Guggenheim, president of the company.
Distributed resources may also help relieve congestion on transmission grids. Customers may see the new resources as a way to avoid the costs to upgrade their distribution lines, especially in low-density areas.
BPA could help inform customers about the technology. It could enter partnerships with the new resource providers and stand behind their products. And BPA could serve as a demonstration site for new technologies. It may be able to get joint funding from the Department of Energy or other sources.
BPA could also help set integration standards for distributed resources. And it could help states and local governments develop building codes that may be needed for the new power sources.
The region will be able to learn more about this and other new technologies soon. BPA is now working to set up a symposium in early February. In the meantime, BPA has handouts, a summary and a video of the recent seminar. They’re available from the information center at 230-7334 in Portland.
Lynn Baker is a writer in communications
A hydrogen-powered fuel cell got a lot of attention at an energy show in Palm Springs, Calif., last month.
Humans aren’t the only ones who enjoy salmon on the menu. Caspian terns like them, too. And because the peak migration period for juvenile salmon in May and June coincides with the nesting and rearing season of the terns, salmon are now a big menu item for terns near the mouth of the Columbia River. Researchers estimate that terns ate between six million and 25 million salmon there in 1997, and a similar amount this year.
The Caspian tern is the largest of the terns and an adult is nearly two feet long. “They are found on every continent in the world except Antarctica,” says Oregon State University researcher Dan Roby. “Their numbers have doubled in North America over the last 15 to 20 years and their range has expanded,” Roby says. Adult terns can live more than 26 years.
Officials first observed terns nesting in the Columbia River estuary in 1984 on East Sand Island, about five miles from the ocean. By 1986 grass and other vegetation increased there, and the terns began to nest farther up the river on Rice Island. It’s one of several islands created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from its river dredge disposal.
Rice Island has about 230 sandy acres, just what terns like for nest building during May and June. This year, an estimated 10,000 pairs of adult terns nested there. Rice Island was the largest Caspian tern colony in North America, and possibly the largest in the world.
Ken Collis of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission says that such a large colony of terns is not normal. “Terns normally nest in much smaller colonies. The Rice Island colony is not a healthy one and its productivity is low,” Collis says.
But the terns sure can eat. As the smolts make their way through the estuary, some swim close to the surface. That makes them easy prey for the terns that hover over the water and then plunge for a quick meal. Studies by Roby and Collis show that in 1997 the terns consumed between six percent and 25 percent of all the smolts passing through the estuary.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) estimates that 100 million smolts reached the Columbia estuary in 1997. NMFS is responsible for protecting salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act. It believes that the loss of so many smolts just before they enter the ocean means that proportionately fewer salmon return as adults.
At NMFS’ direction, several agencies formed a Caspian tern working group that has a plan to try to change and improve the terns’ nesting sites near the coast. Besides BPA, other groups include the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Oregon State University and the fish and wildlife departments of Oregon and Washington. The plan must be in place by March 1999 in order to be ready for the terns when they return to the Columbia mouth in early April.
The plan has several steps. East Sand Island will get a face-lift to make it more attractive to terns. Workers will remove much of the vegetation to provide the clear, sandy open spaces terns like. And they will use decoys and a sound system to broadcast tern calls in the hope that will lure the birds there. Decoys and a sound system proved so effective in a test last summer that terns were observed attempting to mate with decoys.
At the same time, workers will seed half of the Rice Island nesting site with grass, and construct barriers similar to snow fences to relieve nesting there. Researches hope these steps will make Rice Island a less inviting place for terns to nest.
Early in the nesting season, but before terns lay their eggs, officials may use more aggressive techniques on Rice Island to discourage the terns from nesting. One may be dogs to harass the birds. But once the terns start laying eggs, all harassment efforts would stop.
Scientists say that a wider array of prey may be available closer to the ocean. That could significantly reduce the terns’ reliance on small salmon as a food source. In addition, the salmon smolts tend to swim deeper in the water as they approach the ocean – out of reach of foraging birds.
Roby says he believes the plan may benefit terns as well as juvenile salmon. “This is not an attempt to ‘scapegoat’ terns for problems humans have created,” he says. “The terns are clearly not the cause of the region’s endangered salmon runs.”
Not everyone agrees with the proposed plan. “It’s a giant experiment that may not work,” says Craig Harrison of Washington, D.C. He’s an official with the Pacific Seabird Group. “If Rice Island is made uninhabitable to the terns and they don’t go elsewhere to nest, what will they do?” he asks.
Collis says, “This is a short-term plan. Our long-term goal is to develop better habitat for the terns up and down the coast to encourage more nesting in smaller, more dispersed colonies.” Roby says, “If this plan works, it should help both Columbia River salmon and Caspian terns.”
Hugh Moore is a writer in communications
Rice Island in the Columbia River may have the world’s largest Caspian tern colony.
|
Birds drop PIT tags
Since 1996, researchers have collected thousands of PIT (passive integrated transponder) tags on Rice Island in the Columbia River. PIT tags are about the size of a grain of rice and have electronically encoded information. Researchers insert the tags in the gut of juvenile salmon and steelhead. Scientists use the tags to learn more about fish behavior and survival. When Caspian terns and other large birds eat young salmon, they digest the fish, bones and all. But they excrete the PIT tags in their droppings. This summer the National Marine Fisheries Service counted more than 40,000 PIT tags on Rice Island alone. The count will enable officials to make more precise estimates of fish survival through the lower Columbia River. Analysis is still preliminary. So far it suggests that hatchery fish are more vulnerable prey for terns than are wild fish. Much work remains to be done before scientists can glean all that the new science data may offer. |
Downsizing. “Rightsizing.” Belt-tightening. Getting smaller. Terms that have received a lot of attention — and aroused some trepidation — around BPA lately.
“We’re down one-and-a-half FTE and we’re not done yet,” says Debbie Stout, office manager in Environment/Fish & Wildlife. And when she says it, Stout — who doesn’t live up to her name — is smiling from ear to ear.
So, since when is downsizing cause for celebration? When it refers to pounds off instead of layoffs.
“I’ve downsized from size 16 to size 10,” says secretary Connie Little. “I’m down six sizes,” adds — or should we say ‘subtracts’ — Deanna Binney, another E/F&W secretary. When she recently bought some new clothes, “it was an incredible moment,” says Binney. “I’d gone from a size 12 to a six, so trying on the new clothes was really like shedding my old skin.”
What is it that has Binney, Stout and Little so, well …little? An E/F&W effort to lose weight — one so successful that it’s currently sweeping BPA headquarters. For most, it’s an exercise and eating routine known as Protein Power. It’s caused the fish folks to scale down more than 225 pounds collectively — representing that “one-and-a-half FTE” that Stout and the rest are so proud of.
Fish and wildlife manager Bob Lohn is the acknowledged proud papa of Protein Power at BPA. “The credit for this diet sort of goes to BPA,” he says. “I was on assignment overnight in Spokane, had a sleepless night in my hotel, and ended up watching an “infomercial” at 3:30 a.m. I didn’t believe the claims, but it did provoke me to further research and that led me to try this diet. ” Lohn says he began the diet — and the exercise and vitamin regimen that goes with it — around Thanksgiving 1997. By last spring he had lost 25 pounds and turned heads in E/F&W.
Based on Lohn’s success, others on the E/F&W staff, including vice president Alex Smith, took up the challenge of individual “downsizing.” And people in other groups are also trying the Protein Power diet . . . which to non-believers sounds like downright nutritional heresy.
“Any book that says I can eat bacon every day and still lose weight is OK with me,” says Sharon Monohon of E/F&W. She has dropped 30 pounds since February.
The book is Protein Power, the same as the diet name, and it’s required reading according to the downsizers. It details the diet’s unorthodox approach which doesn’t count calories or fat but rather carbohydrates and protein.
Protein intake is encouraged; carbs are strictly limited. That explains how cheese, bacon, eggs and red meat, even in large quantities, are fine but many fruits can be tricky. Though high-carb foods like pasta and desserts are generally avoided, no food is actually verboten. Dieters learn to choose their carbs carefully.
“I’m more selective about desserts. I won’t have one just anywhere,” says policy analyst Therese Lamb. “If I’m going to spend those carbs, it’s gotta be good,” she says. “I won’t refuse my mother’s homemade ravioli just because I’m on a diet. Heck, this is life,” jokes attorney Marybeth Van Buren, who nonetheless has shed 35 pounds since April.
Bart Evans of the regional relations staff dropped more than 20 pounds without too much suffering. “I focused on getting the carbs out of my diet, and more importantly still have wine with dinner,” says Evans. His wife, Phyllis (also of regional relations), was his Protein Power partner. Many of the downsizers have used a buddy system of one form or another.
Some dieters increased their water intake to two quarts per day. “That meant everyone had a chance to compare notes when we passed each other on the way to the bathroom,” says Binney.
“The daily check-ins with other folks in fish and wildlife really helped us keep going,” says Monohon, who’s reached her goal.
“We’re even passing clothes on among us as we work down through our weight loss,” says Little. “It’s a huge benefit to have the diet be common knowledge in the building. I don’t get the funny looks from people here when I talk about the diet,” she says. Outside the building? “Now that’s another story,” chuckles Lamb.
“It’s 180 degrees different from what most nutritionists suggest,” says wildlife biologist Phil Havens. “But my mom used to say ‘Knock off starches and sugars and you’ll be ahead of the game.’ So, I guess Protein Power is sort of an old home remedy,” he says. Whatever it is, Havens knows it’s helped him lose 25 pounds since June without having to give up one of his favorite snacks, pork rinds.
“Some of us have seen some nice decreases in blood pressure and cholesterol in addition to weight loss,” Lohn says. “But the best effect is mental. It’s nice to know that you don’t have to be trapped between gnawing hunger and an oversized body.”
Van Buren says, “This diet leaves you with increased energy and enthusiasm both at work and at home. We really have found a way to do more with less,” she says.
Human Resources, are you listening? Here’s one incredible shrinking work force whose downsized employees still manage to bring home the bacon.
Ken Kane is a writer and Web guru in communications
(Note: BPA doesn’t recommend or endorse any particular diet or exercise program. The health unit staff says that people should check with their personal physician before they start a diet or exercise program. – Editor)
Four Environment/Fish & Wildlife employees check the scale for their collective weight loss from dieting. (Left to right) Connie Little, Phil Havens, Sharron Monohon and Deanna Binney together lost 124 lbs.
20 Years – November
20 Years – December
25 Years – November
25 Years – December
30 Years – November
30 Years – December
35 Years – November
35 Years – December
40 Years – November
When the new city councils of Tigard, West Linn and Estacada meet in January, BPA will be there. Not in an agency role, but certainly an “official” one. The three Oregon cities will have BPA employees on their governing bodies.
As a result of the November general election, Bob Austin, Joyce Patton and Mike McFarland will step into new civic roles. Austin, of Environment/Fish & Wildlife, will be the new mayor of Estacada. Patton, an attorney in the general counsel’s office, will be a city councilor in Tigard. And McFarland, who works in transmission at the Ross complex in Vancouver, will be on West Linn’s city council.
The Circuit asked the three new local office holders about their races. Did they have any hot election issues? Why did they run?
While their communities differ in size and location, they have some common traits and concerns. All three communities have mayor-council forms of government with paid city managers. And all three have one big issue in common – local water supply.
BPA’s newly elected office holders had some common experiences on their paths to local office. While none had run for elective office before, all had been appointed to serve on local bodies in the past. Each said they had capable opponents in races that were clean and focused on the issues.
Municipal water supply is a hot topic in Tigard that gets most of its water from Portland. “Tigard doesn’t own much supply,” Joyce Patton says. “It’s a big issue with the contract cut-off we face by 2007 from Portland’s Bull Run system,” she says.
Patton says the community had some factions divided over the Willamette River as a potential water source. “But I ran as being open to look at all alternatives,” she says. “Water will be one of the first issues to tackle as a councilor,” she says, “but another big one is transportation and traffic congestion.”
Before she ran for city council, Patton served on the city’s budget committee for three years. She was appointed to that post after an interview in 1995. In the November general election, Patton finished first among three candidates who ran citywide for two council seats.
“I’ve always had a strong commitment to public service and enjoy it,” Patton says. “Several people over the years asked why I didn’t run for office,” she says, “but things weren’t right until now. I saw my son off to college this year and my husband totally supports my interests.” Of her husband Jim, Patton says, “He’s my biggest fan.”
As mayor-elect of Estacada, Bob Austin won’t be on unfamiliar ground at city hall. He has served on the city council since January of this year when the council appointed him to fill a vacant seat.
“Water had been a big issue for three or four years,” Austin says. Estacada needed to rehabilitate its water system. “We finally had a new city manager and a positive city council, and we obtained a loan and redevelopment grant,” he says. “But the city had to raise is rates and that caused an uproar.”
Austin says he decided to run for mayor, “because I was concerned we might start going backward. We’re just beginning construction on the water system and I want to see it move forward,” he says. “We also have some other positive things happening, such as a new industrial park that will provide jobs for families in our community. But some citizens are fearful that growth may happen too quickly,” he says.
Austin says he’s “a big proponent of planning to deal with these issues. We need to update our comprehensive plan, and I can use my BPA background from fish issues to deal with our local controversies,” he says. Austin has lived in Estacada for 12 years and ran against a life-long resident “in a very clean campaign that stayed focused on the issues,” he says.
Mike McFarland will take a seat on the West Linn city council next month. McFarland says he ran for office, “Because I was concerned our council may not move fast enough on some key issues, and I want to see them work as a team.” One of those big issues is water supply.
West Linn sits along the banks of the Willamette River, divided by Interstate 205 south of Portland. Water has been “a hot issue for years,” McFarland says. “We haven’t done any major supply or system improvements in over 10 years,” he says. In this year’s election, West Linn voters approved an operation measure but voted down a capitol improvement measure.
His interest in local office goes back a few years, McFarland says. “I appeared before the city council but wasn’t satisfied with a decision on a development issue. I heard other people complain about local decisions, but no one seemed willing to do anything about them,” he says.
“When I realized that I was one who had a complaint but hadn’t made a commitment, I decided to do something about it,” McFar-land says. So when the city announced an opening on the planning commission two years ago, he volunteered. For the past two years he served on the city’s commission and the utility advisory board (for water).
Local water issues may have helped “whet the appetites” of BPA’s recent office seekers. But come January, Austin, Patton and McFarland will join the ranks of other citizen-servants in BPA’s 60-year history. They’ll be giving double duty as public servants.
Jack Odgaard, editor
BPA’s local election winners take office in January. (Left to right) Councilor Mike McFarland of West Linn, mayor Bob Austin of Estacada and councilor Joyce Patton of Tigard.
November was National Native American Heritage Month. Many Northwest communities held programs and events during the month. Cultural centers at Indian reservations had special programs to celebrate the history and culture of more than 50 tribes that have inhabited the region.
BPA’s American Indian and Alaska Native Council sponsored events at headquarters. BPA held a kickoff program on Nov. 4 at the Holladay auditorium. Three second grade classes from Portland’s Hartley Elementary School attended and Indian dancers performed in the lobby during the day.
Administrator Judi Johansen spoke at the opening ceremony and two Indian dance groups performed. Rudy Clements addressed the school children about the place of Native Americans in the Northwest’s history. Clem-ents is a longhouse elder and tribal relations director of the Warm Springs Reservation.
The performance by the Simnasho Dancers of Warm Springs was a Clements family affair. Nephew Willy Clements, 28, did two “fancy” dances that Indians perform in competition. He used about three dozen hoops in the complicated hoop dance to the delight and repeated applause of the audience. Willy competes around the country and says he practices about eight hours each week.
Clements’ granddaughter, Shala Frank, 13, performed the ladies’ shawl dance. Great nieces Tahmaira and Tashina Clements, ages 5 and 4, accompanied Shala.
Following the Warm Springs group, a dozen students from Chemawa Indian School at Salem performed. They invited the audience to take part in the friendship dance.
Several BPA employees of Indian ancestry attended the program in their tribal dress. BPA has more than 60 employees who are native American or part Indian.
Folk wisdom says that it’s vain to look for a defense against lightning. BPA is long on ingenuity and short on investment for vanity’s sake. But BPA has launched an effort to, if not harness lightning, at least provide a head start so we may be able to reduce its damaging effects.
Based on real-time satellite data from Global Atmospherics Inc. (GAI), BPA dispatchers can now see, on-screen, lightning flashes that happen on BPA’s grid within 30 seconds after they occur. And BPA engineers can use historical data from GAI to plan and design system facilities. (See the separate box for more details on the system and how it works.)
BPA uses the GAI services to monitor storms continuously and compile historical data on strike frequency for particular lines or regions. Dispatchers and engineers can detect if lightning causes a system outage or if it’s due to something else.
Roger Howlett says, “Years ago people spent months working on transmission problems on the Colstrip line that BPA assumed were caused by lightning, only to find out they were due to a system problem.” Howlett manages BPA’s lightning monitor program. “With the data we have now,” he says, “we would know very quickly if lightning were the cause.”
That’s just one example of how this service helps BPA, says John Haner, manager of research and development in Transmission. “This technology offers a unique benefit to system reliability,” Haner says.
Warned about approaching storms, dispat-chers can reroute power if the magnitude and frequency of the flashes warrants such a move. And historical data on the frequency of lightning events provides crucial information for BPA when we need to select a new line route.
Considering the circuitous route it has to travel, it’s amazing how quickly such detailed information gets to BPA. Sensors located across the country detect lightning strikes. They send the data by satellite to a ground base in California. From there it goes to GAI’s control center in Tucson, Ariz. Computers sort the data and apply algorithms to calculate strike locations. Then, all the information is sent back to satellites and on to BPA.
BPA monitors the data it gets on video displays at the Dittmer and Monroe Control Centers. In a matter of half a minute, dispatchers can see the jagged lightning bolts on-screen with an overlay of the BPA grid. Zoom out, and they can see the whole Pacific Northwest region or the entire nation lit up with the bright electronic pulses of lightning strikes. Zoom in, and they can fill the screen with a particular BPA transmission line.
A little understanding of “lightning lingo” can help paint a clearer picture. A “flash” is an entire lightning event made up of “strokes,” or individual lightning hits. The latter are the “bolts” that crackle through the air. “The flash data BPA gets,” Howlett says, “covers the first stroke within a lightning event. There can be as many as 20 or more strokes within a single flash, sometimes separated a considerable distance. So, one stroke can hit in a certain location and another farther down the line, but both can be part of the same flash,” he says.
The data for all the individual strokes would be very expensive. But BPA engineers consider the first flash information they get to be adequate for BPA’s needs.
If BPA has an outage and no lightning storms appear on-screen, lightning is not the cause. But if lightning is in the area where an outage occurs, is lightning automatically to blame? “Not necessarily,” says Howlett. “We have to correlate lightning data with system data to see exactly when the two occurred and how close the lightning was to the line. The outage and the flash could be totally unrelated. But we at least know to look for lightning as the cause,” he says.
BPA is now using its GIS software to collate historical data and create lightning density maps. The maps use a color scale to represent flash occurrences per square mile. BPA can also plot other variables such as electrical current magnitude. The maps help BPA quick-ly understand the frequency and severity of lightning strikes in any area.
How useful is all this advanced technology in the Northwest? In 1997, BPA’s power system had 383 recorded outages due to lightning. Other places in the nation actually have much more lightning activity. Florida can have many more times the lightning strikes than Northwest.
“In the Southeast, lightning hits of-ten and they have power lines packed closely together,” Haner says. “While they can detect a lot, they can do very little to reroute power,” he says.
“But for a $120,000 investment, BPA gets many benefits in the Northwest,” Haner says. “We get near real-time monitoring of lightning strikes, so we can reroute power if necessary. It doesn’t take many diverted outages alone for this program to pay for itself,” he says. “And the historical data provides more benefits. It helps us site transmission lines and substations and improve the reliability of our existing system,” Haner says.
That’s a lot of flash for the buck.
Stuart Sandler is a writer in transmission
1993
|
1995
|
1998
|
|
Maps of the BPA grid near Colville, Wash., show density of lightning strikes in the spring for three different years.
light gray = 1 to 3 flashes per square mile; medium gray = 4 to 6; dark gray = 7 or more |
||
|
GAI, EPRI and BPA
Who does what in BPA’s lightning detection effort? Here’s a brief overview of the “players” and terms. BPA is a member of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). In the late 1980s, EPRI set up a network of sites to monitor electric storms. It’s called the National Lightning Detection Network. EPRI picked Global Atmospherics Inc. (GAI) to own and run the network. GAI uses software, developed for EPRI, to observe the real-time data. GAI also puts historical data on compact disks. It shows lightning strikes to within 500 meters accuracy. BPA in turn designed a method to display the GAI data on BPA’s grid system. It uses Geographic Information System (GIS) software. The National Weather Service and other groups also use the EPRI network for lightning data. |
