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This tale is about a BPA transmission crew and other workers who hung a different cross arm in an unusual service to the community. The cross arm didn’t have insulators to carry power lines. The unusual service was BPA’s help to save a historic totem pole at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.
The 50-foot totem pole dates back to 1959. Indian artist Don Lelooska Smith carved it as part of an exhibit during Oregon’s centennial celebration. Lelooska also carved the totem located in the BPA headquarters hall by the cafeteria.
BPA’s hand in the recent effort to rescue the 40-year old totem pole began in 1998. The zoo removed the totem pole to build a new entrance and upgrade exhibits. A retiree and volunteer zoo guide, Bill Oberhue, proposed a project to repair and restore the pole.
The zoo approved the proposal and Oberhue and his volunteers went to work. One of the volunteers was fellow zoo guide Bob Beraud, an environmental manager at BPA.
Volunteers scraped and painted the pole and BPA natural resources specialist Jim Cahill treated the pole to stop dry rot. He filled cavities with the same epoxy BPA uses to treat wood poles on the power grid. The artist’s family also helped restore the totem. They recarved the worn edges of the design and carved a duplicate of the wings to replace the original that had badly deteriorated.
A contractor erected the pole this spring. When the new wings were done, a BPA transmission crew with a line truck returned to finish the job in August. Line equipment operators Jim Mattix and Jon Bartkowski, and Cahill lifted the new 12-foot wings into position and bolted them to the totem. Cahill filled another large cavity with epoxy and added one final preservative.
Visitors to the Oregon Zoo today will see the totem standing above the zoo railroad near the outdoor concert lawn. Thanks to avid zoo volunteers including a few BPA pole experts.
Totem rescue -- (Top right) BPA's Jim Mattix and Jim Cahill attach the wings to the top of the pole. (Middle left) The zoo train rolls past as the BPA volunteers and zoo crew work on the totem pole rescue project. (Bottom right) BPA's Bob Beraud (left) and Jim Cahill (right), with zoo volunteer Bill Oberhue and zoo employee Russell Guinn get the new wings ready to lift.
Ross Substation work – An electrical construction crew installed a new power circuit breaker at the Ross Substation this summer. (Above left) Roland Trevino (left) raises his bucket as Lloyd Ebinger and Greg Smith (above right) saw off old bussing. (Below) On the ground, the workers drop off equipment pieces they have removed.
September 30 is your last chance to get your vacation snapshots to the Circuit. We will pick the top photos for the BPA employees’ last summer of the 1900s page this fall.
We’re looking for photos in five groups. The types of things we’d like are you and/or family/friends hamming it up anywhere this summer; scenery with real people pictured; action (sports, outdoors, picnics, etc.); people with pets; and any humorous shots.
Photos can be any size from 3 by 5 up to 8 by 10. Be sure to identify the photo on the back. Give your name, routing or home address, where the photo was taken and names of family and friends in the photo. We will return the photos to you. Send your photos to The Circuit, KCC-7, by inside mail. From outside, mail to the address on the page 2 masthead.
We’ve extended the deadline. All folks who send one or more photos will be eligible for a BPA Power T-shirt drawing.
Nearly 30 BPA employees, with some family members and friends, helped make the Washington State Science and Engineering Fair a success this year. The annual event for kindergarten through senior high school kids brought students to Bremerton from more than 50 schools across the state. Students set up 365 science projects at this year’s competition in early April.
The two grand champions from grades 9 to 12 won a weeklong trip to compete in the international event in Philadelphia. But some industries also presented awards to students in various fields.
BPA has its own award, “Steward of the Northwest,” for exhibits that show how new technology can help conserve energy or produce clean energy and help the environment. Olympia regional manager Orion Albro presented two $25 awards and certificates to students Richard Milburn of West Valley Middle School at Yakima and Caleb Conn of Selah Middle School at Selah.
BPA has been a sponsor of the science fair for several years. Besides its award, BPA also provides the computers used for the registration process. Various employees helped develop programs as well as run various parts of the two-day event.
Lois Jane Lugg of Kitsap Substation has coordinated BPA’s efforts for years. “I received many compliments on the great support BPA gives to the science fair,” she said. “Our T-shirts and hats left the fair participants with a positive image of BPA.”
Lugg said that the BPA volunteers this year wore their own distinctive T-shirts and ball caps. The shirts read, “Bonneville Power Administration Community Volunteer,” and were the idea of Pam Odam from Olympia.
Besides Lugg, Odam and Albro, other BPA folks who helped make the Washington science fair a success this year were: Covington – Keith Lawson, Dana McClain and Kathy Youngs; Kitsap – Haven Fowler, John Pitts and Jerry Taylor; Olympia –Dean Bender, John Brant, Brian Markum, Dan Michael and E.J. Missinne; Seattle – Kyra Chatfield and Mark Freckleton; and Vancouver, Greg Butler.
Kyra Chatfield of Seattle contributed information
Science fair workers – Many BPA volunteers helped make the 1999 Washington State Science and Engineering Fair a big success. (Top right) — Dana McClain from Covington checks out a student’s power project. (Top left) — Orion Albro (left), Olympia regional manager, presented BPA’s “Steward of the Northwest” awards to two students, Richard Milburn and Caleb Conn. (Bottom right) — John Pitts (left) from Kitsap Substation and Dan Michael (third from left) from Olympia helped with registration. (Bottom left) — Haven Fowler (third from left) from Kitsap goes over plans with some students while Kathy Youngs (far right) from Covington looks on.
Readers have sent comments on several articles in recent months. We don’t run a regular column for letters to the editor. But after we hear from several readers, we give a brief sample or summay of comments. Those follow after this thank-you and note about BPA’s community efforts.
While I took two long vacation trips this summer, Ian Templeton put out the last two editions of the Circuit. He had good help from Paul Hansen and some regular proofreaders. So thanks, Ian, Paul and all.
BPA and employees have had a number of events in our communities in recent months. So in addition to the article above about the Washington science fair, this Circuit has a full page on BPA folks’ efforts in our communities.
From reader comments, we have this late correction to make. The May Circuit wrongly said Arlo Guthrie played and sang at the 50th anniversary program of BPA and Bonneville Dam in 1987. Arlo did perform at the BPA auditorium, but that was in 1985. At the 50th anniversary celebration, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott performed. He was a close friend of song writer and singer Woody Guthrie. Thanks to Bill Murlin for helping clear this up.
We got an e-mail in June from Mike Storms who retired as an electrical engineer at Spokane. The May Circuit wrongly listed him as having 21 years of service. Mike said he had 31½ years, including 28 with BPA and 3½ military.
Storms said he wasn’t upset about the typo but wanted to point it out for some folks who might think he had been here longer. Many of us might be as calm about it as Mike was – come 30 years service and time for us to retire.
One person questioned our taste – or maybe eyesight – about a photo we ran. And we heard from an alert reader about photos this summer “at the end of the millennium summer.”
Marlin Mallory at Redmond said that the millennium does not change at midnight, Dec. 31, 1999. He’s right, officially and technically. The third millennium actually starts at midnight on Dec. 31, 2000. In other words, on Jan. 1, 2001.
While that won’t stop most people from observing the change in just a few months, Mallory brings up one of the age-old flaws in our science, and logic. The early calendar designers didn’t allow for a year from the end of 1 B.C. to the start of 1 A.D. With this missing year, our decades aren’t true 1980s but 1981 through 1990. Our centuries aren’t true 1900s, but 1901 through 2000. If anyone is interested in pursing this further, the encyclopedias and Internet have some interesting background on it.
Finally, one person was offended by our use of “friendly fire,” in the May article on jargon. We gave a short list of current jargon that covers up real meaning. It came from the government’s own clear language effort. “Friendly fire” describes military forces being bombed by their own side, or innocent civilians being fired on by their own side or allies.
Incidentally, you should notice an obvious style change here – e-mail. That’s right. The Associated Press in its 1999 Stylebook changed from the capital “E-mail” to the lower case.
We hope our readers will overlook our editorial shortcomings at times and that these occasional changes aren’t too confusing.
— Jack Odgaard, editor
Don Davey of energy efficiency presents BPA’s latest award to CEO Judi Johansen. The Good Cents Energy Services Group gave BPA its Golden Rooftop Award. Davey accepted the award at an industry conference this summer. It recognized BPA’s Super Good Cents program for manufactured housing that led to more than 81,000 homes built to energy efficient standards. |
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As an avid wind surfer, this BPA vice president knows the power of the mighty Columbia River first hand.
And when he’s not riding the river’s waves in his off hours, Greg Delwiche heads the generation supply group that manages the river operations for BPA.
“The Columbia is a tremendous resource,” Delwiche says. “When I’m out there on the river, I get a feel for some of the forces that salmon encounter,” he says. The feeling helps Delwiche operate the river to balance its many uses.
Delwiche says his goal for generation supply is to get the best value from the river not only for power supplies but also for fish and wildlife recovery. “The best way to reach that goal is to continuously monitor our operations,” he says. “And then to modify them to best meet our needs as we learn more.”
For example, he says that spilling water at the dams is an effective way to help young salmon get past the barriers and out to sea. BPA sometimes spills water for 24 hours straight when the young fish migrate. But biologists are learning more about salmon.
For one thing, they don’t migrate during all hours of the day. So river operators advocate spilling water only when salmon are moving. In that way, Delwiche says, we could provide water for fish but still have the option to generate power when salmon aren’t interested in going any further downstream.
Delwiche’s background is in hydrology. When he’s on the river, he thinks constantly about where the water comes from. “The Columbia’s drainage area is bigger than the size of France,” he says. “The water has come from snowmelt as far away as the Canadian Rockies and the Teton Mountains in Wyoming. It’s traveled a long way by the time it gets to the Columbia River Gorge.”
With all the attention given to “green” power lately, Delwiche believes there just isn’t a better electricity resource than the river. “Yes, we have our challenges with salmon, but I feel strongly that the power from the river is green because of the cleanliness of its generation.”
Delwiche also points out that the river is a renewable resource. “The fuel is free and continuously available,” he says, “not finite like coal mined from the ground.”
“When you look at the adverse environmental impacts of large-scale generation from other methods, hydro really comes out the greenest,” Delwiche says. And other green sources can’t match the large output of hydro, he says.
“Wind and geothermal power have their place, but it’s hard for me to see how they can stack up to a Bonneville Dam in terms of quantity of green power production,” Delwiche says.
Besides providing the bulk of the Northwest’s hydropower, the Columbia River also has some of the best wind surfing around. Hood River, Ore., 60 miles east of Portland, promotes itself as the wind surfing capital of the world. The winds through the Columbia River Gorge are best during the middle of the day and create ideal conditions for riding the waves.
Delwiche says he’s fanatical about the river and the many benefits it affords. So when it comes to providing the fuel for BPA’s operations, the agency is fortunate to have this “boardhead” on its executive board.
Crystal Ball is a writer in communications
Greg Delwiche in his dress suit at work (top) and in his wet suit surfing the Columbia River near Hood River this summer (bottom).
This summer BPA joined the national Energy Star program sponsored by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. Energy Star picks up where BPA’s Blue Clue efficient-appliance program of the 1980s left off. Only now it has a national scope and budget and covers many more products.
“Energy Star covers everything from compact fluorescent lights to refrigerators and windows,” says Ken Keating in energy efficiency. “The program could make it easy for BPA’s very smallest customers to earn the conservation and renewables discount BPA offers,” Keating says.
Utilities can get low-cost to no-cost materials to help promote the program. They can talk with local storeowners who may not know about it. And they can announce it in their bill stuffers. A national publicity campaign and a program to get manufacturers to meet Energy Star standards back the local efforts.
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Small change saves big energy
Some products use energy even when they’re not running. When appliances are plugged in but not turned on, they use some standby power in their ready-to-go status. TVs and VCRS, for instance, have used 12 to 20 watts of such “parasitic power.” But Energy Star has made a big dent in this energy use. Manufacturers have changed the design slightly so the standby position now draws only 2 to 6 watts. The change cost less than one dollar per item. “Pretty soon all products will have this change and will save for a long time to come,” BPA’s Ken Keating says. “And the manufacturers paid for the improvement. What they get from the program is the right to say they’re energy efficient and to show the logo.” |
“Energy Star has a nationwide budget of $100 million for the next three to four years,” Keating says. “A lot of that is for public service announcements and research. This gives us a chance to tap into a national campaign.”
In the 1980s, BPA helped Northwest buyers find energy-saving appliances by giving the 15 percent most-efficient models “Blue Clue” stickers. Storeowners plastered the magnetic decals on qualifying models, and BPA ads urged shoppers to seek out Blue Clue products.
The Energy Star program follows the same premise and designates the best energy products. DOE and EPA run the national program. They set efficiency criteria for each type of product. Any model that meets the standards qualifies.
“This program has momentum,” Keating says. “In some industries, it’s sweeping the market. TV, VCR and computer manufacturers have adopted the standards almost 100 percent.”
BPA has three people working part-time on the Energy Star program. They help customers get the free DOE/EPA promotional materials. Utilities pay for local branding – to add their own logos – and for local ad placement only.
Keating says, “A lot of material is available on the Internet. Users can download much of it – program logos, addresses of stores that carry particular products, and other things.”
The program has other direct applications to BPA, Keating says. Federal agencies have to meet new federal energy conservation standards. They can certify their buildings as meeting Energy Star standards. Certified Energy Star buildings can be listed on the Energy Star Web site as case studies. Besides showing their energy-saving features, they can link to the owner’s home page.
“BPA could also specify energy-efficient equipment in a nonjudgmental way to buy the lowest life-cycle-cost equipment for its own use,” says Keating.
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Web site can help you save
Anyone with a computer can use the Energy Star Web site on the Internet. You’ll find it at www.energystar.gov. Use it to find efficient products – from light bulbs to furnaces – and who sells them near you. Energy Star makes watt-saving easy. |
The program also provides national awards for top Energy Star companies. They include manufacturers, retailers, and other businesses and groups. Maytag won this year’s manufacturing award for its front-loading washing machines. Home Depot won the top retailer award for its employee education programs.
While Energy Star has been out awhile, Keating says, it’s really just got a big push in the last 10 months or so. “We’ve helped write some of the standards,” Keating says. “As a partner, BPA also has an entry to help shape new standards as products evolve,” he says.
Lynn Baker is a writer in communications
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Working from home for BPA
The number of employees who telecommute at BPA changes from week to week. In fiscal 1999, 75 people filed requests to telecommute. Some of those were for short periods – a week or month. Other requests were for several months and up to a year. Some were for the duration of a project and some employees file an annual extension each year. Some employees may have informal arrangements with managers so they can work part time from home. But BPA says work groups should have written agreements for people who telecommute. Most employees who telecommute say their chief reason is to increase productivity. For some it means a better balance of work and family life or the ability to work in a quiet environment. Others telecommute for medical reasons (surgery recovery, illness, maternity or others). This fiscal year, 19 employees filed for medical reasons. Most telecommuters have their own computer systems and just access their BPA systems from home. Most work from one to three days per week at home – the largest number probably for one day. A few employees have stand-by agreements for inclement weather and short-term projects. While all telecommuting requires manager approval, not all work lends itself to telecommuting. |
Byrne Lovell and his family left for a yearlong adventure in France on July 30. BPA went along.
OK, BPA stayed behind. But Lovell, a policy strategist in Strategic Planning, and BPA are connected by that modern umbilical cord — the telephone line.
When Lovell arrived in Gap, in southwestern France, he plugged his laptop computer into the telephone outlet. He could then connect to BPA by telephone just like employees who telecommute from Gresham or West Seattle. But he has to use a lot more numbers to make the international hookup. In time, and after he learns enough French to get connected, Lovell may find a local Internet service so he can also use the Internet.
Why did the Lovell family go to France? There are several reasons, but maybe the simplest is “restlessness.” Lovell has worked at BPA since he took a summer job here while he was in graduate school 15 years ago. While later working full time, he earned a Ph.D. in Systems Science and helped bring up two daughters.
“I looked around and people were having adventures,” he says. “My wife, Peggy, and I decided that now was the time if we were going to do something like this. We wanted our daughters to experience life in a foreign culture. They are just the right ages now – 13 and 11. Our oldest daughter will be in high school in a year, so this is the best time.”
Not that daughters Briana and Myra were thrilled about leaving this summer. They labeled July 30 as “a stupid trip to an icky place” on the family wall calendars.
The Lovells picked France for a number of reasons. Peggy favored a French-speaking country because she majored in French in college. Byrne says they briefly considered a French-speaking Third World country, “but we ended up with Europe because it is different enough to be stimulating yet familiar enough not to cause trauma to the kids.”
Gap won the destination lottery because it is relatively sunny, is close to the Alps and has a language institute. Since they moved, Lovell has studied French, his wife has brushed up on her language, and the girls have tried to catch up with the locals. “When we return from France,” says Lovell, “my daughters will either be fluent in French or way behind in school — it’s up to them.”
Lovell’s original intent was to take a year off and to look for work in France. But fellow workers objected because of the upcoming rate case and Lovell’s role in supporting it. Lovell’s specialty is risk analysis and he helped design analytic tools that figure the probability of Treasury payment in the rate case. He also works on the probability of BPA having enough money to pay for the various fish funding proposals.
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How Lovell’s telecommute works and saves
The telecommuting arrangement with Byrne Lovell is the least expensive way to have Lovell’s expertise for BPA’s rate case, according to strategic planning chief Pam Marshall. The added cost of long-distance phone calls is more than offset by Lovell’s going to part-time work. An option to replace Lovell would have been far more costly, and it’s doubtful that anyone could have been brought up to speed in time for the rate case. During his telecommute, Lovell has his BPA laptop with him. He is using his own family printer. He remains on the BPA e-mail system and communicates just as though he were here. But he buys his own telephone service and direct dials from his home in France. He will be reimbursed for connections to BPA. The most important part of Lovell’s work requires that he and people in Portland share data files for the probability analyses. So he has a security protocol that lets him work in BPA’s Intranet. But when he must appear in Portland to testify as an expert witness, Lovell will pay his own way back. In these ways, BPA retains expertise and Lovell gets to use one of BPA’s family-friendly initiatives to experience a different culture with his family. |
The reaction from rate case people is understandable. “Not many people at BPA do risk analysis,” says Lovell. He will continue to communicate with the same people he has worked with over the last couple years in preparing for the rate case. And he will serve as one of BPA’s expert witnesses on two panels, a role similar to that he had in the 1996 rate case.
Others in strategic planning thought about the possibility of telecommuting so Lovell could continue to provide value to BPA. Mark Roberts remembered a recent experience he had while visiting a couple on the Oregon coast. When he arrived, says Roberts, the husband was “in the backroom doing physics for a BPA project.” Apparently the fellow was working for a contractor. The project was to determine how vibrations from a chainlink fence would affect fiber optics cables and whether the vibrations would differ if they were caused by wind or by someone climbing the fence.
“If that fellow could work on a BPA project from the coast,” Roberts asked rhetorically, “why couldn’t Byrne work on BPA projects from France?” And that just happens to fit well with other ideas Roberts is working on — such as measuring white-collar worker productivity. “We have to have better measurements than just whether someone is at a desk for a set period of time,” Roberts says. Lovell’s telecommute will provide some insight into that issue.
Pam Marshall, who heads strategic planning, says Lovell already has delivered high value to BPA in a previous short-term arrangement. “The nature of his work lends itself well to telecommuting because he works pretty independently,” Marshall says. “After making models and running risk analyses, he shares and discusses the work with others in corporate finance and the business lines.” Still, his work group will have to make some adjustment. France is nine hours ahead of BPA on the clock, so “real-time” communications will take some planning.
Lovell thinks his work experience may fit into a new mold that futurist David Pierce Snyder foresees. Snyder gives lectures on the corporations of the future and says that jobs will be very different from those of today, Lovell says. For instance, perhaps only 25 percent of corporate workers will be core full-time employees. The rest will be a mix of part-time workers, contractors, telecommuters and others working at different sites and on different schedules.
So, Lovell sees this next year not just as a way for his family to experience a different culture.
It may also be helping pioneer a new way to work.
Ian Templeton is a writer in communications
Byrne Lovell fiddles at the courtyard barbecue held at headquarters before his departure this summer.
The Celilo Converter Station at The Dalles does multiple duties for BPA and the Northwest. Most folks know that Celilo controls the power flow on the 2,000-kilovolt direct current line of the Pacific Northwest-Southwest Intertie.
It’s also a learning lab for engineers and scientists. Many visit each year to see its one-of-a-kind thyristors and other huge state-of-the-art power equipment. And Celilo is a public information stop. People take a self-guided walk to view the operation and a large exhibit that tells the BPA and Columbia River power stories.
But Celilo also provides a community service beyond its work functions. Thanks to the folks who work there, it serves as the site for area school events from high school proms to all-night parties.
“We average three to five school dances a year,” says BPA’s Peggy Stahl. Among schools that have held events at Celilo are Wahtonka High School (The Dalles), Sherman High School (Moro), and high schools inDufur and Wasco, Ore., and Lyle and Klickitat, Wash.
“The students have lots of enthusiasm and questions when they come up to decorate,” Stahl says. They will set up elaborate decorations for some events, “with streamers and lights on the stairway railings,” she said.
“One year The Dalles High School decorated with an underwater theme,” Stahl said. “They covered a whole wall with a store window background fabric they got from a store. They set up a fountain, hung fish cutouts and covered BPA’s second floor power display with theme paper. They also papered the vestibule and hung ocean decorations everywhere.”
Stahl says that the schools don’t do any damage. “The students appreciate having a beautiful place to have a dance at no extra charge,” she says. “And BPA provides a great community service at Celilo.”
Students from Sherman County High School at Moro, Ore., took over the Celilo Converter Station lobby and open space one night this year. BPA folks at Celilo make the site available for area high schools to hold drug-free and nonalcohol proms, dances and parties.
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The Foster Parents Association of Oregon recognized BPA, The Associates and BPA employees this year. The FPA presented BPA and The Associates a special recognition award for years of service and support to Oregon’s foster children. The award cited the annual support BPA employees give in the Holiday Project for children in foster care. Employees have donated hundreds of gifts through a giving tree for foster care kids. The FPA presented awards at its annual conference of foster parents this spring. More than 250 people attended the event at Wilsonville. Bev Witherite accepted the award for BPA. She chairs the Holiday Project for The Associates. |
Bev Witherite (right) accepts award for BPA and The Associates at the annual Foster Parents Association conference. |
BPA employees this summer worked on a variety of community programs in Vancouver. Two projects backed by the Ross Complex folks helped youth in the community.
The Ross Canyon Club employee group donated $500 to the Clark County Human Resources Council for its Summer of Service program for youth. The program runs out of the Volunteer Center. Students from Washington State University, Clark College and AmeriCorps serve as project leaders.
Youths 11 to 15 work on the projects for one week or more during the summer. The Summer of Service program lets kids take part in the solutions to community problems by their volunteer efforts.
This summer’s program had 33 projects. They included park cleanup, planting and painting, library service, creating outdoor exhibits, and trail cleanup and repairs.
BPA folks also created their own Summer of Service project with the Minnehaha Neighborhood Association. Several employees worked with a Little League baseball team for a week at the Minnehaha Community Center. They cleaned the grounds and planted around a house that BPA donates for the center.
At least one employee family member also had a hand in the project. Robert Martinez, son of Glenn Martinez, planned and coordinated most of the project for his senior community service project at Fort Vancouver High School.
When the project was done, the Ross Canyon folks held a barbecue. They gave certificates to each of the Little League workers.
Ross youth support – (Above right) Little Leaguers with Robert Martinez outside the Ross area community center provided by BPA. (Middle left) Youth “dig in” to plant and clean up around the center. (Bottom right) BPA folks set up for the barbecue, among them Katy Masters, Glenn Martinez, Mike Conners, Kathy Baker, Virginia Stabler and Edna Mitzel.
Vancouver Volunteers – Several BPA folks and family members volunteered for the annual International Discovery Walkfest at Vancouver. Nearly 1,200 walkers from more than a dozen countries took part this year. (Top) Arlene Miller (left) helped these Europeans register at the Inn at the Quay. (Bottom) Half a dozen Bobbies from England walk down a newly surfaced leg of the Ellen Davis Trail through BPA’s Ross Complex. BPA folks continued to improve the trails through Ross this summer. |
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Folks from the power and transmission business lines. Others from corporate and shared services. People from information resources groups across the agency. Folks from the field and headquarters and Ross.
They all showed up in late August to chomp down on pizza. The occasion was events at headquarters and the Ross Complex to celebrate BPA being Y2K ready.
Chief Information Officer Joe O’Rourke said the celebration was for the people more than anything else. He noted that BPA has been ahead of the Y2K curve for several years. So the celebrations were to recognize the many people from so many work groups who helped put BPA among the utility leaders for Y2K.
Besides O’Rourke, other executives showed up to share pizza with more than 100 employees at the two celebrations. Among them were Administrator Judi Johansen and vice presidents Mark Maher, Vicki VanZandt and Jim Curtis.
The Business Solutions Project is coming to a computer near you. Sooner than you think. The software has been bought, the hardware is here and training is on the horizon. And that’s where a huge cast comes in.
The change in software will require that about 2,000 BPA employees be trained on the new system. That includes everyone who enters or retrieves financial data, enters timesheet information, manages a project, or performs work related to large pieces of equipment.
Timekeepers and employees preparing the FY 2001 budgets will be the first to see the changes. They will receive training about April 2000 and will be using the system by June. That is just the leading edge. Financial, inventory and purchasing systems will be brought along about a month later. Training employees on direct time input will also begin then.
The roll out of the work management systems is still under discussion. The probable scenario will be a geographic rollout spanning the July through September time range.
The BSP was authorized in October 1998 to replace aging and nonintegrated systems. It will gain significant cost savings in administrative functions through automated workflow and increase efficiencies in material and inventory management. It will also improve the visibility of all business transactions to provide timely and accurate information for management decision making.
The requisitioning process is a good example of the changes to come. Currently, BPA personnel use multiple systems and forms to requisition supplies and services. In the new system, PassPort, employees who need materials will complete one form, a material request. This form is available as part of a work order package and as a stand-alone form. PassPort will handle the routing of the request and do processing that determines if the item will come from inventory or be purchased. The goal is to get the item to the delivery location on the date it is needed.
Requisitioning services is a bit different. This requisition uses a contract form that supplies a link to MSWord to incorporate a statement of work, a place to put notes and a panel to add milestones. This requisition is automatically sent to a buyer after the on-line approval process. Employees can then access PassPort to see where a requisition is in the contracting process and even see the award, receiving report and other pertinent information. The requisitioning system is streamlined and includes many documents that flow from requisition to award.
Fred Johnson, Transmission Field Services vice president, says, “BSP will provide the information we need to make sound business decisions in this fast-paced competitive marketplace. This will put us on a firm foundation for the next millennium.”
Kammy Rogers-Holliday is a financial specialist in the BSP group
BPA has its own pest control center. In this case, the pests are electronic viruses and other bugs that can bring a computer system to a crashing halt. And the center is a small office on the seventh floor of headquarters.
The office is the base for Kevin Dorning, who manages BPA’s information security. It’s also the nerve center for the Virus Emergency Response Team. Dorning and other computer folks formed VERT this year to coordinate efforts to stop or contain computer virus attacks from outside BPA.
The small group had been working individually to protect areas of the agency from outside attacks. They contacted each other informally. But after the dangerous Zip Worm appeared this year, Lisa Veach at the Ross Complex suggested the group formally organize. Other members are Lynn Matanona and Brian Roth at headquarters and Ron Schuman for field sites.
Each member of the group works to educate employees in their areas about viruses. All the members handle incidents to stop intrusions. They communicate closely and work together to investigate suspected viruses. Members back each other up during vacation times. If the team learns of a serious virus, it sends out an all-employee alert.
BPA belongs to a network of organizations that alert each other to viruses and other security issues. The agency also participates with virus tracking groups from the Department of Energy and other agencies. And BPA works with Microsoft and the manufacturers of antivirus programs. These various networks help BPA’s virus fighters stay up to date.
BPA’s pest control efforts and the alertness of PC users seem to be paying off. Most problems are contained locally when a bug is found, and BPA hasn’t been crippled by a major intrusion. For instance, BPA was unscathed by the Melissa virus earlier this year. It affected numerous local and national businesses that had to shut down their e-mail systems – some for days – to recover.
Why did BPA escape? “We had better hygiene,” says Dorning. “Our employees understand the potential damage computer viruses can do and they keep their machines clean. When employees think they have encountered a virus, they send it to me or to another team member to investigate.”
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PC security
Dos and Don’ts Employees make up the first line of defense against viruses. Kevin Dorning heads BPA’s information security and gives these tips to help PC users avoid attacks by killer bugs. Do —
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Such investigations are why Dorning now is using two computers. He keeps one for his normal work and one on which to isolate suspected viruses. He recently had no working computer after he managed to stop a virus that was running amuck in his only machine. He said, “I toasted my machine while I was trying to repair the damage.”
The amount of damage that viruses and computer bugs can inflict on an organization like BPA is horrendous. That’s partly because of the number of computers and partly because of the easy access to the Internet.
In the early days of computers, BPA had about 250 modems and the number of viruses was small. We had about 100 to 150 incidents of viruses a year, Dorning says. But today, BPA has about 3000 computers and all have access to the Internet and e-mail. For a time, we really couldn’t count the number of virus incidents, Dorning says.
“A few years ago, we got the Monkey virus,” Dorning says. “It forced us to shut down the network for half a day. We then went out and spent $48,000 on antivirus software that screens all servers and all platforms.”
Dorning and others say that the current crop of bugs is worse than the earlier ones. The early bugs were called viruses because they acted like viruses, he says. Small bits of code got into the computer and then replicated. Eventually they filled the hard drive and the computer was useless until the bug was purged. Few of those did any real damage to systems or data.
The current bugs aren’t all viruses but the industry still uses that generic label. It refers to all programs that attack or infiltrate a computer system. Two categories cause the most trouble – Trojan horses and worms. The Melissa virus from earlier this year is a Trojan horse. It appears to be a legitimate e-mail but it takes over a person’s e-mail account and sends out e-mails on its own. That can cause an e-mail system to crash from the overload.
The Worm.Explorezip (Zip worm) that is now making the rounds is a worm. It does all the things that Melissa does but is more destructive because it deletes certain kinds of files (such as Excel) and changes the settings in some system files.
Some of the new viruses send out the user’s password and other vital information to the bug’s creator. That person can then use the information to do untold damage. And, viruses constantly mutate, Dorning says.
The VERT team will continue its work to intercept virus attacks on BPA’s computer systems. But Dorning says the first line of defense is the individual PC user across the agency. Alert PC people make the most effective barrier to the killer bugs, he says.
Ian Templeton is a writer in communications
The Columbia River dam spills this summer beat the fish flow target significantly. By the end of the required summer spill on Aug. 31, the Columbia’s average flow at McNary Dam was 234,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). The goal under the Biological Opinion that governs river operations for salmon survival was 200,000 cfs.
Many factors contributed to the success of the fish flows this year. Nature provided the snow and rain and the right temperatures since winter. And BPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies coordinated the river operation and water releases across the basin.
The spring fish flows earlier this year were also well above target.
The McNary goal was 260,000 cfs, and the actual flows averaged 291,000 cfs.
Bonneville Dam at peak spill in the spring. |
The Dalles spills to meet fish flows this summer. |
The Portland Marathon is just around the corner – Oct. 3. Don Davey will again chair the 21st mile aid station sponsored by BPA employees and the Portland Kiwanis. And he’s again looking for BPA folks to volunteer to work at the station located on Willamette Boulevard at Saratoga.
Volunteers can help set up, tear down or staff the station for two or more hours between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Davey says the volunteers have fun, as well as getting to track the race leaders into the home stretch. After the first fast competitors, volunteers are likely to see some familiar faces – friends, neighbors or any of a few dozen BPA employees who each year run or walk the Portland Marathon.
“It’s a lot of fun anyway you look at it,” Davey says. The people are all different and the scene changes during the day. “Early in the morning, you might hand off a special custom drink to one of the lead runners,” Davey says. “Then sometime after noon, you might help an 84-year-old contestant, like we did last year,” he says. “She wondered why she didn’t have as much energy at the 21st mile point as she did a few years ago when she last did the marathon.”
Besides the fun and camaraderie, volunteers get a free marathon T-shirt. BPA and the Portland Kiwanis Club have operated the 21st mile aid station for several years. Nearly every year officials have picked BPA’s station for one of the marathon’s top awards for volunteer workers.
Besides current employees, family members and retirees and their families can also volunteer. If you’re interested, call (230-3124) or e-mail Don Davey in Portland. Let him know the time you can work, and be sure to give your T-shirt size(s).
Marathon maintenance – BPA folks, family and friends pitch in at the 21st mile aid station to aid runners and walkers during the 1998 Portland Marathon.
Jeff Fleming worked for BPA just one year. In early September he planned to move with his family from The Dalles to San Diego. There he will work as a lineman for San Diego Gas & Electric Co. It’s the same type of job he had the past year with BPA and the year before that with a utility in St. Louis.
“I like working here for BPA,” Fleming said four months before he left, but after he had accepted the San Diego job. Why would he move then?
“Mainly it’s a money deal,” he said. “The money is too good to pass up.”
Indeed, San Diego Gas & Electric – like most utilities in the U.S. – has a tremendous advantage over BPA. It can offer much more to keep its exist-ing workers, and compete better to draw new ones.
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Did you know?
Indians irrigated 2,000 years ago. Native peoples built irrigation works in America 1,500 years before Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. In the first century A.D., the Hohokam Indians of Arizona dug hundreds of miles of canals. They diverted the Salt River to water their crops but they didn’t have places to store water. The Hohokam culture disappeared about 1400 A.D. after a prolonged drought. The Pima Indians of today are the closest heirs of the Hohokam tradition. Some of the early Indian canals still exist. |
Consider the benefits that lured Fleming away when he was at BPA just over half a year. He said the salary raise and overtime hours could give him “a six- figure income.” But other things add more value. “Health benefits are quite a bit better,” he said. The company also offers a full retirement plan, and he’s still eligible to have his own individual plan.
Still there was much more. The company helped him relocate. It paid all his moving expenses, the closing costs to sell his house and two points on the purchase of his new home.
On top of all that, Fleming said, San Diego paid him a bonus to hire on. He couldn’t disclose how much but said it was “a healthy sum.”
This and similar scenarios pose big problems for BPA in the future. As the agency continues to trim its overall size and skilled workers continue to age, BPA can’t compete for people under present government personnel programs.
That’s one reason behind the Administrative Efficiencies Project proposed this year. BPA wants to have more flexibility to offer more and better benefits both to draw and to keep employees.
Some form of AEP could help BPA in the future. It may not be able to lure back employees who have gone elsewhere. But it may help BPA keep its skilled workforce and draw new people to meet its needs in the future.
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Across
1 Ego 5 Story 9 Shoelace tip 14 Cowsill’s song & stage hit 15 King of Norway 16 Golf shot 17 Sandwich cookie 18 Lighthouse (little iron giant) 20 Makes vertical 22 Large turtles 23 Semi 25 Highest degree 26 Lighthouse (shortest lived) 32 Greek Letter 35 Mistreat 36 Sped away 37 Mewled 39 Root for 40 Inquire 41 Bikini for one 42 Devoted to horses 43 Past Mets manager Hodges 44 Cooking stove 45 Give it a go 46 Lighthouse (strongest light) 48 The south (1865) 50 Is feeling blue 51 Hormones 56 Signal light 61 Lighthouse (oldest active) 63 Ice field 64 Organic compound 65 TV game show choice 66 Destroy 67 Interior decoration 68 Subsides 69 Had debts |
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Down
1 Store 2 “Duke of ___” 3 Stead 4 Starting at 5 Warning bell 6 Mobile’s state (abbr) 7 Passes again (in a race) 8 Tied 9 Proficient 10 Diagram 11 Italian money 12 Always 13 Thomas Hardy character 19 Alot 21 Spiny 24 A house for cars? 26 Fancy boat 27 Loathe 28 Ask 29 Employs 30 Programming language 31 Feet connectors 32 Dolly the sheep (for one) 33 Hagar the Horrible’s wife 34 Ran in neutral 37 “Everybody loves a ___” 38 Provo’s state 46 Ice Pellets 47 Small drums 48 Philosophy 49 No longer drinking 51 Jack mackerel 52 Not wild 53 Narrative poem 54 Miami’s county 55 Elitist often 57 Hair style 58 Type of hammer 59 Seep 60 Requirement 62 Corn unit |
