General Manager’s Message – April 2025
Out in the Storm
What do you do when a major storm comes around? Most of us take cover at home. We make sure the doors and windows are shut tight, the refrigerator is full and we hunker down in a safe place with our loved ones.
But imagine if you couldn’t do that. Imagine your job was to respond to that storm — that every time the wind howls and the rain comes pouring down you had to leave your family and go out into the storm that everyone else is avoiding.
That’s what we ask of our linemen on a regular basis. It might be responding to a storm that strikes late at night or repairing a major outage early in the morning. Our linemen are called to help at all hours of the day, and you’d be hard-pressed to find one who’d ever complain about it.
That’s why, across the country, utilities recognize National Lineman Appreciation Day on April 18. It’s an opportunity to thank them for all the hard work they do, and not just on stormy nights. The truth is that our linemen work just as hard day in and day out to make repairs to aging power poles and damaged equipment, and build new power lines
While they may not face the cold and rain daily, the job still presents many dangers to anyone who isn’t properly trained and fully focused. That’s why South Alabama Electric Cooperative (SAEC) always puts the safety of our linemen first, making sure they have the equipment and training needed to do the job right. Safety is our top priority, and we want to ensure that every 1 of our linemen and employees goes home at the end of the day just as fit and healthy as when they came to work.
But our linemen don’t stop at serving their own neighbors. 1 of our core principles is helping other cooperatives in their times of need, knowing that 1 day we may be the ones who need a hand. As a result, even when a hurricane or major storm spares our system, it isn’t unusual for our crews to roll out to other cooperatives, ready to work long hours to restore power for those members.
Just last year, SAEC sent several crews to Georgia to help restore power after the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene. When they went into the field, some were greeted by local members lining the roads with signs and cheering them on, almost like fans cheering for their team before a big game.
Unfortunately, our linemen aren’t always welcomed so warmly. At times, members who have been waiting a long time for power to be restored can be unhappy when help arrives, and our linemen take the brunt of that displeasure, too.
If you’d like to learn more about what it’s like to be an SAEC lineman, you can also find some reflections from a few of our longest-serving linemen in this issue. Tony Greer, Blane Senn, and Darrell Foster have watched the job change and learned valuable lessons over the course of their careers, so don’t miss out on their decades of experience.
This month, as we put a spotlight on the people who work hard on every line in our system, I’d like to ask all of our members to take a moment to say thank you to any linemen they know. It is a rewarding and satisfying job, but it can also be a challenging and dangerous one. If you see 1 of our linemen out in the community, take a minute to let them know just how much you appreciate all the hard work they put in.