It was before Midnight on Monday, February 15, during the storm that spawned deadly tornadoes, when I got a call about an outage affecting 35,000 member locations. By 12:30 a.m., I had finished calling the linemen who work out of the Southport/Oak Island district office, and they were heading out, joined by the men from the Supply and Whiteville offices.

By 2 a.m., the outages were down to 7,000. We continued to work through the night and the next day, solving the most difficult restoration problems and completing the work that evening. It was a horrific time for many of our members, and we were just doing our part to help.

Outages are personal to us. Linemen truly care about the membership, and feel the urgency that members feel when the power is out. Management and linemen want the same thing that members want — electricity you can count on — and that’s what drives our high reliability and efficient restoration efforts. Linemen find another gear when the power is out, whether it is one member or 10,000.

We like to say we’re on the FIN Team — Fix It Now  — for the membership. It’s rewarding, meaningful work, and not everyone can do it; they say you have to be cut from the cloth. Because it can mean working in miserable, hazardous conditions, and spending nights and weekends away from your family, you have to want to serve others. We believe it’s a privilege to do so.

It’s rewarding, meaningful work, and not everyone can do it; they say you have to be cut from the cloth. Because it can mean working in miserable, hazardous conditions, and spending nights and weekends away from your family, you have to want to serve others. We believe it’s a privilege to do so.

It takes about 7,000 hours of training to become a lineman, and requires continual ongoing education. Cooperative linemen make up about 16% of all linemen in the US, and we tend to punch above our weight because of our vast service territories, covering three-quarters of the US land mass.

Cooperative linemen tend to be more motivated than most other linemen, who might be good at what they do, but don’t have the same connection to those on their lines that we do. No matter how big an electric cooperative is, the very nature of our relationship to the membership means we can’t ever be too big to care.

During National Lineman Appreciation Month, it’s important to recognize the contract crews who work with us on the construction, operations and maintenance of our transmission and distribution system. The linemen are our brothers, working side by side with us during lengthy storm restorations. They work with us on larger installation projects using their specialized equipment, handle portions of other projects in tandem with our crews, and keep our Right-of-Ways clear.

Thank you to the dedicated crews of Lee Electrical Construction, Sumpter Utilities, New South Maintenance, and the others we use for special projects. BEMC and contract crews are committed to serving the membership to the best of our ability, because you deserve nothing less.