“When the lights go out, so do they,” is an age-old utility saying. Even when it means leaving their own families behind in the wake of a storm, linemen are ready to answer the call any time of day to help get the lights back on.

Something new every day

Brody Parker, CAEC Journeyman Lineman, came into linework almost a decade ago. No two days are ever the same, and Parker said you’re always using critical thinking skills from the moment you arrive to the time you leave a jobsite.
“With linework, you’ve got to know the consequences to everything because every action has a reaction,” he said. “If you do the wrong thing, there’s 100 different things that could happen, and you’ve got to be able to know what to do in every situation.”
While working toward his current role of Journeyman, Parker said he’s always tried to learn as much as he could from older linemen, growing his own personal knowledge that he can pass on to others.
“One of the best pieces of advice I got was, ‘You better learn something new every single day, and the day you stop learning something new is the day you need to retire,’” he said.

Strong foundation

Parker said that most people understand linework is a physically demanding job, but few understand how mentally taxing it can also be. Balancing the roles of worker, spouse and parent while keeping your crew members safe is no easy task, but he said the key is a strong family unit.
“Having a strong foundation at home is a big part of it just because the daily work challenges can be mentally exhausting,” he said. “With this job, you have to have your wife’s support.”
While at CAEC, Parker’s found a thriving career and a family both within and outside of the co-op. He not only feels a sense of responsibility for his own safety when working, but he also feels called to look out for his brothers as well.
“We’ve made a huge family just by coming to the co-op,” said Parker. “Once you end up building those relationships, it makes safety even more paramount.”
Parker adds that protecting yourself while protecting your crew is one of the biggest focus points of the job. It requires looking out for every single crew member every day because “all it takes is a half second, and everything can change.”

My “Why”

Parker and his wife are blessed with two little girls, and since his wife and children entered the equation, Parker said his whole mentality has shifted.
“It’s a cliché, but honestly once you get married and have kids, you realize this job can be dangerous if it’s not done correctly,” he said. “Until you see a phase fall or see a flash or an arc, you don’t really know what electricity will do. Once you see it, you realize this is serious, so let’s make sure we do this the safest way because we all want to go home.”
Parker stresses it’s never easy leaving his family to work storms, but he agrees it “takes a different type of man” to do this work because he knows it’s what he signed up for.
“I know I’m going to miss birthdays, I know I’m going to miss holidays, I’ve missed almost all of Christmas Day because I was on call,” he said. “That’s all a part of it. Nobody knows the sacrifice the other person’s going through to get their power back on.”
At the end of the day, Parker hopes he can not only continue to grow in his role as Journeyman, but also that he can pass his experiences down to the next generation of lineman.
“I should be a better lineman because of all the linemen I’ve worked under,” he said. “I’ve tried to extract every piece of knowledge from them I can. An important goal for me is to make sure the younger guys ask the right questions and get all the knowledge they can so they can become better than me.”