During the early December ice storm in the southeastern part of our service area, our Brothers and Sisters in T&D once again stepped up to the plate and delivered with a speedy return of electrical service to an area that was extremely hard hit.  This was no picnic.  The conditions were the kind that were cursed by those who worked it.  And just when it looked like there was light at the end of the tunnel, the weather got worse.

It makes me proud to know I am associated with people who are extremely dedicated to what they do and the service they provide.

Where there issues associated with the storm restoration?  Yea.  Could it have been handled more efficiently?  Sure.  And that’s exactly what Charlie Perkins, Chris Wright, Dave Benak, Doug Madison and myself intend to impress upon T&D’s Management, from Mr. Widoe on down.

We are now in the part of the year where there are going to be several scheduled outages at the fossil and nuclear plants.  There are outages planned at North Omaha, Nebraska City, and Fort Calhoun, with some work on the gas turbines spaced in there as well.

We know the response from Local 763 members will be as expected, nothing short of a total commitment to getting the job done right, on time, and within budget.  Because that’s what our member’s do, every outage.

Local 763 members know that sometimes the work scope is so big that contractors are brought in to do some of the work.  But Management knows that after the contractors pack up and leave, our members always do what is necessary to get the unit back on line.  We always have and we always will.

And speaking of Fort Calhoun, there are having a real streak of bad luck.

There are a lot of things going wrong associated with the plant that has caused some intense scrutiny from the various regulatory agencies.

But most of our members that work at Fort Calhoun have seen this situation before.  That’s why they are more than capable of doing all of the things that are necessary to return Fort Calhoun to it’s rightful place as one of the top performing nuclear power plants in the world.

You see, our members know they have an obligation and a responsibility to be the best work force on the property.  We know that if they are provided with everything they need to perform their work, that nobody can do a better job.  We are the most efficient, skilled, trained, and equipped people to earn our pay.  We show this to the Company storm after storm, outage after outage, in everything we do, every day, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Local 763 is proud of our members and what they do.  If you haven’t heard thanks from anyone for the work you do, let me just say Thank You.