2007 SAIA Meeting

The actual meeting was called to order after the safety breakfast at the San Antonio Gunter Sheraton which is real close the Alamo in Texas. Tiff Wortham welcomed everyone and then we began our SAIA business meeting.

During the business meeting I had ask Joe Wamble of Tennessee to speak about the call up of Danny Hayes to serve in the Iraq War. Danny is a senior safety trainer in Tennessee JT&S. Danny will be training local soldiers about the United States methods of soldiering. We took time to honor all of our military serving all over the world. We also recognized Eddie Black’s sons, honored Glenn Cunningham’s brother Darren and there were also other silent requests.

Some of the programs worth mentioning were the Carl Potter Segment on Safety Program Development, Ken Brubaker talked about safety accreditation and how the co-op death record for electrocution is still above the national average. We have a part of the program called program sharing, many co-op safety people shared some very good programs. You can find these programs at the Texas Statewide website.

Michael Weltzheimer of Grayson Electric talked about combining job performance records. Mike was the 2007 Ray Pantel Award Winner and he will get the official award this fall at the NUTSEA Conference at the Galt House in Louisville.

Gueth Braddock of Asplundh gave us many reasons not to forget our right of way clearing programs. He explained how the cost can multiply as well as the hazards if we neglect the right of way clearing programs.

Parrish Taylor of TaylorMade Company talked about lineman training and how his methods work well with up coming linemen. We had a long program on Emergency Base Camp Construction for catastrophic conditions. To keep 1000 men for 30 days with his company with complete service, you are looking at around $500 per man.

On Thursday, Tiff Wortham wound up the meeting with a program called Lateral Thinking; this type of thinking puts a twist on what you usually think. Tiff made it funny and enjoyable.

We all said our good buys and began to head out. We did have other activities at night and several other speakers during the conference. I think the getting together as a safety group has great depth and meaning to all. We are out there to prevent injuries, death and property loss. Safety training is a good investment to save money by accident prevention.

We will be mailing the certificates real soon for credit to keep your CLCP.

I will be updating the website in the upcoming weeks. Don’t forget the 2007 NUTSEA being held at the Galt House in Louisville.

Thanks for a terrific conference, without you it would not have been possible.

Clarence Greene, CLCP
SAIA Chairman 2007
Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, Inc.

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