Electric Co-op Employee Wins National Award
03/20/2000

Jerry French, line technician at Nolin RECC in Elizabethtown, KY, was honored as first prize winner in the Line Blazer contest sponsored by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) and its Cooperative Research Network (CRN). Jerry was recognized during the CRN Breakfast held as part of NRECA's 58th Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, on March 19.

French received a check for $1,000 and the hearty congratulations of many of his peers in the electric cooperative community. 

The contest, open to full-time employees of electric cooperative distribution systems, seeks to identify and reward innovation at the utility’s front line. French’s winning idea -- the design, fabrication and installation of a storage rack for transporting hydraulic ground rod drivers -- was judged superior by the CRN’s Distribution Operations Task Force.

“Jerry just got fed up with having to move an 80-lb. piece of equipment every time he needed to get anything into the back of the truck,” said Bradley Schmidt of Cass County Electric Cooperative, chairman of the task force, praising French’s common sense approach. “Rather than wait for someone to get hurt or equipment to be damaged, Jerry took the initiative and developed a solution that can benefit line crews throughout the industry.”

An electric cooperative-directed research and development program, the CRN funds projects in the following areas: automation, telecommunications, and information technology; electricity distribution operations; marketing and energy services; and power supply. CRN also has a close working relationship with EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, to ensure that industry-wide research activities receive input and direction from cooperative electric utilities and that electric cooperative consumers benefit from industry innovations.

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