Michael Benson

As part of the Substation Electrician Apprenticeship Committee at Salt River Project my responsibilities are to bring on, teach, offer assistance, and to make sure all apprentices are up to date and at the progression level they should be. This involves participation in apprenticeship orientation. Apprentice candidates are taken on a one week orientation that involves hands on, observation, and oral and written testing to determine who will be the next class of apprentices. Being part of the committee also involves making plans for future classes and training to make sure all apprentices are up to date and are obtaining the skills they need to succeed in the field. Part of this training also involves being involved in apprentice six month evaluations. This is to determine that the apprentice is at the correct level for their progression. I also have designed and teach transformer theory to third year apprentices. When I was asked to teach I was given a book and had to work with Microsoft Powerpoint and other programs to develop an 80 hour off the clock class that I have now taught for 4 years. In this class I have instructed substation electrician, fault locators, and generation plant electricians. The class that I developed has also been taught by other instructors in the company.

As a battery technician my responsibility is to maintain, repair, troubleshoot, and replace batteries and battery chargers. Having a thorough understanding of prints such as station service prints, schematics, and connection diagrams is required. This job entails that I understand and comply with NERC, ERC, and SRP maintenance procedures. To perform this job I have to make and modify monthly schedules. I have to have flexibility to modify my schedule when issues arise. Working with other groups is a big part of creating a schedule. To perform my job responsibilities I work with communications, control, relay, maintenance engineering, apparatus engineering, design, PDO, and supervision. I am also required to work with other groups outside of Salt River Project such as the City of Page and other contractor groups.

My responsibilities as a journeyman substation electrician in distribution involved the maintenance, testing, repair, and replacement of substation equipment such as high voltage breakers, transformers, disconnects, PT's, arrestors, LTC's, and switchgear. This job involves reading and understanding prints including one lines, three lines, connection diagrams, and schematics. There were many days with long hours and overtime to complete work. I worked with PDO and DOC in this position to obtain clearances on substation equipment.

From April 2014 to January 2015 I worked as a substation electrician in substation construction. My responsibilities in Substation Construction involved new installation and replacement of substation equipment such as high voltage breakers, transformers, switchgear, CT's, PT's, CCVT's, structures, A frames, and buss work. Prints such as general arrangement, structure, one line, three line, connection diagrams, schematics, and AC / DC panel prints needed to be understood. Use of testing equipment such as timers, SF6 gas analyzers, resistance testers and Doble equipment is required. This job also involved working with other groups like replay and civil crews to get work completed.

I served my apprenticeship from July 2010 - April of 2014. This was an 8000 hour apprenticeship with four years of schooling. During my time as an apprentice I learned how to safely and competently perform the functions of a substation electrician. I learned during this time how to work safely with other crew members, and other groups in the company.

My time as a trades helper at SRP was spent in water construction and maintenance. My job responsibilities involved pre-oping and operating CDL trucks and equipment, maintaining and repairing water structures and gates, pouring concrete pads, repairing canal lining, and being loaned out to other groups like power generation and the metal fab shops as a helper.

In August, 2000 I started as a part time bay worker for Discount tire. By July of 2004 I worked my way up to assistant manager. As an assistant manger at Discount Tire my time was spent managing staff and keeping the store on budget. Examples would be for every employee hour worked the store had to sell 3 tires so balancing hours and sales had to be followed. This position also involved managing the bays to get the techs in the right spots to keep wait times down.