Why linemen are my heroes

As a child I never truly understood the importance of the job my father had, but let’s be honest do kids really understand? My father was a lineman before I was born but he unfortunately lost his arm while on the job. He never gave up on the love of the job, but was never able to return to the trade of climbing poles. His pride in the job has kept him in the industry working alongside the crews, for more than 40 years.

I followed my father into the utility industry, where I met my husband and father of our daughter. My husband and I both work for Duke Energy – me in health and safety and him as a supervisor of the line crews and a former lineman. Those of you who understand that trade will truly understand you are never a “former” lineman, rather you are a lineman forever!

My husband, very much like my father, takes tremendous pride in his trade. I treasure what he and my father do daily to keep the crews they work with safe. Over the years I have watched our daughter try to learn about what her daddy and his crew do for a living, knowing she only understands that they help people power their homes and businesses. This past storm season with Hurricane Michael, her daddy had to work very long hours away from home for a few weeks. A child of our daughter’s age doesn’t understand what it takes to rebuild the lines to serve our customers; she only understands that daddy is gone for who knows how long! So, we take every opportunity to share with her that daddy being gone is so he can help another child like her have power to cool their food, heat to warm the water and lights to let them see when they get dressed for school. This is how children relate when they are not the ones who have sustained the damage to their homes and how they learn to appreciate the importance of the men and women in this industry. No matter how long he is gone, the joy she has for him when he returns is heartwarming.

Over the years, we dreaded sharing the story of how grandpa lost his arm on the job doing the same thing grandpa did, as we didn’t want to put fear in our daughter’s mind when daddy was out working late. Now, we share how what daddy does each day is so he can help keep his team safe and help them go home to their families the same way they came in.

During longer outages, many customers can’t understand why their power has been out so long, while linemen’s families wonder when their lineman, or linewoman, will get home. The job is often taken for granted by those who have never been touched by the industry and assumptions are made that it is easy to flip a switch to turn the lights on. At home or at work, we only have to flip a switch to light up your room but know that there is so much more that has to be done in the field to provide you that opportunity to flip the switch. I wanted to share my personal experiences with my two linemen that I’m so grateful for - on National Linemen Appreciation Day (April 18) and every day.

To all of you in this line of work, we are grateful for who you are and what you do!

Thank you for your pride in your trade and your passion to help keep the lights on!