These journeymen share their strategies for navigating the path from the field to the boardroom and beyond.

Lineworkers often spend their entire careers in the field, powering their communities and restoring electricity following severe storms. Some journeymen, however, rise in the ranks to executive management while others leave their companies to launch their own businesses from the ground up.

Moving from the field to the office, however, isn’t always easy for journeyman lineworkers who love being outside, scaling structures and getting the power back on.

“It’s still a battle we face today,” says Aaron Palmer, a journeyman lineworker who started his own company, AMP Utility Services in Corpus Christi, Texas. “You never get rid of the urge to strap on your hooks and climb.”

Even so, starting a business can be rewarding for lineworkers. Just ask Chad Dubea, who started working full-time for Red Simpson right out of high school, and then a decade later, had the opportunity to start his own company — T&D Solutions. In 2005, his company started with 15 people and by 2013, it employed 1500 people. Understanding the business side of building power lines and being able to start a company and be successful was the highlight of his career, he says.

“I think everybody should give it a shot if they have the opportunity,” Dubea says. “I was actually comfortable being on a line crew and then had the opportunity to move into management and that kind of prepared me for starting T&D, and that was the greatest learning experience.”

He urges any journeyman lineworkers who have the opportunity to start their own company to go for it. At the same time, he says they must be willing to do things that others are not willing to do and put in hours others aren’t willing to put in.

“I know a lot of people think if you own your own company, it’s easy, but that’s when the work really starts,” Dubea says. “You have people who are depending on you, and you have to make sure that you are providing them with a safe place to work with the right equipment and tools.”
After starting his own company and selling it to a private equity firm, he was able to help two other lineworkers — Palmer and Tim Greenwood — also launch their own businesses.

Continue reading at T&D World

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