Local Avista employee shares 29 years worth of experience

During one of hundreds of calls to retrieve a cat from the heights of a power pole years ago, Steve Brink remembers his spirits sinking as he pulled up to a house near Pullman. Three generations of women stood, transfixed, watching the furry feline that crouched on a pole.

"There was a grandma, a mother and a 3-year-old girl standing there and I thought, 'Oh man, this is not good,' " he said.

Though Brink, 54, has never experienced any cat injuries or deaths, it is always unnerving to have people watch him use the less-than-strategic methods of cat-rescue.

While employing the "here kitty-kitty" technique, the cat scrambled and jumped around the power poles and finally, to the shock of Brink and the customers waiting below, landed paws-first on the blacktop.

"The cat kind of thudded on the pavement and took off toward the house at about 100 miles per hour," Brink said.

Saving pets from electrocution or falling from great heights is only part of Brink's job. Brink, a Palouse resident, is the "first responder" to power emergencies for Avista Utilities customers between Elk River, Palouse and LaCrosse. With the job title of "local representative," he also brings power to new neighborhoods, uninstalls power, maintains Avista power and answers customers' questions. Brink, along with about 15 linemen and four other area representatives, serve thousands of customers in Whitman and Latah counties.

What this means for Brink is overtime. Lots of overtime.

"I have missed all forms of family functions," Brink said.

Still, Brink loves his job. Linemen are well compensated, earning between $21.02 an hour starting as groundmen and $41.11 an hour for local representatives, according to an e-mail from Paul Kimmell, an Avista business and public affairs employee.

Brink said he also enjoys having different tasks every day and being able to work outdoors, though it sometimes means working in dangerous weather.

Working as a lineman or an area representative of electric utilities takes years of continuing education. Brink, who started such work before linemen schooling was established, was trained by Avista employees on the Palouse. Avista linemen now train at Spokane Community College in conjunction with college staff and Avista employees.

Brink, who originally trained as a mechanic, started with Avista on the natural gas crew. After being invited to train with the Avista electrical staff, he learned the mechanics of measuring lines and working with hundreds of watts of electricity.

"There's a fair amount of math - algebra, trigonometry, vectors," he said. "I finally can understand what they tried to beat into my head for years and years" in high school.

Following two years of "cold courses" and a year of "hot courses," - working with dead and live electrical wires - Brink took the journeyman's test and became part of the Avista electrical team.

Brink said his ability to climb poles with just a couple pegs and a leather strap can be attributed to a quality shared by most linemen - utter confidence.

"You have to have a certain amount of confidence to do the things that (we) do," he said. "It's not an easy job."

For Brink, such confidence is challenged with nearly every task. Such was the case 23 years ago when he and a partner were injured while using an Avista truck to repair a power line in Pullman. Brink and a lineman were working in the bucket of the truck, suspended over traffic, when the truck tipped over.

"We were probably 40 feet in the air, and we tipped the truck over backward," he said.

Brink spent nine days in the hospital and was treated for four broken ribs and a punctured lung.

It's not always so tough, Brink said. In many circumstances, Brink and his crews receive thank you's for bringing power to homes, especially during holidays or odd hours.

Sarah Mason can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 234, or by e-mail to smason@dnews.com.