Eighteen OPD5 employees got the chance to network with peers from utilities from all across the region during the annual “Best Practices Workshop” held on March 17-19 at the Aliante Casino in Las Vegas. This included employees from the district’s Line Operations, Engineering and Substation Operations departments.
This year the event, put on by the Nevada Rural Electric Association (NREA), brought together a record attendance of 117 electric utility professionals from across the western United States. Participants spent the three days receiving instruction, giving presentations and sharing procedures, protocol and practices that are working well at their home utilities.
“Best Practices is a great forum for networking and sharing ideas and solutions to common problems,” said OPD5 Line Operations Manager Kyle Leavitt who gave the welcome and closing remarks for each of the conference sessions. “It gives our guys the chance to learn new ways at looking at things, encourages networking with peers and even gives opportunities to present in front of a large group. It is pretty valuable.”
The conference offered a variety of best practice presentations, many given by employees from the different utilities in attendance. These included discussions on wildfire readiness, the use of infrared technology in diagnosing problems, a focus on safety and mental health and more. There were also demonstrations from conference sponsors on various types of tools and equipment used by work crews in the industry.
OPD5 line foremen Omar Vallejo and Cody Hardy gave a presentation on Thursday morning on the subject of underground high voltage practices.
“Over the past year or so, we have put a lot of focus on our practices and procedures in working with underground lines and with vault safety,” Leavitt said. “It was good to share some of that training with others in this setting. Omar and Cody did a great job.”