Two members of the OPD5 Engineering department completed all the requirements for their Staking Certification program earlier this month. Scott Robison, in the Overton office, and David Gutshall, in the Mesquite office, completed the rigorous course which included completing 12 intensive classes and passing 15 challenging exams to become certified staking engineers.
The training took place in three phases. Each phase consisted of a week of all-day classroom sessions. The classes took place in Denver, Colorado. So over the past several months, Robison and Gutshall have travelled to the Mile High City on three separate weeks to complete the training.
“During those weeks, we would wake up each morning, leave the hotel, and then spend pretty much the entire day in class,” Robison said. “It was pretty focused and intensive during all three weeks.”
In the realm of electrical utilities, staking is the design and engineering of building power lines. This could include both overhead and underground lines, as well as the details of permitting, easement acquisition, basic surveying, line inspection and more.
For example, if an OPD5 customer develops plans to build a house on a parcel not currently being served by power infrastructure, a staking engineer would be involved in the process.
“We would be the ones who would go out on site, look at the area, and come up with the best plan of how to get power from our closest source to their parcel in the most efficient, affordable, and safe way we can,” Robison said.
Staking engineers are also involved in planning for general system improvements to OPD5 infrastructure. This could include plans for replacing overhead power lines with underground lines, Gutshall said.
“In Mesquite, we are doing much more of this kind of underground work,” he said. “So there is a lot of math calculations involved in that and diving into codes, etc. This training has been really helpful in working through all of that stuff.”
Gutshall joined the OPD5 staff in January of 2022 after working about ten years as a journeyman electrician in the Salt Lake City area. But the cold winters eventually started to grind on him.
“The turning point came when I slipped on the ice up there and I snapped my femur,” Gutshall said. “As I was lying there on the ground, I said to myself, ‘I am really ready to move to someplace warmer.’”
Mesquite ended up being that place, and Gutshall has worked at OPD5 ever since.
“As an electrician, I came in much more used to working on the other side of the meter,” he said. “But it has been an interesting learning experience working on the utility side of things, and there have been plenty of opportunities to learn.”
Robison grew up in Moapa Valley and attended college at Southern Utah University. He received a bachelor’s degree in Finance and then continued there to earn a Master’s in Business Administration. Later, he got a job as an estimator for a masonry materials company in Las Vegas. That experience eventually led to the position at OPD5, which he took in April 2020.
Robison said that he appreciates the investment that OPD5 makes in its employees. “District management is very interested in making sure that we get the most current training from the best places, so that we can do our jobs at the best that we can be,” he said. “That is ultimately providing the best results for our customers, too. Because that training helps us to provide a more reliable, safe, and efficient system.”
OPD5 Engineering Dept. Manager Randall Ozaki said that the new certifications improve the capabilities of his team to bring positive solutions.
“With their newly earned certifications, Scott and David bring added expertise and capability to the OPD5 Engineering Department,” he said. “Their dedication to advancing their skills strengthens the team and reinforces OPD5’s commitment to providing safe, reliable, and forward-thinking service to the communities it serves. We also thank our board members for approving the funding for this training.”