ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Who is the ultimate electrician?

Thanks Roger.
To all, thanks for your replies. I would like to continue this more later, but for now, I'm going to bed.

Move over Watt Mama,
Doc

I thought I would post why, IMO, Gary S. is the "ultimate electrician".
Some 7 or 8 years ago, I worked for a small commercial EC here in Houston. When I say small, I mean we had 4 electricians, and I was one of the 2 apprentices that we had.
Gary S. was one of the electricians. We did have an idustrial account with a salt mine not far outside of Houston. Gary S. spent most of his time at the salt mine. This particular mine was an "injection" mine, which means that instead of digging the salt out of the ground, they injected water onto the salt dome, pulled the "salt water" out, and evaporated the H2O off to come up with salt.
We've all seen the cardboard cans of salt that the store sells. This mine had a "can line" that had caught fire, and burned to the ground. Gary S. became heavily involved in the rebuild of the can line.
He, along with a mechanical engineer, designed the entire line. I don't know where they started in the design process, but some of the equipment that was installed had never been built before.
They determined how much load the can line would carry, sized all the feeders, switchgear, branch circuits, designed all the conveyors with freq drives, and determined what kind of PLC's would be needed to run the entire line. When the company wouldn't go out and spend money for a DC power supply needed for part of the controls, Gary S. got them to buy the components, and he built the power supply from scratch. He took part in programing the PLC's.
Then, we wired it all, and made it run. Much of the hardware, and brackets we fabricated out of stainless steel.
So, now, basically they feed cardboard into one end of this production line. The cardboard is rolled into tubes, and cut. The cut tubes are stood up, and a bottom is glued on. Then it is filled with salt. A top is put on, and it is labeled. It is then put into boxes of 24, and paletized.
I remember not long after we finished the can line, I met him out at a customer's house where we spent the day doing a service change.
Gary S. can do it "all". He never told me how involved he was in the design of that production line. I was told by someone else.
I could tell you another story about 64 parallel RMC's that he, and another guy ran. Concentric bends....the works....but that, as they say, "Is another story."


Regards,
Doc

Purely from the outside looking in, my concept of the ultimate electrician is one who:
- Provides a safe electrical service that fills the needs of the user/customer
- Can communicate well enough to listen carefully to assess the needs mentioned above as well as convey back to the user/customer how the end deliverable will meet that need or how they would propose options to meet that need (or if they read minds or can forecast the future, meet potential future needs without coming off like they are gold-plating the deliverable)
- Performs work safely and provides a nicely finished deliverable that demonstrates both subject matter knowledge and self-respect in a timely manner (code compliant, functioning properly and cleaned up after themselves)
- Provides all of the above at a fair and reasonable price.

It is a bonus to find that an electrician (or any other trade or craft) goes the extra mile or has designed the job at a higher level of expertise than the bare minimum without attempting to over-deliver on the intended solution. It speaks volumes about character and a concern for delivering the highest quality one can which speaks even more volumes about character and integrity.

what's that old Boy Scout creedo?


it's been a while......