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as blue-collar boomers retire
en masse, bc Hydro plays a
game of Hr cHess
by Jacob Parry
Hydro:
The Next
Generation
I
n January 2014, a storm hit the Peace River region,
generating winds of up to 125 kilometres per hour,
knocking trees onto power lines and cutting
power for some 30,000 customers. With lines
meandering off roads and deep into the woods, some BC
Hydro crews had to use snowmobiles and snowshoes to
get around for what turned out to be three 16-hour days.
It was an effort that required 26 response teams from as
far away as Vancouver Island.
Staffing for that response was not easy, but it's par
for the course for BC Hydro, which has 5,500 employees
scattered across the province (not including hundreds of
tradespeople working on dam upgrades or at subsidiaries
like Powerex) ranging from engineers and hydrologists
to linemen and electricians. B.C.'s largest public utility
(and the number five company on our Top 100 list) has
the unenviable task of covering a territory of almost a
million square kilometres, with power lines that stretch
over multiple mountain ranges and through a diversity
of climates. When a storm hits, BC Hydro is required to
act fast—and with a lot of bodies.
102 BCBusiness July 2015 paul JosepH
