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Dickie Slack AUB's Newest Journeyman Lineman

Media Contact:

Wayne Scarbrough

(423) 745-4501 ext. 6002

wscarbrough@aub.org



May 7, 2018

 

ATHENS, Tenn. – Dickie Slack is Athens Utilities Board’s (AUB) newest journeyman lineman, having earned the certification after a demanding five-year apprenticeship of field training and exercises and hundreds of hours of classroom work and study on the technical aspects of high-voltage distribution systems.

 

Slack began his career at AUB as a meter reader when he was just shy of 18 years old.  He was the oldest candidate ever to enter into AUB’s lineman apprentice program.

 

“Based on Dickie’s experience and work history at AUB, we consider that a plus,” said AUB Director of Human Resources, Phil Graves, himself a former lineman and line crew foreman.

 

“Dickie has been a loyal and excellent AUB employee for 40 years serving this community, 20 of those as a line truck operator for the power division,” Graves said.

 

Slack, 56, made a confident and somewhat unnerving career decision when he opted to leave is job as an operator and take the leap into line work.

 

“The decision was difficult and carried risks, but it has proven to be the right decision,” Slack said.

 

The risks were not only related to electricity.  Had he “washed out” in line school, his AUB career may have been over, because his old job would already have been filled.

 

“I decided that, as an operator on a power crew, I had been around line work and linemen for so long I really wanted to learn more about the rest of the power system and to challenge myself to do and learn more,” Slack said.

 

When he entered the utility’s apprenticeship program, he headed to “lineman boot camp” where candidates undergo a regimen of demanding field challenges climbing 90-foot wood power poles and practicing pole-top skills and rescues.

 

They carry out this training under trying conditions where a lack of preparation, fortitude, or attention to detail can be dangerous or even deadly.

 

“The five-year program includes ample classroom work as well, with detailed courses in line-worker safety, pole framing, distribution transformers and advanced mathematical electric system calculations,” said AUB’s Kevin Goins, who supervises all of the line crews in his role as power operations director.

 

Last year Slack, with a score of 99.8, was one of the three AUB crewmen in the apprenticeship school that took the top three spots in the final exam at the Bellefonte Training Center in Scottsboro, Ala.

 

“Becoming a journeyman lineman is something that I am very proud to have accomplished. It was hard work and a continuing learning experience, that’s for sure,” Slack said.

 

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve the great community where I have spent my whole life,” he said.

 

Goins, who worked alongside Slack for nearly two decades, said he is more than a colleague.

 

“He is absolutely like family.  We were on the same line crew for 17 years, from April 2000 until May 2017.  Dickie has had a huge impact on my life, both professional and personal.

 

“He is a great man, and I was proud to shake his hand and congratulate him on completing this tough program and becoming a journeyman lineman,” Goins said.

 

Slack and his wife of 34 years, Jamie, have two grown daughters, Kara and Kendra, and a five-month-old grandson, Carter.

 

 

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DSlack