SPECIAL SECTION: Insights from NETA

I am involved with the NFPA 70E standard. Everybody in the room, for the most part, is there for one reason, to make the world a better place for electrical safety. It’s not personal gain; it’s for the greater good.

Ron Widup

Alan Ross: This special NETA section of the magazine is a compilation of interviews conducted at the 2023 PowerTest Conference where we interviewed board members and thought leaders with great insights into NETA as it embarks on several strategic initiative, including adding the “I” for International. When I attended my first NETA conference over a decade ago, I have been impressed by the way members, who are often competitors, come together in a more collaborative way to make our industry better, safer, or reliable and resilient.

Let’s get started:

Ron Widup, Senior Advisor – Technical Services
Shermco Industries

AR: Ron, you have been a fixture at NETA and Shermco since, I came into the industry. I remember you speaking at my very first NETA PowerTest conference and here you are, still. Tell me about your journey?

Ron Widup: Yes Alan, it’s been a day or so. I grew up in Central Texas, as an army brat. Out of high school, I went to Texas State Technical Institute, which is now TSTC, and got a two-year associate’s degree in electrical power. I went to work for the summer as a co-op in the Dallas, Fort Worth area for a company called Roundhouse Electric & Engineering. They hired me out of school in 1982 and I was there for about a year. That’s when another one of those cycles, where the oil market went down, so they told me, “Hey, we’re retracting and we’re going to shut down our Dallas operation so you could move to our Odessa, Texas office or…”. With all due respect to Odessa that move was not in my plans, so I called up the engineering manager from Shermco, who was our competitor, and said “Hey, I need a job. On June 6, 1983, I started as a field service technician for Shermco.

AR: You’ve been with Shermco the entire time? Shermco has changed a lot and grown a lot, tremendously. NETA is changing and growing, too. What’s your role with NETA?

RW: At NETA there are so many people since we are a volunteer organization that does a ton of work, and I am just one of those people. I got involved with NETA in the early ’90s. At Shermco we had a gentleman who was on the board of directors and who was part of a group that did vacuum retrofits. We actually ended up spinning that business out and when he left the company, I filled in his board spot. I’ve been on the board since then. Through the years, I progressed through various committees and responsibilities. I did a couple of turns as President of the Association through the years, officer roles, and all that.

AR: That’s when I met you. You were the President of Shermco. Back then, a decade or so ago.

RW: Yes. I know the first time was in 2000 because I remember that because I was the President when our first ANSI standard came to be, and it was our test technician standard. That was a big day because it was our first standard. Al Peterson was a big part of making that happen and it was a proud day for the association because that was really a step change for us in the standards making aspect of the association. It started with that, which then eventually led to the four we have now.

AR: Somebody asked me years ago, “What is it about NETA that you think is so attractive for the industry?” I replied that it is the collaborative, collegiate way that competitors work together to advance the cause. I think that is one of the great values of NETA. And that still happens today, right?

RW: Yes. It’s interesting and good in that, and I’ll liken it to this; I am involved with the NFPA 70E standard, right? In fact, I represent NETA on that standard. And when you go to those committee meetings, you have the smartest people in the room when it comes to electrical safety, 40, 50, 60 people in the meetings. Everybody in the room, for the most part, is there for one reason, to make the world a better place for electrical safety. It’s not personal gain; it’s for the greater good. That’s nice when you can have that collaborative of an environment where we’re all doing it for the right reasons.

AR: Let’s turn our attention to the apprenticeship program. You’ve been working on it for a while.

RW: Yes, and through our training committee here at NETA we see that whether you’re a plumber or a power system technician or a restaurateur, everybody has problems with labor and getting people. For us in the electrical power industry, the key is first you must have somebody, first off, who wants to work. Second, is that they’re trainable, and third is that they could stay off the bad stuff that keeps you from getting on job sites, right? You get those three, and then you can start the process.

You have a few options. You can get somebody from the industry, and that’s a finite number. You get people out of the industry, which happens. You can grow them internally and grow your own. It just depends on which way works best for you.

What we’re finding is that there’s only so many people that you can get from the outside. You must motivate, train, and grow from the inside. Training programs, the apprenticeship program, that’s one of many ways to do it.

When you have a structure like an apprenticeship program that creates the next generation of workers, and that our training committee has been working on it’s a new deal. It’s helping us with a problem, especially if you don’t have an internal workforce development group. Now we provide some tools to get those people on that path.

AR: Talk a little bit about your work on the NETA NFPA 70E committee.

RW: I’ll start with the motivation for it. I started out as Field Service Tech. And in July of 1984, I was working at a hospital on a 480 volt, 400 amp automatic transfer switch. I was the transfer switch guy, right? And I was working on seven switches and upgrading the controls and all that and doing some modifications on the last switch of the day. I had to isolate the controls from the main switch, so I did. I pulled these three wires and isolated the controls, did the modifications and was putting it back. It was at a hospital. And what the hospital had done was they had added a microswitch on a piece of balsa wood on the switch. So, when it would transfer from normal to emergency, it would hit the switch and close the light of light bulb. Well, I put the factory accessory on and I thought, “well, I’ll take this non-factory accessory off”. So, I took the little number 14 wire off and was pulling it out of the switch, which was the energized part, but instead, I had the de-energized part and the wire.

It caught and popped and hit one of the hot phases. It arced, it went phase to phase and the switch blew up in my face. Burns on my arms, my face and all that. You can’t shut it off because it’s a transfer switch. They’re always critical.

The result was I was in the hospital for a week and a half, off work for a month. It gave me a real appreciation. This was in the early ’80s, so we didn’t know as much about what we I know now about electrical safety. I’m an ark flash survivor and I started thinking about it. I was looking around, and so NFPA 70 E was around. I got involved with it and was put on the committee in 1998. And that was right at the end of the cycle, which became the 2000 edition of 70 E. Okay. Well, that edition was the edition where it introduced the ark flash, the hazard risk tables.

And so a guy named Paul Hamer with Chevron, Texas, they’d taken their information. And so it was a new deal, and it was really the start of the awareness of the art flash hazard and all that. And so I’ve been on the committee since ’98. And there’s been an evolution through the years of understanding not only electric shock, but art flash, and what that can do to a person and all that. Just that process has been very beneficial for me because My motivation is I don’t want to have what happened to me to happen to anybody else, so that’s the motivation.

Dan Hook, President
CBS Field Services

AR: Thanks so much Ron. My next guest is Dan Hook. He is the president of CBS Field Services. Dan, thank you for joining me.

DH: Thank you.

AR: So first of all, go a little bit into your background and your role at CBS Field Services. You actually created the field services group right?

DH: Yes, after my time in the US Navy, I went to work for group CBS with a partner of mine, Craig Archer. And our charge was to build a field service division accompanying the other group CBS companies. And the goal, the initial goal was to become NETA accredited and to gain that recognition and that immediate gravitas.

AR: And you’re on the NETA board, correct?

DH: Okay. And we’re going to talk a little bit about one of the parts of NETA that I really want to promote and that is the apprenticeship program that you all are working on with the Department of Labor. But before we go there, okay. What I really want to talk about is obviously when you looked at the need for field services because the CB’s group, group CB’s was primarily equipment, if I understand it. Yes. That’s a whole sea change to say we’re going to take that equipment out in the field, we’re going to add human element to it and now we’re going to talk about why you did that and what were some of the challenges of doing that.

DH: It appears on the surface maybe that it is a sea change? But it’s somewhat of a natural progression if you’re willing to take that avenue. Group CBS is 40, 45 years old, something like that. The expertise that they have in shop kind of leads customers to say, “Well, I can’t bring it to you. Can you please come out on site and help me with this challenge?” And the breaker shops do that type of support. But we also found that as we have an effective NETA accredited field service group, you’re the first one to know that there may be equipment problems and you can provide solutions by bringing customers equipment back to the shop and performing those types of services in the shop. There’s a great synergy between field service and the equipment industry. But they do have their unique challenges, for sure.

As we have an effective NETA accredited field service group, you’re the first one to know that there may be equipment problems and you can provide solutions by bringing customers equipment back to the shop and performing those types of serivces in the shop. There’s a great synergy between field service and the equipment industry.

Dan Hook

AR: The industry is changing and NETA is changing as a result of that. You must be involved with the apprenticeship program that you are working on with the Department of Labor. Talk a little bit about that because I think that’s a game changer.

DH: It is a game changer because it’s an opportunity for us to do this as an industry. NETA is 51, 52 years old now and we’ve worked together for a long time and obviously we put on a great conference and all those other things, but it’s been a challenge with workforce development and a little bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.

AR: Poaching.

DH: Yeah, a little bit of poaching. You know, there’s many terms for it. This is an opportunity to help the industry as the whole industry, as we come together and see the greater good and see how this is going to help all of us, and it can help all of us simultaneously. It’s not a zero-sum game. Maybe that’s the best way to say it. This is about bringing more people into the industry. So we are not just poaching from each other. We’re not just trying to trade the highest talent depending upon what year it is and how many dollars an hour someone makes. This is a way to, somebody said many years ago, “enlarge the pie”. And so that’s what’s exciting about this. And Steve Newton has done an excellent job of spearheading this, and he should be very proud of what he’s accomplished so far.

AR: You are the first vice president. You’ll become president and have a two-year term. What’s your vision for NETA?

DH: Yes, one of those things is that it started as national and fairly quickly, even before my time, we wanted to broaden our reach beyond our own borders, so we called it international, but it’s known as NETA, and it has been for so long. We kept the logo, kept the name, and so we’re NETA, but we are international.

Ten or 15 years ago, our international footprint was Canada and the United States, so technically, we were international. I grew up in Canada, North America centric for sure.

Since I’ve been part of NETA and been part of the board, we have South American, Central American, Caribbean, Middle Eastern companies as members. We have a gentleman visiting from Australia this year who is in the application process and looking very, very promising for growth there.

My vision is our membership group has done such a great job of starting to scratch the surface of putting the eye in international electrical testing association. We really need to leverage that. I don’t have to tell anybody that the world’s getting smaller, and it has been for a really long time. It’s time for NETA to catch up with the globalization, although that’s the bad “g” word sometimes currently, but in our globalization, it’s just focused in our industry. That’s a good thing. Yes, that’s an absolute good thing.

Dave Huffman, President
Power Systems Testing Company

AR: Thanks so much Dan, I look forward to seeing where NETA goes in your leadership tenure in the future. My next guest is David Huffman. David, NETA is working with the Department of Labor to create an apprenticeship program, which I love because I think that is desperately what we need as an industry. Talk a little bit about that and about putting the “I” in NETA.

Dave Huffman: The apprenticeship program initially felt a little bit threatening because we’re not electricians. That’s one thing we’re very adamant about. We don’t do electrician work. We’re not electricians. And to force a testing company to become licensed electricians would really put a burden on a lot of the testing companies on the West Coast. This new apprenticeship program is really going to benefit us to where it makes that electrical test technician more authentic in the eyes of governing agencies such as the Department of Labor.

Well, the international growth is happening because a lot of construction is designed and specified by American engineering firms. As such, we’ve done a big push to make these engineering and architectural firms aware of what NETA brings to the table as far as testing specifications and commissioning. I think with the international, one of the applicant companies already has a few technicians that have passed the exam for level two and three. So I think we’re on definitely a growth pattern, and I think that it’s going to be good for construction around the planet.

We’ve done a big push to make these engineering and architectural firms aware of what NETA brings to the table as far as testing specifications and commissioning.

Dave Huffman

AR: Excellent. How long do you continue planning on doing this?

DH: Until they kick me out. A lot of the people in NETA are well past what some people might consider your retirement age, but we love what we do, are passionate about it and have made lifelong friends within NETA.

AR: Somebody asked me years ago and they said, what is it about NETA that you think is so attractive for the industry? It’s the collaborative, collegiate way that competitors work to work together to advance the cause. I mean, I think that’s something that I would say is one of the great values of NETA. And that still happens today, right?

Virginia Balitski, Manager – Training and
Development, Magna IV Engineering

AR: Another NETA Board member that we talked with was Virginia Balitski. Talk a little bit about your role here at NETA?

Virginia Balitski: As you said, I am on the board of directors now, having started my term two years ago. (Editor’s Note: That was back in June 2023, so as of this publication it has been more than two years.

AR: Excellent. As I understand it, NETA is close to getting the first apprenticeship program with the Department of Labor here in the United States. Are you involved in that at all?

VB: Yes, as part of the training committee, we’ve been working on that for a bit. There’s just such a need for it. It’s a game changer. There’s such a need for techs in the industry, and there’s only so many programs out there that we can get techs into the industry. Working on something like this is to have a program that’s ready to go. There are other options out there, certainly throughout Canada with our electrical engineering technology program, but then having other options here in the US approved by the Department of Labor to work on an apprenticeship program, giving the apprentice the knowledge that they need along with on-the-job training that they need to advance through their career. We believe this is critical to the future and something we have been working very hard on for several years.

There’s such a need for techs in the industry, and there’s only so many programs out there that we can get techs into the industry. Working on something like this is to have a program that’s ready to go.

Virginia Balitski

Bob Sheppard, Regional Power Operations
Sigma C Power Services

AR: Thank you Virginia, you bring a lot of practical application and knowledge to NETA. My next guest is Bob Sheppard, who was also at the first NETA Conference I attended, and welcomed me with open arms, so than you Bob. Tell me a little about your perspective of the Apprenticeship Program?

Bob Sheppard: The way that we envision the program working out is NETA will own the master document, and NETA is not going to administer that document like the IBEW would or NEC or somebody like that. The individual NETA accredited companies or realistically, anybody that wants to say, “We recognize this is a Department of Labor thing, we want to be a part of that.” You wouldn’t necessarily have to be a part of NETA. It’s just that it’s focused around being the electrical test technician standards that need to be developed.

However, as the companies, this becomes available, there’ll be an announcement, and we’ll try to involve as many people as we can because it’s a big, important deal. It is. And what happens is the individual companies will then go to NETA and say, “We want to adopt that program as our own”. So they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. And they manage that document. They manage their people. They manage the process by themselves with the assistance of NETA as an ad hoc process.

We’ll try to involve as many people as we can because it0s a big, important deal. It is. And what happens is the individual companies will then go to NETA and say, “We want to adopt that program as our own”. So they don’t have to reinvent the weel.

Bob Sheppard

Damien Robinson, Global Industry Director –
Power Transformers, Megger

AR: Diego, what do you think the value of NETA is to the industry in general? How does the organization make a difference?

Damien Robinson: NETA provides a standard and proven methodology for reliable commissioning and maintenance of electrical assets. It provides an avenue for service companies, manufacturers, and industry personnel to share best practices and lessons learned for the betterment of the entire electrical industry. Related to this, Megger subject matter experts participate in the revisions of the ATS and MTS guides.

A major difference NETA provides over many other standards bodies is the certification levels of technicians. This adds a high level of assurance that a service company is providing and a customer is receiving qualified individuals for the safe and reliable testing of assets.

Another significant difference NETA provides is the various Alliance Programs. After a brief hiatus, in 2024 Megger re-joined as a Corporate Alliance Partner Program which provides an excellent venue to highlight emerging technologies to industry leading partners.

AR: How has NETA added value to you personally and to your career/role at Megger?

DR: Being in sales my entire time at Megger, NETA’s primary value for me has been priming prospective customers. When I enter a NETA Accredited Company, in many cases, at least half of my typical job is complete, i.e. the need to explain certain electrical tests and why they are important. Mostly, I simply need to showcase Megger product solutions. This results in much more expedient sales, and it has helped Megger grow significantly in the industry.

AR: I attended a half day Megger workshop at NETA, several years ago and found it had tremendous value for me personally and form the reaction of the attendees, to them as well. Talk a little about why Megger Workshop adds so much value to a NETA, or other, conference?

DR: Megger’s approach to these workshops is sharing industry best practices. This matches well the intent of NETA. We endeavor to not make the workshop a sales pitch, though at the request of attendees we have at times engaged in hands-on demonstrations of our test solutions. Rather our philosophy is to partner with NETA Accredited Companies in educating technicians, managers, and/or sales personnel on overcoming challenges or understanding improvements in methodologies associated with asset condition assessment.

Megger’s philosophy is to partner with NETA Accredited Companies in educating technicians, managers, and/or sales personnel on overcoming challenges or understanding improvements in methodologies associated with asset condition assessment.

Damien Robinson

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Alan Ross: There was so much great content we gained from interviews at the conference and we wish we could have included all of them and all of every interview however that would have taken over the entire issue. The good news is that every interview is available on our website.