Ruralite - November 2003
A newsletter for customers of Klickitat PUD

Goldendale foreman John Starr graduated from the 2003 Front Line Leadership Credential program in July. He was unable to attend the graduation ceremony, so he received his trophy and pin during the KPUD quarterly luncheon in October.

John has worked for KPUD since 1983, starting as meter reader, then a groundman before receiving an apprenticeship, worked as a lineman, then a working foreman, and has been in the foreman position for the past five years. He supervises the Goldendale line crew.

The Leadership program, sponsored by the Northwest Public Power Association (NWPPA), has been in operation for the past four years. In 2003, the program had 23 graduates. The four classes included in the 2003 program covered situational leadership, leadership challenges, personalities and attitudes, human relations, law and time management. The course is for any utility employee who is in a front line supervision position, is on a track to be promoted into a front line supervision program, or is regularly upgraded to fill in behind supervisors.

"The course was well worth it," said John. "The most important skill I gained was in reading personalities, and learning how to interact differently depending on the person I'm working with."

Each course consists of four modules spread out over a year, each consisting of two or three days at a time. This way, the participants can learn about new skills and then have a chance to go back to their job and try using the skills before they meet again. Then they can exchange "war stories" about how the skills worked for them. Charlie Roe, NWPPA Director of Education, said that an added benefit of the design is that the participants generally start and end the series at the same time and over the period of a year they develop great networking capability among themselves.

Charlie explained that the Leadership program was developed in the 1990s when a group of managers realized that in about 10 years there would be a substantial number of front line supervisors who would be reaching retirement age, and those who remained would need management courses prior to being promoted to those higher level management positions.

The NWPPA region covers 10 Western states (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Arizona) and two Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Alberta).