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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTony Michalsky Transcription1 City of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Tony Michalsky Interviewer: Brooke Linsenbardt Transcriber: Sheena Cox Date: June 14, 2017 Place: College Station, Texas Project: City Officials & Employees (1980s-2010s) 00:00: Brooke Linsenbardt (BL): My name is Brooke Linsenbardt. I am College Station's Historic Records Archivist and the interviewer. It is 3:35pm on June 14, 2017. We are conducting the interview at the Public Utilities building off Graham road in College Station, Texas. 00:23: Tony Mahalski (TM): I'm Tony Michalsky, Assistant Director of Electric Utilities, and I'm the interviewee. 00:29: Sheena Cox (SC): I am Sheena Cox, the Oral History Intern. BL: Thank you. To start the interview, tell us when and where you were born. 00:38: I was born in La Grange, Texas on August 18, 1961. And, basically grew up there my, my whole childhood I guess you could call, I still call it home even though I've lived in Bryan, College Station longer than I lived in La Grange. I have, my wi-, was married in 1980. I have two children, a son and a daughter. Son's 32, and married with two children. My daughter’s 30. And as far as me, I’ve basically grew, like I said grew up in La Grange. Finished high school in 1980, and pretty much followed my wife to Bryan, College Station, looking for a job ‘cause she was gonna go to Texas A&M. 01:27: (BL): What did your parents do? 01:29: (TM): My parents, my dad was, worked for a Chevrolet dealership for forty one years. My mother, she worked for uh, H.E.B. for twenty five years and retired as an assistant manager. (BL): Great. Can you talk about your education? 01:44 (TM): Well, pretty much like I said, finished high school in 1980, while I worked for College, after I got a job with College Station, I did take some classes at Blinn for several years, till my kids got old-, older and started playing sports and stuff, so that kinda got in the way of night classes, dealing with the chil, my children and their sports activities, ‘cause I couched my son in, little league baseball. So that like I said took up a lot of time so. Pretty much like I said high school education with some college. (BL): How many grandchildren do you have? 02:18: (TM): Two, two grandchildren. One, one granddaugh, son that’s seven months old, and a granddaughter that’s currently in the terrible threes. They say terrible twos, but its terrible threes. For her mommy and daddy, she's great with the grandparents (chuckles). 2 (BL): (laughing) So, we'll transition to your time then in College Station, and you mentioned starting, or moving here in 1980. How did you end up working for the City? 02:46: (TM) Well like I said, I was, my wife we've been married for thirty, will be thirty seven years this year, and pretty much we've dated since, I was a freshman in high school. She was a year older than me, basically eighteen months older than me, but she was a year older than me. So after she graduated she did her two years at, Blinn, and then she was coming to A&M, so it was like "Okay, so what are we going to do?" I had to find a job, we decided to get married in 1980. And I just came up here several times looking for a job. I pretty much worked my whole life, I actually started working at the age of nine, bussing tables at a restaurant. And then, while I was in high school I actually I worked on a dairy milking cows. So even after I graduated I worked about a year there and once we decided to get married, it was like "Okay you gotta have a job if you're gonna get married. You’re gonna be living in Bryan College Station." So we kinda figured, we bought us a mobile home. That we worked on and fixed up. And so I came up to Bryan College Station looking for a job. Made a couple of trips. And the job to have back in 1980 was supposed to be working for G.T.E. which was a phone company back then, today its, went from Verizon to Frontier. But, went into the G.T.E. building and they were not hiring anybody because of a strike, and you know to be able to work for G.T.E. they wanted you to be able to climb poles, so I was thinking the next best thing to be able to learn how to climb poles was to work in the electric business, so I walked into city hall one day. Filled out an application and the person that was in the HR office said "Hey, let me call the electric super intendent." He called him, he come down, we sat in an office kinda like this, and he asked me some questions, and I’ll never forget he goes “Country boy, I like that.” ‘Cause I told him what I was doin’, you know you’re milking cows you getting up at 4:30 in the morning on a Friday, Saturday while you’re going to school. So evidently he thought I would, do okay. So basically he hired me on the spot. But then I had to tell him my conditions. You know I was eighteen years old and I had a mobile home that I needed to move up here so me and my wife had some place to live. And as soon as I could find a spot to put that, you know I told him I would be up here ready to work. And he said “Okay, you let me know when you can come.” I mean like I said didn’t know the man other than at that interview. So, and I told him where we were looking for a mobile home spot because even at that time the, the town wasn’t as big as it is today. But like everything else, you know the students, that had mobile homes took up all the spaces in town for the few they had for mobile homes. And they were adding on to a property out on Highway 60 gonna put some lots in, but I told him it wasn’t gonna be til’ May they had one ready. So he pretty much still told me “Hey, whenever you get it, give me a call, you’ve got a job.” So that went on I was hired in, early January. So you know I’m sitting here still milking cows, one day my phone rings at home. I answered. And he, eh, he, the superintendent of the place, his name was Joe Gidry, he said “Boy, you still looking for a place for that house?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he goes “I’ve got you one.” I was like “Okay.” So he told me where it was. We came down here on a Monday, we came down here, we looked at the spot, and it was the best mobile home park in town. Right across from where I was gonna work. And, so we set it up. We moved the house down here on a Friday, on Good Friday actually. 1980. And I went to work on that same Monday. He told me “When you get the house there gimmie a call, I’ll come turn the electricity on.” So Sunday I called and said “Hey, we’re set up.” He came over there, turned the electricity on, and got me set 3 up, and like I said I was at work Monday. I mean, that, that’s kind of a story there, ya know the man didn’t know me, but he, he, he basically helped me out a whole lot. And, as I got to, you know, work for the man for a while and got to learn the business, and understand, I’ve learned how the man got me a mobile home spot. Because the gentleman that owned the mobile home park was a big developer in town, he was the developer of Emerald Forrest, and he owned that park. Because we did a lot of work in Emerald Forrest and I figured it out after a while, I said “He had to ask for a favor from the man,” but the city did a lot of work for the gentleman. Got taken care of his subdivision as he was developing it, getting the power turned on, so he must of asked him that I need a spot for somebody that’s looking for one, because when I went there they said they were booked. You could put your name on a list, but you know I was gonna be way down the list. So you know I kinda took that as hey that’s a pretty neat deal. This man, pretty much got a favor for me. So, you know like I said it was, that was the interesting part, you know, him getting me that space, and we’ve tayed in, stayed in touch pretty much until the gentleman passed away--just last year, so. That was kinda the, that’s how my career started here. And like I said me and my wife was going to school, she had two more years left, it was gon, it was pretty much about a two year plan. But, after she graduated my job just seemed to stay getting better and better. You weren’t gonna get rich working for the city but you knew you had a good job with good benefits. So we just stayed and decided “Hey, this place is not, wasn’t a bad place.” You know she was able to find a job, I had a good job, seemed to be given, been given a lot of opportunities over the years. And it has, it has just kinda worked out. Worked out really well for us. So. (BL) Thanks. Can you describe your current position, and responsibilities? So, essentially, take us through a day in your life as, in your position 08:32 (TM): Well, it, as Assistant Director, I mean it’s, daily is basically dealing with situations around the office these days. I mean, really my job here has been, I’ve had a lot of opportunities, like I said the city when we started was a, a small system. You know I think like, we had in 1980, we had nine thousand customers here in 19, 2017 we’re over forty thousand, so I’ve been involved in a lot of the city, the system building, building out. And like I said I don’t know how they saw that in me but they gave me the opportunities to be a part of that from early on in my career. So, my mean, as, as I came up through the system I be-, I was a lineman. I didn’t know anything about electricity, just like you today, walk in hit the switch, lights come on. So they taught me a lot and, they let me do a lot. Being a lineman, like I said I started on the ground. ‘Cause that’s kind of how I worked my way to where I am today. I was a lineman. Then, let’s see, as time went on they would take me to meetings on, new development. And when we got tree trimmers in town they let me run the tree trimming crews. Still while I was being a lineman and building lines and training people as I got to know more about the business. So I got a lot of opportunities. And then as it went on I went from just being a lineman to being what, a supervisor over some of our guys, and then be-, being what they call the operations coordinator for several years, and then I became electric superintendent, and then became assistant director. And pretty much during that whole time I, I did a lot of the same things. Still went on trouble calls, you know, as long as they let me I was out there. At one time they when they put you on salary that’s when it kind of changed a little bit, but still when the guys called after hours I was out 4 there to help them. And that’s probably the thing, part of the job that was probably had the most adrenaline rush was it when the power was out, you dro-, you know, you dropped stuff and you went. Back, you know in those days, the customer was very important, get their power back on, they expected their lights to be on. I mean there were times, I kinda liked being on call sometimes during the holidays ‘cause the family had to come here versus you having to go back home. They would come see us, but hey there were times in you know you’re sitting at lunch, sitting at the table eating supper, phone rings, power’s out, and you leave supper and go get the other folks power back on, and that you know, that was kind of, because they appreciated it. And, but, you, like I said that’s the thing that I enjoyed a lot was working out in the field and getting the power back on when we had trouble ‘cause, thunderstorms and stuff. People kinda think we were silly working out in the rain and lightning, but it was part of our job. Part of the way we worked. Its changed a lot, I don’t know if people just got smarter or, we just had, we had a different work atmosphere. Safety has come into it, not that we weren’t safe back in my day, it’s just a different atmosphere of safety today. We worked as safe as the industry promoted back in then, today they promote it even more. So, like I said, in a days’ worth of work is dealing with anything from power outages to dealing with a new customer on how we’re gonna get service to em’, to looking at how our system can handle it, where do we need to build new lines, where do we need to have sub stations. I mean a whole gambit of things. Dealing with a customer issue, dealing with employee issues it, it can be changed, it can change from hour to hour. Is pretty much the way this job works. And I think that’s the thing that has kept it the most interesting, aint no two days the same. Every day is different. And, I thinks that’s what kept it interesting for me over the years, its, it’s always different. So. (BL): What changes occurred during your tenure with the city? 12:38: (TM): Well like I said we’ve grown a lot. You know from having under ten thousand customers to having over forty thousand customers, the amount of, of the, the way the system has grown. Like I said in 1980 we were just a little bit on this side of Deacon. Deacon existed a little bit, not the, what you see today, but not much of the system went past that. So you know, the system growth. One thing I guess I’d probably said my whole career here, how can they keep building student housing. It has never stopped. And that’s in the thirty-seven plus years I’ve been here, student housing they have built it since the day I started in this, just amazing. [Chuckles]. I guess some of the places that I hooked up as a lineman they done tore down, and rebuilt. [Laughs]. In my, in my career so that’s, that’s probably the biggest thing is student housing is something else. So. (SC): You, you mentioned safety, would you mind kind of talking about that a little bit? The changes in safety. (13:44): (TM): Well back when, uh, in the eighties, well probably eighties until the early nineties basically, you know our sa, we had safety programs. We had, TEEKS come in and they did a monthly safety program. I mean as a lineman you, you’re up in a bucket working on energized conductors you get a little bit of a big head. You know you can go do stuff that nobody else wants to do and then when you tell ‘em what you do they’ll tell you “man you’re crazy.” But you know, we had the proper safety gear to work on it what the city provided us. And, you, you had a monthly safety meeting and to me it brought me back 5 down to earth. You know you come in, they talk about accidents happened in our industry, and you know bad accidents. People get killed, they don’t get some, a lot of times you don’t get a second chance. If you get electrocuted its either gonna kill you, you, if you don’t die from it, you’re lucky. You may lose an arm or something because I’ve you know had some friends that have been electrocuted that’ll, none in my career here, we have never had an electric contact. That’s one thing I can say, we’ve had some people injured with different jobs, but nobody’s ever had electric contact. And, you know but we’ve had folks that have left our organization, went into the contract business or somewheres else that actually had electric contacts that you know we talked to and visited after that. But in College Station we’ve been pretty fortunate. But the s-, industry has looked at these accidents over the years and looked at how they can make it better for them, lineman. I mean we went to work in whatever we showed up and work in. Today they come to work they’ve got FR clothing, they’ve got sleeves they have to wear rubber sleeves. We’ve always had rubber gloves ‘cause that’s your protection between being able to do, to do all the work and protection and you had fiber glass sticks. But today they put ‘em in clothing, it’s a hundred degrees out there you’ve got to change the way you work. Because the clothing doesn’t, doesn’t breathe as well, they’re getting better at it, but it’s an FR clothing. So if you have a flash burn, a fl-flash, the clothes don’t melt to your body. Cause that’s what they saw in a lot of the accidents over the years, people were wearing polyester clothes, and when you get a big, I mean you’re talking thousands of degrees when you have a flash and it just melts to your body. So the industry has really looked at the accidents that have happened and it’s been tough on the guys that have come through that have been in the business a long time havin’ to adapt to it. The new folks its second nature. Climbing poles you could go up there you could climb free handed. Today they can’t climb free hand they have to use another safety, what they call fall restraint. So they don’t fall down poles. But those guys that start with that fall restraint, they’re better climbers than we ever were. Even though, you know, we could climb fast, they can even climb faster because they have, their training. The people that have been in the business don’t want nothing to do with fall restraint, but the industry’s sayin’ “Hey this is the way it’s got to be.” You know so the industry is looking out for the, and a lot of it is brought on by the people that have been hurt. You know saying, “Hey if we would have had this or we would’ve done it this a-way.” So it’s an ever changing, its everyday safety’s the, the number one thing. But like I said even College Station over the years, we’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to work as long as we have without any fatality accidents, we’ve never lost anybody here. And there’s a lot of organizations do. So, but safety is a big deal, big thing in this business. And the, the people that started it, the new guys its common, the old guys you have to kinda keep grinding it in. And I’m kinda one of them old guys too that I kinda have to remind myself of it from time to time. So. (BL): How would you describe the relationship between College Station and Bryan’s utilities? (17:33): (TM): It’s, right now, it’s probably the best it’s ever been between the two utilities. I know several people over there, they call me all the time. ‘Cause our service territory’s overlap, well they don’t overlap. We have a set area that we can serve. Bryan, Texas utilities has a se-, area they can serve and today they actually serve customers in our city limits because I, we could only get so big based on our service territory. So they’re 6 calling me all the time, kind of “Hey, where’s the city limit line,” or “what’s your re-what do you remember about it?” So really it’s a good working relationship. They’ve got like I said a lot of good people that communicate with us. Yeah there’s has been some times over the years it was rocky. Most of city I think, like anything it comes in waves. They’ll be a five year span where it was rocky, a five year span where it’s good, and it just got like I said, comes in waves like anything else. But even in those years when it was kinda rocky between the cities on the, in my position the folks I had to work with over there we always really got along so. You know, its, I guess it’s kinda like brothers sometimes you’re gonna have your good days and your bad days and between the cities it’s kinda the same way. So. (BL): How would you describe the relationship between College Station and Texas A&M University? (18:51): (TM): On the electric side it’s been, its, we deal with the electric part a little bit, but they’re their own utility when it comes to electric so they’ve always taken care of anything that’s on campus property. We’ve always taken care, care of everything that’s outside the campus. So basically, there’s not a whole lot of interaction other than sometimes we talk about some projects. The biggest thing we’ve done with ‘em over the years is build a substation right inside their substation. So that’s, in the early years there were very little communication between us and them, but probably the last five years we’ve, probably more than ever. But we’ve never had any kind of real, rocky relationship with them. But now it’s just they do their thing we do our thing but, they have their area to cover just like we have ours, so. It’s really two different utilities just like Bryan, College Station’s two different utilities. And we all do our things our way. It’s the same thing, its electricity, but it’s amazing how the different utilities you get the same end result, but how we go about getting it different. (Chuckles). (BL): Can you expand on? Do you know the differences? (20:04): (TM): Between? (BL): Between College, how College Station works and maybe Bryan or Texas A&M? (20:10): (TM): A lot of it just has to do how you provide it to, what the customers have to do for you. In other words, if somebody wants electricity this is the process they go through in College Station to get it. Bryan has a little bit different process than College Station. A&M I really don’t know what their process is. But even throughout the state the different systems, everybody, they’re all getting the same results, they’re getting power on for the customers, but we all kind of have a little bit different policies on how it, what the customer has to do for the utility. And it’s just, it’s different, but that’s just the way it is, and everybody builds their system similar, but they build it their way. I mean we have standards to go by but everybody kinda puts their own little touches on it, over the years, so. (BL): So we’ve talked some already about growth in the city, as, as you’ve already said even since 1980 and since I’ve been here in College Station. Do you have any other, or can you think of other challenges the city encountered during your tenure? 7 (21:19) (TM): Probably the biggest cha, one of the changes that ha-, that’s come about since I’ve been here. I guess about 7-8 years ago, the electric utility business was basically do what you need to do to keep the power on and we weren’t really regulated by anybody. Okay? Back in early 2000s it was big power outage up in the northeast and then the federal government started looking at “Okay, what’s going on here? Why did we have a big blackout up in the northeast?” And, what, and then basically they started looking at what we needed to do to make sure the lights stayed on. So, they brought in a lot of compliance issues that we have to follow, mainly on the transmission side of the business. But still it’s pre-, that’s kinda been a change that when we didn’t have to follow rules we just had to keep the power on, today there’s lots of things we have to do. We’re audited on these rules and if we don’t, if we’re not doing everything properly they will fine you. And we have been fined, for some of the things that they felt like we weren’t doing properly. But, that’s, that’s something that has really changed the industry, is like I said we have to worry about compliance issues that we didn’t have to worry about for thirty years. In my career and now, you know, is something we got to think about every day, to make sure we’re in compliance with what the federal government wants us to do. So, and about every, I think it’s every three years they come in and they’ll do an audit or they can bring one up. That’s kinda, like I said, that’s made the business a little more tricky. Like I said that’s why you gotta have a badge to get in here, because they wanna make sure that we know who’s coming and going, and all that. But, it, its, that’s kinda probably been a industry change the biggest. The rest of the stuff, we, ya know, it just happens and things change but the industry change has been with compliance issues that have taken place. And we, we’ve had lots of folks retire in these seven years that just didn’t want to deal with the compliance. They decided, you know, we had our system operators that operate our s-, transmission system had to, pass tests. And the ones that were being, that were our dispatchers slash operators didn’t wanna do that, so bunch of them just left. Retired. The people running it retired, the person that ran our substation area, he retired. He did, he put up with one year of the compliance stuff and one audit and he just decided it wasn’t something he wanted to do, anymore. So, it was, it’s been a challenge filling the positions and stuff too, over the years, so. (23:56): (BL): What about, did you have something? (23:59): (TM): Well I was gonna say you, you know, one thing about, the, College Station, you know I, I, where. Its, in the state of Texas there’s only 72 electric utilities that are municipally owned. You know there’s a lot of cities in Texas, but only 72, in the, in the United States there’s only two, a little over two thousand municipally owned utilities. So it’s kind of a special, special uh for a city to own an electric utility. And, even for College Station I mean, we’re forty thousand meters, we’re pro, we’re in the top ten size for Texas. You know the largest is a couple million with the ci, city public services, which is San Antone, and then here we’re in there about number ten. And then you have smaller ones that don’t have but about five hundred customers, so it kinda ranges, it same way, that same way in the United States, so. It’s a special deal for a city to own a electric utility. And it’s kinda different because, you know like I said, not a lot of people know much about the electric system on the city side, so, we’ve been, you know I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to get a lot, be able to do a lot on the electric side, and work with the city on it so. 8 That’s just kind of a tid bit of information of, you know, it, it’s special to be part of a municipally owned utility. So. (BL): Can you talk about the differences of, of having a city owned electric system? (25:29): (TM): Well, as far as the difference between the city owned system, and a munic, and a uh, investor owned system is the city owned system is not for profit, everything that comes into the city, e-, electric system is put back into the system. And you know the city gets to use, you know, we pay to the city some money so they get to benefit from it. When you’re an investor owned everything is about the investors making money. You know so we’ve, we built a very good system. I guess I had a gentleman that I worked for back in early, in ‘95 they came in here, he was a first, outside guy that came in from an investor owned utility to work here. And he told me, one day he said “If I had of built a system like you built here they would have run me off from where I came from.” I mean we just had the opportunity to build a good system, so. That, that was one thing I remember from him (chuckles). (BL): Do you know of other companies that wanted to start in College Station but were turned away because? (26:32) (TM): No, the city actually started, what it said 1939 when the city incorporated, that’s when the city started the electric system, some kinda way they got it, they bought it off the rule sign of things. But, there’s there’s a few cities in the United States that can start electric system, but it’s pretty hard today. It’s pretty hard, it’s a money making business. (laughs) (BL): So we talked about challenges, what about accomplishments? Either you or the city? (27:06): (TM): Accomplishments…well let’s see. Well like I said, building the system from fifty miles of line that we had in 1990 to almost five hundred miles today is, and like I said, I had my hand, I got an opportunity to be a part of, a big part of that. You know, to be able to say that hey “put in over three hundred miles” that I’ve been able to say this is where lines need to go, and this is what we need to, to serve customers. For me that, you know, I guess I never dreamed I’d have that kind of opportunity to do stuff like that but, that’s for me. As far as the city, you know we’ve got, I don’t know how to say it more than you know we’ve got a very good electric system. Today we’ve hired some more folks that are come from the investor owned side of things, and they’re just at amazed at how well our system holds up during thunderstorms. Now during the nice, clear day sometimes not so good for some reason. But I think power outages come like everything else, they come in waves. And they seem to just cause us issues for a certain amount of time, and then they disappear for a while. It’s kinda like everything else, things seem to come in waves. And it does for us in the business too. And people get a little aggravated with us, but then it goes away for a while. (laughs) So. (BL): What is your favorite part of working for the city? (28:27): (TM): My favorite part over the years is probably been, I mean the people have been great. You’re always gonna have, employee issues, but like I said, I’ve worked with a lot of different, I can’t even remember the names of a lot of folks I’ve worked with over the 9 years. I think a lot of em’ left because they knew Tony wasn’t leaving anytime soon. It seemed like I was always, I’ve, I was always here and there was people coming up and I was, well if he don’t leave I can’t be here. You know, they wanted to be able to get my spot. And, it wasn’t open. (laughs) But, you know, I think just building the electric system. Building electric system, taking care of trouble calls. ‘Cause like I said there was many a time I got up from the dinner table and my family was, you know they knew that was part of what I had to do. So they were okay with it. I mean even during holidays, you just, “Okay I gotta go to work.” I may not have been on call, but the phone rang, they needed some help. Or they needed to know how we’re gonna handle something, they would call and I would go. And I guess that’s what’s been good probably the last, that was always something as I was getting, been in the business longer and longer. We’ve struggled with hiring people with knowledge. And it, it was like anything else, it was a pay issue. This industry’s changing. There’s a lot a gray, white haired, people in this business. And, there’s not a lot a people coming up in the business. I mean we have a tough time hiring folks. And pay is always one of those issues that, is, is becoming a big deal in the electric industry. Eh, these gentlemen today, a lineman can make err, I mean I made a good living, but they can make an excellent living. That, that’s, the industry salaries have just gone out of this world. But it has helped us to be able to bring in some folks that have outside knowledge, because for thirty years it was the knowledge of what I brought to the place. The few, the different department directors I worked for over the years brought to the place. And my knowledge was College Station, so there wasn’t a lot of outside knowledge. Well, in the last five years we’ve brought some folks from outside from different utilities that have brought it new ideas. So, and you know, and I’ve told em “Hey, if.” How’d I put it? I said “If you’re gonna hurt my feelings bringing in an idea er, or something I’d of been gone a long time ago.” Because that’s one thing working for a city, you’ve got to be able to change. But I, I, I guess, like I was tellin ya, I wrote down kind of okay, as I’ve started here, I could think of nine city managers that have come through the place. And when a city manager comes you, you think too “Okay, what are they gonna do with the electric system?” Well, pretty much what I can tell you is they said you, they, they didn’t know much about it so it was hands off. And, evidently, we were doing a good enough job, so we never really heard a whole lot from ‘em, other than when they called “Hey, we need to take care of this,” or “Take care of that” and we did it. Directors that I’ve worked for are people that were my bosses over the years I wrote down here, I think I got, six of ‘em that I worked for. And, it’s the same way as they came in they would look at the organization and I would wonder too, what are they gonna want me to do different? Well they let me do what I was doing, they told me what they wanted a little different and, like I said the one gentleman, told, like I told y’all, he told me if “I would have built a system like you built here I’d been let go a long time ago at the Gulf States,” and he was surprised he could lay in bed when the lightening came through town, that he didn’t have to go out and work. Then we hired another gentleman that he always told me the same thing, he said “I don’t know how you’re doing it, but my phone don’t ring.” Where he came from, he said his phone rang all the time. “When am I gonna get my power for this, when am I gonna get this.” He said “I don’t know what you do, but I do-, my phone don’t ring, so whatever you’re doing keep doing it.” So that’s kind of the way it’s been. And then you know, over the years it got to the point as the system was getting bigger, with one of the directors I actually told him too I said, “We need some help.” You know, I make a lot of decisions, and I said “It’s time to get some help in here,” and that’s when we brought in 10 another assistant. Well I was just a superintendent, and he brought in an assistant director who eventually took his place, and that assistant director, you know when he saw the changes coming when that gentleman retired, asked me “Hey, if I get the director spot would you be an assistant director for me?” And I was like, you know I’ve always kind of stayed at the un, I always kind of stayed, I was in the radar, but stayed under the radar because the, the big bosses are always the ones that gotta make all the, uh, talk to the city management when things aren’t going right so, I figured I’d just keep my neck under the radar there. But he asked me and I told him, “Sure,” ya know, “Hey, if you get it, I’ll be glad to be Assistant Director with you.” And uh, ‘cause you always worry having to deal with city managers when they come in. And I dealt with ‘em, but you know again, as a superintendent it wasn’t always as a director, so it, to me it always felt a little safer. But, then he came in and then we started having city managers come in. And, after Timothy got the Director job, they hired Frank Simpson as a ass-, assistant city manager and that’s when I knew, hey this isn’t gonna be bad ‘cause I knew Frank. He worked here in the late eighties, early nineties. He worked here in our building. And I worked with Frank on different projects off and on, and he told me when he left early in ‘93, he said “I’m gonna be coming back one day.” (laughs) And sure enough he came back so hey being assistant director wasn’t gonna be bad, I knew the city manager. You know. I had some co-, I knew he was gonna be, I knew what he was gonna be like a little bit. And then, you know we had the tragic, Frank passed away, and it was a little bit of scary situation again, now who am I gonna have to deal with as an assistant director with a city manager. And then when Kelly showed up, it was like, how can I be so lucky? I worked with him in the early 2000s. (laughs). And sure enough when he walked in the door he stilled remembered who I was too. ‘Cause I went to meeting with Frank, with Kelly, when he was, in development services and sat in those meetings telling folks how they were going to get power to their buildings and what they needed to do for their electric system. So I, I don’t know, seems like things have always just kind of fallen in place, and been pretty fortunate. So. (BL): That’s great. What is your least favorite part of working for the City? (35:01): (TM): I can’t say, really I just can’t say I’ve ever had a least favorite part. There was probably, one time working for one of the folks that was here, ya know, yeah it was a little aggravating and stuff, and I thought about some different things, and you know, but its, it’s always worked out, you know, I’ve, I’ve, like I said you can’t change working for a city. ‘Cause again you’re gonna run through different bosses, different city managers, and I guess I’ve heard this thing called, this term “change management.” And I’ve, you know they were talking about change management, it’s like, I’ve been changing my whole life. (laughs) Yeah, you wanna tell me change management, yeah it may be a term, but in a municipal environment you’ve gotta learn to change ‘cause you’re gonna, every one of them’s gonna have a little thing that they’re gonna want you to do different and you’re gonna have a change for ‘em. And, like I said that’s, the, I can’t say there’s ever been anything that I’ve disliked about working here. It’s been, a fun ride. I mean fun and like I said, thirty-seven years now, it'll be almost thirty-eight in, when I retire. And it’s been a fast thirty-seven, thirty-eight years. Been a fast thirty-seven, thirty-eight years. And I mean the city has let me do a whole lot of stuff. Gosh, I, I guess I was one of those persons that couldn’t say no. I mean ‘cause if they had a city safety committee, they had a city planning committee for 11 banquets and it seemed like I was always tagged and asked “Hey will you be a part of this committee, will you be in this?” And I guess I just couldn’t say no. So I, I’ve been in a lot of different areas of the city. Even on employee discipline hearing with HR, it’s like they’d call and ask “Hey can you sit in on this?” It’s like “Okay.” (Laughs) (SC): Sounds like you’ve made a good impression over the years though. (36:42) (TM): It’s been a lot of different folks that have come through the city. Lot of different folks. So. (BL): So going along with that, saying you were on these committees, what other service or, service opportunities have you done? (37:05): (TM): Well see I guess that’s part of what the city let us do. Texas Engineering Extension Service had uh, they did our safety training, and they had annual schools where they brought, you know, lines, other utilities paid to have their folks come in and be trained. And from 1988 to 1998 I was able to go out there one week every year and help train in what we call the “nut school.” And it was called the National Underground Training School. They had an overhead school and an underground school and College Station had some underground, but in the early nineties, late eighties, pretty much council made the decision they wanted more underground. So we buried a lot of our system over the years, like I said, over sixty percent of our system’s underground. Which is a high amount for most utilities. There’s not too many of them that have the, that amount like we do, based on size. And they saw that so they asked if I would be a guest instructor and go out there and you know teach other folks from other utilities. And lot of it was other municipals and co-ops that would come out there, and like I said I got to do that for ten years. And, and basically after ten years I pretty much said “Hey, I’ve had the fun,” I was gonna give somebody else the opportunity to go, so we asked some other employees if they wanted to do it, and they went out there and did some of the training. And, again, that was, that was fun to go out there. ‘Cause you’re meet, you’re talking to people from other utilities. Learning the issues that they have and it’s always in, it’s always good to understand, you know, you’re not dealing, you’re all dealing with the same stuff. If it’s employee issues, or hiring issues, or whatever; we’re all dealing with the same issues. And then, back in about 2006, my boss took me to a conference, it was Texas Electric Power Conference. And, he took me he said “‘Cause you’re gonna get this next.” College Station has always been a part of this conference, it was called, Municipal Electric Job Training and Safety Conference, for about forty years. And then things have changed so they changed the name, but we’ve always been the treasury of it. That group. As long as it existed from what I could tell almost. So he took me to one of the meetings and said “I’m gonna give it up and you get to do it.” So. Since 2006 I’ve been a part, part of Texas Electric Power Conference helping put on a conference. We’ve been, in Bastrop, Granbury, New Braunfels, Austin. We put on an annual conference. Again it brings in people from the different utilities. Brings in vendors. And we’ve really have a big conference, and uh, like I said I’m the treasurer of that, and help put that on. And I guess, like I said, its been eleven years now. And even when I retire they’ve asked me “Are you gonna stay on and help us?” And I said “Yeah, I’ll give you a few years.” (Laughing) So. 12 (BL): So, that’s a good segway actually, to ask you some questions, after retirement. So how do you feel about leaving city work and starting retirement? (40:21) (TM): Oh. I did-. Me and my wife were talking about it the other night, and I think it’s a good time to leave. I told her ‘cause it’s, we’ve got the people here. I guess I’ve always kinda wondered about, okay, when is the time gonna be right ‘cause, they’ve always said, back in the eighties they said, “Thirty years you’ll be gone.” Well, things have changed since the eighties, interest rates went way too far down. [chuckle] For us to be able to build up retirement, so it’s taking a little longer now. But there is a certain point where the retirement with what the city offers is very good through the TMR system so it kinda helps you decide what’s good. But even for the organization we’ve got people in here that do the work. I’d say for the last, oh man, three and a half or so years, maybe even four years, I’m not the one getting called every day when the lights are out, there’s other people here that can help do that, and have stepped up to do it. And again that was some folks we brought in from the outside, but it took the city stepping up to the plate and making sure. And our current director played a big part in it, to tell, making sure the city understood for us to get the people we need to keep this place running, you’ve got to pay. So he’s worked that out for us, and that’s brought some good folks in. But I’m gonna miss it I can tell you that. It’s, it’s, it’s uh, it’s an everyday is a different day and an interesting day. It’ll be missed. I told my, like I said, it’ll be, see how long before I get bored and do something else. But, there’s stuff out there that will keep me in the business, maybe doing something a little different, but it’ll, it’ll probably always focus kind of around the electric utilities business whatever I do. If I decide to go back to work. I mean, because I always told folks I’m not leaving the place until, I can decide what I want to do. If I want to go ba-, back to work I can, if I don’t want to, I don’t have to. And, ‘cause there’s been folks that have retired, you know that they went to work for a different utility, but it was like no, I’m not gonna do that. I wanna make sure I’m set when I go. I can figure out what I wanna do. But it, it’ll be missed. Definitely will be missed. But, we’ve got a lot of folks that can make decisions now. That we didn’t’ have, like I said just three or four years ago. And they’re willing to make decisions. (laughs) (SC) Sounds like you’ll be missed as well. (42:41): (TM):Well, I think, well like I said “Hey, it’ll keep going” It’ll keep going, they’ll figure it out. And like I said they’re making their own decisions, so they’ll keep it going. So (SC): That’s great. (BL): So do you have any plans for after you retire? (42:47): (TM): Well, right now, like I said my plan is probably to move back to La Grange, and I guess it’s kinda like do I, it’s not that I don’t want to stay in College Station, it’s just we have, my wife has property there from her family. So it’s gonna be a nice place to live, we’ve been remodeling that house for the last eighteen months, me and my wife doing the work. So we’re s-, we’re down there every weekend doing something to the place. So that’ll be the first thing, once we get down there is getting the remodel finished and done the way we want it. And then, you know that’ll take a little while, but that’ll be the number one focus. Then probably making that monthly trip to see the grandkids ‘cause they’re up in the, way 13 north Dallas area, up in Prosper area, which is ‘bout, will be about four, four and a half hours away from where we’re at so. We try to make a monthly trip to see them. (BL): That’s nice. (43:37): (TM): So, and then, you know doing a little traveling here and there. So. We’ll st-, we’ll be busy for a little while, like I said, depends on when you get bored. What’s you wanna do, so. (BL): So is there anything else you would like to talk about? That we haven’t covered? (43:53): (TM): Let’s see, well I guess I, once I retire in January of this next year, I’ll actually be assistant director for five years, which hey, I never thought I’d be this high in the organization. But, I got a, like I said, I’ve got a thank, Timothy Graph for giving me that opportunity. But everybody I’ve ever worked for I’ve learned a lot from. So, I’ve got to say that. I’ve learned a lot from all of them. And, um, they’ve given me a lot of opportunity. So. (BL): Five years is quite a stint as assistant director. (Brief pause) (BL): Thank you for your time, and your contribution to Project Hold today, it was wonderful to listen to your stories and, and get this as part of the history of College Station. And also, we want to thank you for your dedication to the city, and we really appreciate the time you spent with us today. (45:00): (TM): Okay, thank you.