City officials in Wall Lake are looking towards the future and investing in an electrical lineman training program developed by the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities (IMU). Current city employee, Chris Lawler was hired about a year ago as a licensed electrician and will be provided with on the job training which City Clerk Chris Rodman says is a pretty robust program.
The city will invest $4,000 to $5,000 in Lawler’s training. Rodman says it is money well spent especially considering the amount of time Lawler and current city lineman Myron Olerich will invest in the next seven to ten years as they work to upgrade the entire city’s electrical system. Lawler is on track to become the city’s all-around handyman as fellow workers retire, says Rodman, and this will give Lawler an advantage performing future maintenance on the system.
With Olerich and Lawler scheduled to perform as much of the electrical upgrade work as they can the city estimates the entire project will cost around $1.5 million. Rodman adds that if the city had elected to hire outside crews to perform the work it would have cost twice as much at around $2 to $3 million. Phase one of the citywide electrical upgrade is expected to wrap up sometime in mid-2017 if not sooner.
