For the first two weeks of May each year, Mesa Hotline School in Grand Junction trains lineworkers from electric co-ops and other electric utilities. This year, from April 30 to May 3 and from May 7 to 10, an estimated 700 lineworkers from throughout Colorado as well as from 15 other states gathered at the Western Slope training facility for both classroom instruction and hands-on experience in the yard.
Hotline School is a cooperative program established by electric co-ops, municipal utilities, Colorado’s investor-owned utilities, utility vendors and others to provide the training necessary for lineworkers to do their jobs. The Colorado Rural Electric Association’s safety and loss control department personnel participate as instructors.
Classroom training focuses on transformers, rigging techniques, troubleshooting problems with overhead and underground lines, accident investigation, job briefings, chainsaw safety, critical thinking and how to stay safe while working with electric lines. Outdoor training includes circuit reclosers, working with “hot” lines where electricity is present, transmission work, installations, locating faults, testing and more.