New Politics, Old Dream

In 1972, Dave Barrett's New Democratic Party came to power, replacing W. A. C. Bennett's Social Credit government. Although ideologically far apart from its predecessor, the new government shared with it the vision of BC Hydro as the central tool of provincial development. And develop it did. Unprecedented growth followed-in the number of bus routes, in the expansion of generating capacity, in staffing levels, and in spending.

Gerry Bramhill remembers the concerns he had about the growth.

The new government saw nothing but growth. Hydro almost had a free hand to do whatever they wanted to do. No matter what corner of this province you went to, there was something going on in Hydro. If you weren't building, you were dismantling and replacing, or you were building up district crews. I couldn't believe the bulletins we used to have in those periods of time for more manpower in the headquarters. Everybody was building empires.

In early 1971, I came in to the union office to start up a dispatching system. In those days, IBEW local 258 was clearing over a thousand members a year out of the hall. The work was so fantastic at that time-and keep in mind, too, that our only employer back then was BC Hydro. Right through to 1984, BC Hydro was the only collective agreement and the only membership we had.

We had some very active times, over a thousand people coming in and out of the hall for short-term construction and hydro systems. I brought in about 400 linemen from the United States during that time. We worked with Employment and Immigration Canada to sort out visas, and we shuttled them all through our Seattle local unions.

In 1975, Gerry became assistant business manager and made his first visit to the Mica construction project as a union representative. The experience both excited and disturbed him.

I took that old highway from Revelstoke, half gravel and God knows what else, to Mica Creek. It was an eye-opener for me to see what could be developed out of a river basin. It was at the height of construction and there were something like 2,000 employees in there at that time, between the contractors and BC Hydro. There was an old hotel, and you could see dollar bills pasted on every inch of the wall, with names on them. The workers themselves were just hyped right up. There was so much to do. They worked hard, but they didn't really give a damn if that job lasted today or tomorrow, because they would just go somewhere else. The attitude was "Let's make the bucks and get out of here."

Boom times can be a negative thing in some ways. Hydro will tell you today that much of what they did during the 1970s could have been slowed down. The building of the 500-kV lines and all of those things could have been done over a longer period. They didn't need them at the time; we were overbuilding and people knew that. I don't know if it was politics or whether it was a spin-off of the Bennett dream of the Columbia River, but there was no stopping it.

Faced with a shortage of qualified linemen, Hydro started a dayschool in late 1974 at the company's Gilmour Street training centre in Burnaby, complete with practice power poles and lines. Instructors for the school were Hydro journeymen linemen from districts around the province. Only half the students came from Hydro-the rest were from other industries that needed linemen, such as mines, mills, municipalities, and construction.

The early 1970s saw a recommitment by Hydro to building up its own construction forces to be able to take on any kind of project (other than dam construction, which was done by contractors). Ross Fitzgerald moved to the construction division from district management at that time and recalls with pride the quality of work the in-house crews produced. "We often did the work cheaper than the contractors-I think we became good, innovative construction managers."

Wally Lyle heartily agrees. He was the manager of BC Hydro's construction forces during this period and remembers it as a time when good teamwork produced excellent results.

The new management at Hydro really gave us a green light to do the work in-house-and to do it right. I was able to hire new supervisors and new engineers to work on transmission, distribution, and substations, and civil-mechanical jobs. This was the time where we did lots of 500-kV work. We forged ahead and created new systems for costing and computer costing. We pioneered new equipment for 500 kV-remember, this was all new work which needed special equipment. We increased our fleet. I don't think we really slowed down until the economic downturn in the early 1980s. We built the system, maybe overbuilt it.

There was a lot of brainpower behind the 500-kV system, not just the research behind it all but for applying the research and making it work. People like Reg Radelet, Bill Rea, Hoss Short, Don May, and Fred Bergman, who had good ideas for new equipment and techniques, which we then built in our shops and managed to create by purchasing the right tools. We used helicopters in '60s. But it was in the '70s that we did the real pioneering work with helicopters, to build those huge lines. Again, we developed special tools and techniques. We did things that a lot of people didn't think were possible and those helicopter pilots were damned brave and were willing to try things, like stringing five miles of pea line. We had the big Sikorsky helicopters that could lift an entire tower and bring it into place. The crew on the ground would be there already. Everything was pre-measured by instrument; they built a foundation, and down came those towers. We put those things up in unbelievable terrain. And the good thing about using helicopters is that we didn't have to build roads, which was better for the environment.

What this all involved was teamwork between management, purchasing, labour and the unions, and the supervisors and superintendents. Everyone. We really couldn't have done it without the great tradespeople IBEW 258 sent up to us. We were busy all around the province-still moving diesels up North, doing new underwater cable work, building new substations with low profiles, and doing some excellent exploration and drilling. The beauty of being able to work in-house is that the guy who builds a tower or a substation can walk down the hall and talk to the guy who designed it. It is pretty efficient.

When I think about it now, they haven't done 500-kV work for a long time. If there is a big storm that brings some of those towers down, I wonder where they'll get the expertise and equipment to respond?

Reg Wesley, who was with Hydro from 1966 to 1995, is a member of the Haida First Nation from the village of Skidegate. He was doing labouring jobs for Hydro when he wasn't working as a commercial fisherman. All the expansion gave him and other workers a chance to improve their skills and to advance. One of his early promotions came while he was working on the transmission line between Prince Rupert, Terrace, and Kitimat in 1966. His decision to upgrade would come in handy during the 1970s.

Bill Risk, who was the construction superintendent, came up and said, "Reg, we need a powderman." I said, "I don't know anything about being a powderman," but he said, "Well, we have a guy here that can teach you, Mike Cupto. He can teach you for a couple of weeks. I know Barry Payton in Vancouver, who is the inspector, and I'll set up the test. And we'll pay your ticket down."

I worked with Mike for a couple of weeks, went to Vancouver, passed the test, got my blasting ticket, and worked for several years doing blasting and supervising the general trades crews around Rupert, Kitimat, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, and Shearwater-all over that area. We'd fly in to most places. I'd take my powder in one plane and someone else would fly with the caps. We'd stay in a trailer and work whenever there was daylight for, say, two weeks at a time. A contractor would come in and do the grading.

Later on, Dennis Cross and Les Jensen encouraged me to go into line supervision. I had relieved a few times, but finally they said to apply for a supervisor's job. I didn't have Grade 12, but they said if I got it I'd have a job. I had gone to school in Port Alberni when I was 13 years old-they sent me to the residential school there, and I was short some credits for graduation. So, fine and dandy, I went back to school and I was 38 when I finished Grade 12. In fact, I graduated with a bunch of kids who had worked for my wife while she was in the catering business.

Well, then I applied for a job opening as a line supervisor in Dawson Creek. My wife and I went to Dawson Creek to look at housing. It was 40 below Fahrenheit when we got there, and she asked me what in the hell we were doing there. But when we woke up in the morning it was 10 above. We stayed for a week, found some housing, and I stayed there for three years.