The Line Life Podcast

The International Lineman's Rodeo Week is having its biggest year yet for 2025, with more exhibitors and competitors in its largest show to date. About 225 exhibitors and 5,000 people are at the event this year. This year includes interviews with Sam Posa, exhibit and sponsorship sales manager for the International Lineman's Rodeo, and Zackery Gough, who recently topped out as a journeyman at Pedernales Electric Cooperative but won...

With the 2025 International Lineman's Rodeo Week just around the corner, we are featuring the article, "Lineman's Rodeos: A Tradition Unlike Any Other," in our ICYMI series for the Line Life Podcast. 

This article honors Duke Energy's lineworkers, who will be returning to compete at the 2025 International Lineman's Rodeo after spending the 2024 Rodeo Week on storm response following Hurricanes Helene and Milton. 

On the road to the...

At the 2024 International Lineman's Expo, I had the honor of meeting many incredible lineworkers, including Shannon Skinner, foreman for NV Energy and the president of IBEW Local 396. Her step-father, two uncles and cousins worked in the line trade, and she became the first female lineworker west of the Mississippi in 1984. 

When she first started working out in the field, she remembers hot sticking in a tank top and wearing men's ...

Every June, T&D World publishes the annual Vegetation Management supplement in partnership with the Utility Arborist Association (UAA). One of these feature articles explores how Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is driving biodiversity through its ROW and utility corridor management program in Northern California. 

This article, authored by Dr. Anand B. Persad of Tetra Energy Sciences and Eric Brown of SMUD, is also...

More than 1,500 utility vegetation management professionals joined forces in Knoxville, Tennessee, this September for the 2025 Trees & Utilities event, presented by the Utility Arborist Association (UAA) and the Arbor Day Foundation. During this episode, Dennis Fallon, the executive director of the UAA, shares his thoughts on trends and best practices in UVM and describes the highlights of this year's event.

For more informatio...

T&D World publishes the annual Vegetation Management supplement in partnership with the Utility Arborist Association (UAA) each June. For the 2025 Trees & Utilities week in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, we are featuring the audio story, "Monitoring Pollinators in ROWs by Drone." 

This article explores research underway to leverage drone technology for responsible right-of-way vegetation management. It was written by Jill R...

The Light Up Navajo program, which is organized by the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) and the American Public Power Association (APPA), brings first-time electricity to homes on Navajo Nation. Lineworkers from across the country volunteer for one to two weeks each year to set poles and string lines as part of the humanitarian project. 

This episode features guest Benjamin Charley, a journeyman lineworker who has worked for ...

T&D Talk is a special series on the T&D World Line Life podcast channel. For each episode, companies can share their stories about how they are supporting the electric utility industry. Through their tools, technologies, products and services, they are helping lineworkers and fieldworkers improve their productivity and safety. The third part of our 2025 T&D Talk series, sponsored by Southwire, focuses on grid resiliency...

In the electric utility industry, vegetation management plays an integral role in reliability and resiliency. For this episode of the Line Life Podcast, we are featuring an interview with Dr. Anand Persad, the founder and director of research with Tetra Energy Sciences Research and Consulting.

I interviewed Dr. Persad at last year's Trees & Utilities conference in Fort Worth, Texas, to learn more about the challenges and opport...

Years ago, I first met Michael Stremel, who recently retired from a career in the line trade at Midwest Energy. He first started competing at the International Lineman's Rodeo as an apprentice back in 1988, and he has been involved in the event as both a competitor and a volunteer for the International Lineman's Rodeo Association (ILRA). ever since. He has about 49 years of experience in the electric utility industry and enjoys vol...

Line crews often encounter wildlife while working in the field and constructing and maintaining infrastructure in their service territories. For example, Cooperative Energy in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, discovered a threatened population of gopher tortoises in their rights-of-way (ROW). After applying herbicides and investing in an integrated vegetation management (IVM) program, the utility was able to dramatically increase the popu...

Line families have come to Kansas City for the International Lineman's Rodeo for years to support their lineworkers during the day of competition and enjoy the camaraderie of the line trade. 

At the 2024 International Lineman's Expo, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with one of the line wives -- Kara Pollei, the wife of Logan Pollei, an apprentice lineworker for Duke Energy. After working in the police force, Logan is n...

Our wildfire mitigation coverage continues with the narrated version of the story, "Hawaiian Electric Sets Three-Year Action Plan," from the May 2025 special report in T&D World's print magazine. This article, which is part of our ICYMI series for the Line Life Podcast, was written by Mark Asano, the director of integrated grid planning for Hawaiian Electric. 

During the episode, he shares details about the four pillars of the ...

Our guest for this episode is Chief Kevin Fischer, a member of the Delta Company for the U.S. Army 249th Engineer Battalion, a division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Fischer, who has 18 years of service, supervises lineworkers in the military.

During this episode, he describes the two different military occupation specialties (MOS) related to line work--the 12 Papa for generation and the 12 Quebec for distribution. He also d...

For this audio story in our ICYMI series for the T&D World Line Life Podcast, we are continuing our coverage of wildfire mitigation with the narrated version of the article, "A Strategic Approach to Wildfire Risk Mitigation." This story, which was written by Alireza Majzoobi and Zhenzhen Zang of Quanta Technologies and Daniel Haughton of LUMA Energy, was originally published in the May 2025 Wildfire Mitigation Special Report wi...

For our Fourth of July episode of the Line Life Podcast, we are celebrating those who dedicate their lives to service, not only in the line trade but also through the U.S. military. Our guest, SSG Christopher Garrett, discusses the opportunities available to lineworkers through the U.S. Army Reserve and active-duty in the 249th Engineer Battalion or Prime Power. 

He traveled from Fort Belvoir in Virginia to Kansas City for the Inte...

T&D World covers wildfire mitigation year-round, but each May, we devote a special section or supplement to this topic. This audio story in our ICYMI series examines how Portland General Electric (PGE) is adopting a holistic approach to mitigation, setting a model for preventing wildfires in the Northwest. 

To read the full story, which was authored by Ben Felton, executive vice president and chief operating officer of PGE and ...

T&D Talk is a special series on the T&D World Line Life podcast channel. For each episode, companies can share their stories about how they are supporting the electric utility industry. Through their tools, technologies, products and services, they are helping lineworkers and fieldworkers improve their productivity and safety.

For Part 2 of a three-part series sponsored by Southwire, we are featuring the episode, "Novel Inn...

Alman Kerste, a father of three kids, grew up in California and worked for Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) before relocating to the Kansas City area, where he now works for Evergy. He has spent nearly two decades in the line trade, most recently as an evening troubleman and a journeyman lineworker for a C&M crew in a district.

During this Line Life Podcast interview, he talks about responding to outages caused by t...