Chris Root Quotations

I think we have a PR issue, in that people do not think the utility industry has great significant technical challenges. College graduates look at us and see poles and wires, and don't realize there are things like automation, computer control and sophisticated asset management systems out there.

It was a difficult year for them because it was a sacrifice. The company paid 100% of their costs, gave them every third Friday off to go to school, but they had to agree to give up every third Saturday to attend classes as well. We felt like if we gave up Friday, they could give up Saturday.

By doing this, we created a tremendous increase in the amount of technical people in the company than we previously had. Our retention rate of those people has also been extremely good. We've only lost two of them. Although it cost about $10,000 per employee, it's been extremely successful.