Jessie Holderman is KEC’s Field Engineering Manager and has worked for KEC for 10 years.
What made you interested in working for KEC?
I was at a point in my career where I was looking to change industries and heard from friends and family that the electric utility industry, specifically KEC, was a great organization in an interesting field. In fact, my mother worked at KEC for several years in the late 90s and only had good things to say about her time there. Fortunately for me, when an opportunity came along, things worked out and I got a chance to join the team!
Tell us about your educational background and previous work experience that led you to KEC.
I’ve lived in North Idaho my whole life and was in the second class to graduate from Timberlake High School in Spirit Lake. A few years after high school, I attended North Idaho College and then the University of Idaho where I received my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. For the next several years, I worked as a design engineer for a manufacturing company in Spokane. This brought me to my start at KEC.
What are you responsible for in your role?
I manage a team of 11 professionals who are responsible for developing electric distribution line designs for new homes, businesses and subdivisions. My team is also responsible for member line modifications, road moves, easements and the staking of system improvement projects needed to keep up with the continued growth that our planning engineers have forecasted. My role is to ensure these projects are designed in a timely manner and in accordance with our policies and standards to meet the needs of our members and developers.
If there is one thing you’d like the average member to know about KEC, what would it be?
How seriously we take our mission of providing exceptional member service. It’s something that comes up in discussions every day. While we can’t make everyone happy all the time, we do our best!
What does a day look like for you?
I find myself communicating with multiple departments daily. These can range from construction project kickoffs or progress meetings involving other departments to impromptu easement discussions with staff and/or members. When not in meetings, I am often working on process improvements that allow our team to be more efficient and better serve our members.
What is the biggest challenge in your job?
Right now, the biggest challenge is maintaining the right balance between service requests from members and system improvement projects. They are both incredibly important, and the workload for each can ebb and flow each year depending on the growth in the area. In fact, we are in the process of designing and staking almost twice the volume of system improvement projects over the next five years, which are necessary to provide our members dependable power. To keep up with this added volume of projects, we restructured our department to balance the workload and ensure a high level of member service.
What is the best part of your job?
I really like the variety that working at KEC presents me with. This comes in many forms. I appreciate the opportunity to work with different members and businesses in the community and to “wear many hats” in the various duties I’ve undertaken in my time here. No two days are alike, and there are always new challenges.
What’s your favorite thing about our area?
I love that we have four seasons and that there is always something fun to do in those seasons. From skiing in the winter to hiking and mountain biking in the summer, there’s no shortage of outdoor activities to fill my time.