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April 1999
On March 31, BPA certified that it was Y2K ready. The agency had tested and fixed more than 700 computer systems and met the target date set for federal agencies.
Since BPA began its Y2K readiness project in 1995, more than 120 people have worked to check, test, fix or replace parts of hundreds of computer-based systems. “The Y2K team really gets credit for this,” said Randy Perrin. Perrin is the Y2K program leader for Chief Information Officer Joe O’Rourke. “This was an example of what a really good, diverse team can accomplish,” Perrin said.
The team has project managers and alternates from the business lines and major work groups. It includes Ron Rodewald, Deidre Meaney, Barry Hirsch, Brian Furumasu, Kevin Dorning, Tom DeKleyen, Ed Chittester and Arlena Barnes.
On April 2, BPA gave a Y2K demonstration for the news media at Keeler Substation near Hills-boro. Transmission moved system clocks forward to late night Dec. 31. The clocks rolled over to the year 2000 and the systems worked without a hitch.
Now that BPA has passed this milestone, what’s next for Y2K this year? Perrin said, “The work doesn’t stop just because we met this goal. We still have a lot to do to stay Y2K ready.”
So, through the rest of 1999, BPA will be working in three areas. It will continue to check the processes BPA used for the tests to validate them. It will continue work on contingency plans for backup. And it will test new equipment and software that BPA adds this year.
BPA also plans some more system tests on key dates during the year. Of course, the final test will happen at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31. But from BPA’s work the past few years, the Northwest has reason to be confident about its energy supply on New Years Day, 2000.
(Editor’s Note: See other Y2K articles below).
TESTING FOR Y2K -- Electrical engineer Ken Ballou tests meters as part of BPA's effor tto be Y2K ready.
Winter storms continued to batter BPA’s eastern service area into April. An April 9 storm dropped 10 inches of snow in southeastern Idaho. Strong winds whipped the snow into drifts that made it tough going for BPA’s four-wheel drive vehicles.
While BPA didn’t lose any lines in the latest storm, several co-op customers had lines downed. BPA did lose a line in the same area on Feb. 17. Winds at 80 miles per hour took down a mile of power line west of Burley, Idaho. The wind snapped about two dozen poles along BPA’s 138-kilovolt line about 9:30 a.m.
Service to United Electric Co-op customers in the area was directly affected. The BPA poles also supported cross arms that carried United’s distribution lines to its customers.
BPA rerouted power over other lines and had time to repair its damage. But the local utility had to work to restore its service immediately. United built one-half mile of line on the opposite side of the road and restored service to its last customer by 9:30 p.m.
BPA’s Idaho Falls line crew worked to rebuild the transmission line. Some of the Redmond crew helped on the project and BPA had the line back in service in two weeks.
The April snowstorm was one of the worst late winter storms in recent memory, Idaho Falls manager Lynn Kerzman said. At least three BPA co-op customers lost lines, including United Electric, Riverside Electric and East End Electric.
BPA wants to change some of its personnel programs. Government rules now limit employee benefits, relocation incentives, hiring and other personnel programs. And federal rules often take a lot of red tape. So BPA’s Administrative Efficiencies Project (AEP) aims to get some flexibility for BPA to better compete in the labor market of the future.
The agency needs legislation to authorize some changes. Employees gave input this winter on the general principles BPA proposed to guide the effort. The Department of Energy now has draft legislation. It would give BPA authority to design a custom program with the bargaining units and with employee input. An AEP internal Web site has background, talking points and an E-mail comment line. Employees will find it at http://webip1/corporate/kcc/aep/aephome.htm. And BPA will hold two employee forums on AEP in May. Watch for updates on AEP in BPA This Week.
In the meantime, the Circuit is going to the field and different work groups to find examples where current rules and programs create roadblocks. Beginning with this issue, we’ll give real-time cases where work groups can gain by changes in personnel rules.
Gary Parks is regional manager for Transmission field services at Redmond. “I’ve had two vacant substation operator positions at Celilo since last fall,” he said. “We don’t have any candidates from within BPA and we haven’t been able to find anyone outside.”
Parks said he got feedback from some outside people. “They tell us that our incentives and benefits – especially health benefits – aren’t as attractive as elsewhere,” he said. “Under current government procedures, we can’t offer those people competitive benefits to draw them to BPA.”
Parks said, “To meet our workforce needs, we should be able to offer better benefits.” He said AEP could give BPA the flexibility it needs to keep a high quality workforce in the future.
Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson spoke at a meeting of the North American Reliability Council early this year. Y2K was the big topic at the meeting. Richard-son gave an update on progress in DOE and singled out BPA by name.
“I’m proud of the fact that our own Bonneville Power Administration – the backbone of the Pacific Northwest’s electric power system – is on target for completing Y2K testing by the end of March,” he said. “That’s a superb example of commitment to the objective and plain hard work.”
NARC sent the DOE chief a report on the in-dustry’s overall progress. It said that 98 percent of more than 3,000 electric groups are taking part in an industry-wide assessment. NARC said it doesn’t think anything bad will happen to the nation’s reliability. But some power groups are behind and won’t be fully ready by its June 30 target date.
Guiding their 1999 Ford Contour cars through puffs of black smoke coughed out by traffic around them, BPA employees are in the vanguard of the Pacific Northwest’s latest battle against pollution. Under the hoods of the new Fords purr engines that can run on either gasoline or compressed natural gas.
In the CNG mode, the cars are almost pollution-free. They emit virtually no carbon monoxide and little of the other noxious fumes that come from gasoline.
“BPA is conscientious about reducing air pollution and the nation’s dependence on imported oil,” said Bill Obley, a mechanical engineer in Transmission’s support services. In December 1996, President Clinton signed an executive order that directed government agencies to acquire light-duty alternative fuel vehicles. The primary goal is to reduce the nation’s dependency on imported crude oil.
“GSA supplies the vehicles and helps BPA meet the executive order,” said Mike Mitchell, the General Services Administration fleet manager. BPA now leases 18 compressed natural gas vehicles and an electric pickup.
Obley said the CNG cars “don’t compromise performance. A natural gas vehicle starts up easy, no matter what the weather is like, because the fuel is already in a gaseous state.” CNG has other benefits too. “It burns cleaner,” Obley said, so a CNG car is cheaper to maintain and safer than the standard gasoline vehicle. Gasoline is toxic to health, but natural gas outdoors is nontoxic to breathe and to touch. And, if natural gas leaks, it rises and dissipates into the atmosphere, thus minimizing the potential for an explosion.
In fuel cost and efficiency alone, CNG is as good or better than unleaded gasoline, said Jerry Bohanan, GSA fleet customer service representative. “The CNG equivalent to a gallon of gas costs way less – 59 cents compared to $1 to $1.50,” he said. The CNG doesn’t have as much energy, but at less than half the cost it’s still a good buy.
The CNG cars look like any other Ford Contour, but they have two gas tanks. The CNG tank sits in the trunk and looks like a helium tank used to fill party balloons. A full CNG tank holds about seven gallons and can get about 100 miles.
The cars have a single gas gage for both tanks. A dashboard switch controls which fuel the driver will use. The gage shows the fuel level for the tank in use. The driver can switch manually between the two fuels. If the driver is using CNG and the tank runs out, the car automatically switches to the gasoline tank.
The first step to filling the CNG tank is to find a station that handles CNG. There are about 1,200 natural gas fuel pumps nationwide. The Portland-Vancouver area has about 10. “This is a chicken and egg situation,” said Obley. “Which should come first, CNG vehicles or CNG fueling stations?”
Obley said, “This is where the federal government exercises leadership, by stepping in first and buying the cars so the private market will put in the filling stations.” GSA’s Mitchell is working with CNG stations in Oregon and Washington to get them to accept the government credit card.
“It’s just a short drive to a cleaner future,” BPA’s Obley said.
Laura Williams is an intern in Transmission communications
REFUELING AT ROSS -- (Above right) Student intern Laura Williams refuels one of BPA's natural gas cars. (Above left) Bill Obley of Transmission shows where the compressed natrual gas tank fits in the car trunk.
Spring brings more than early garden blooms. The end of April also ushers in the season of varied community events across the Northwest. BPA and its employees will join in many civic and charitable programs this year.
Two big events at the end of this month are Earth Day and the International Discovery Walk Fest. Communities around the country observe Earth Day each year, officially on April 22. The Discovery Walk Fest is growing as an international event in Vancouver, Wash.
For Earth Day last year, headquarters and the Ross Complex sponsored clean up projects in Portland and Vancouver. Seattle and Olympia employees joined teams to work on outdoor projects in the Puget Sound area. And BPA folks at Spokane, Boise and other areas volunteered for projects in their communities.
This year, BPA folks will again take part in Earth Day programs around the region. Employees at Vancouver will clear and repair the Ellen Davis Trail through the Ross Complex. Portland will have a later Earth Day project that Madison High School students planned. The Circuit will run photos from those and other events.
The international festival at Vancouver is now in its third year. Vancouver is the sole U.S. city with a weekend walking event sanctioned by two worldwide groups — the International Marching League and the International Volkssport Federation. The city and many businesses support the affair that takes place on the last full weekend in April. It has walks on three days, April 23 to 25 this year, with multiple distances on Saturday and Sunday — from five kilometers to 42.2-km marathons. People from a dozen countries will take part this year.
BPA and several employees have helped put on the Discovery Walk Fest since it began three years ago. BPA’s Construction Services Building serves as a break station for the Saturday marathon. The marathon route follows the Ellen Davis Trail through the Ross Complex.
Some BPA folks and retirees serve on the committee that organizes the event. Others volunteer during the three days, and many more walk in the events.
BPA folks will take part in many more events this summer and fall — from the Portland Rose Festival, to the Bloomsday Run at Spokane in May, to fish festivals and civic events, to holiday giving programs. It’s just one more way that BPA and employees give to our communities. Watch for more on all of these in the Circuit and BPA This Week. (The Discovery Walk Fest has a Web site at: http://www.discoverywalk.org).
Jack Odgaard, editor
MILITARY MARATHONERS TAKE A BREAK AT CSB -- A platoon from the German military academy gets ready to fall out for a break at BPA's Contruction Services Building in April 1998. Other walkers leave the CSB break stop to continue on the marathon event that follows the Ellen Davis Trail through the Ross complex.
It’s News Years Eve 2000 at the Dittmer Control Center – again. A handful of intent computer programmers watch a cluster of consoles. The screens display programs being used to test the Real-time Operations and Data System. RODS is a critical part of the operation of BPA’s transmission grid.
Now it’s actually noon on Feb. 10, 1999. But a RODS demo program thinks it’s Dec. 31 – 10 months and 21½ days later. The computer clock counts down – 23:59:48 … 23:59:53 … 23:59:58 … 00:00:03. And the date is 01/01/2000.
It worked. All right! Break out the champagne! “I’ve seen a lot of New Years,” sighs BPA Y2K expert Brian Furumasu.
Furumasu may feel like Bill Murray in the movie, “Groundhog Day,” but the RODS programmers have been preparing for this moment since last October. RODS is the heart and soul of Transmission scheduling operations, one of the granddaddies of BPA’s automated systems. Referred to as an “integrated system,” RODS helps to run a long list of operations: scheduling, automatic generation control, plant and control system monitoring.
But RODS has been around since 1974, and its programmers followed the usual shortcut that most programmers used at that time. They saved computer memory space by allowing for only a two-digit year field, so the year “2000” reads as “00.”
When the Y2K team looked at the workings of the programs in RODS, they found almost 600 modules that use year fields. Unless fixed, those programs might act strangely on Jan. 1, 2000.
The team knew the job would be a big one. Folks were familiar enough with the programs to pinpoint the fixes, so they skipped the initial testing step that most Y2K teams are using. They went right to the remedies.
“We found the modules, printed out the formats and turned them over to the programmers,” says RODS expert Bill Ostrander. It took 10 programmers the better part of four months to complete the Y2K remedies on RODS.
Meanwhile, Ostrander and his team made a complete copy of the entire workings of RODS, including all the records and data in it. They took it “off-line” to a “Y2K network” on servers and programming units separate from the live network server for RODS. They set up seven computer consoles including a control console to monitor the operations of their test system. Six other client consoles were also connected to the test network.
Then, on Monday morning, Feb. 8, with remedies made, they advanced the clocks. They set the off-line RODS at 20:00 hours on 12/29/99. Two days and four hours later, the clocks rolled over to the millenium. And all operations were go. “No lock-ups,” observed Furumasu. “All right!”
For Furumasu, this early February test was just another New Year. Because while RODS is big, it’s only one of the 700 business systems and 2400 pieces of automated equipment that BPA had to test and fix to prepare for Y2K. He and his team tested relays, the communications equipment, control center systems, revenue meters, business systems and a host of other things.
Some tests were live, but most were done off-line with demo systems and equipment that exactly duplicated the original. Like the RODS tests.
“Too many operations could be affected by a RODS Y2K failure,” Furumasu says, “so we needed to do a test that included RODS and all of the systems it connects with.” RODS also interconnects with most other utilities and plant operators all over the region. That includes BPA’s power scheduling system.
Programmer Marti Skaer points to a list of hundreds of RODS programs and displays. Although the date turned over fine in the RODS tests, they still needed to look at all the different functions. Programmers looked for places where the date printed wrong or where data was in the wrong place.
They also ran tests of the leap year in 2000 and a second test of the New Years rollover with the RODS demo hooked up to even more network interfaces. “It was a good chance to clean house too,” said Skaer. “We found some 60 obsolete programs that we no longer needed since the business lines split.”
“The more they tinkered with it,” says Furumasu, “the better I felt.”
Pat Zimmer is a writer in communications
Will your home be Y2K ready?You may already be thinking about your home computer and whether it’s Y2K ready. Less obvious are other things around the house that depend on programmable microchips to operate. Such things as a home security system; your TV and VCR; your oven, range and microwave; and even sewing machines, clock radios and telephones and answering machines. Luckily, not many home appliances use dates – especially years – in order to run. But any device that uses a day, month or year in its operation could have Y2K problems. Business systems Y2K specialist Larry Sims has a rule of thumb for home appliances. “If you unplug something and then have to reprogram a date into it when you plug it back in, you should check for Y2K readiness.” The trickier part is testing. With some appliances, it may not be obvious how to set the clock ahead to Jan. 1, 2000, in order to see what happens. Or if you find a problem, how you can fix it. |
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There’s no simple answer because so many appliances are different. You may have to get in touch with the manufacturer. Especially for any products made before 1998. So, if you want to check out your electronic products at home, look for those instructions you put in a drawer somewhere when you got your products new. They may have information about Y2K readiness. If not, they’ll at least have a phone number so you can call the company to ask.
About 200 retirees and employees attended the annual St.Patrick’s reunion at Shenanigan’s in Portland this year. Some of BPA’s recent retirees mixed with folks who worked for BPA during its early years. Beulah Cowan and husband, Lou, attended this year’s reunion. She was the 13th person BPA hired, on March 7, 1938. Gregg Childs, one of the most recent employees to leave BPA, attended his first reunion as a retiree. Childs now pursues other work interests.
EARLY AND MORE RECENT EMPLOYEES -- Beulah Cowan (left), with husband Lou, was one of BPA's first generation of employees who attended this year's reunion. Gregg Childs (right) smiles as he points to his "retiree" name tag.
The Circuit last printed a BPA organization chart in March 1997. The agency has made many changes in its structure since then. For most of its first 50 years, BPA had a fairly constant structure. Since the mid-1990s, market forces and industry deregulation have led to many changes. While BPA’s role in the Northwest remains the same, the way that it fulfills that role continues to evolve. BPA continues to shape its workforce to best meet its new needs and requirements.
This chart lays out the overall organization that BPA will take into the new millennium. It shows the major business lines and work groups. It doesn’t include some interim posts that will phase out by the end of fiscal 1999. One example is field services under Shared Services. Nancy Morgan holds that interim post and also heads the purchasing and property management group.
The two major business lines – Power and Transmission – have some significant group and management changes. Energy Efficiency has moved back into Power. The administrator’s office has scaled back, and Corporate has many changes. Environment, Fish & Wildlife has moved into Corporate, along with public affairs and the policy and finance management functions of BPA. The chart shows the new separate Shared Services group that has most of the support services formerly in Corporate.
Where the former organization had seven major divisions for group and senior vice president posts, the new structure has four major business fields and the Shared Services group that stands alone.
You will have to scroll down to view the whole chart once it appears in your web browser window.
Each year, BPA holds the Oregon competition for the National High School Science Bowl program and a Middle School Science Bowl. The Science Bowls are a big event and the news media cover the contests and winning teams. But behind the scenes is an army of people that makes the Science Bowls succeed.
Dozens of dedicated volunteers, mostly BPA employees, organize and conduct the events. Derrol Johns has headed the effort in recent years. Paul Hansen of com-munications photographed the BPA folks and retirees in action at this year’s event in March. And speaking of dedication – Suzy Sivyer of Transmission shares her experience, below, from a Science Bowl in the snow.
“I’ll never forget BPA’s Middle School Science Bowl in the winter of 1996. When I left home at 5:30 a.m. that Saturday, Jan. 27, snow was falling steadily. I was one of the few cars on the freeway. I arrived at 6 a.m., and my car literally slid into the parking lot. ‘I made it in time,’ I thought as I walked inside.
“Seven contest rounds later, I sat down for lunch with an out-of-town school group. They were discussing their transportation problem. I hadn’t looked outside for five hours and didn’t realize that it was still snowing. Drifts were already two to three feet high and it was still snowing.
“Ordinary people might have settled into a somber mood, but this was no ordinary group. More than 50 volunteers matched wits with teachers and students to prepare 18 teams for their trips home. People collected car blankets, food rations and drinks, and discussed travel routes and back-up plans.
“In the end, no one had to stay overnight. Enough people who had four-wheel-drive vehicles stepped forward to get all the teams back to their homes. That Science Bowl weekend was an adventure to remember.”
Four BPA folks showed their modeling skills at the Black History Month fashion show in late February. Sherry Lind and Pam Davis modeled ladies’ evening dresses, while Andy Thoms and David Etherly modeled men’s formal wear and suits. Davis produced the program at the Holladay auditorium. Other BPA folks performed, including Nick Christmas who played drums with a combo and Donita Jordan who sang.
The majority of Americans today work at PCs, behind desks or at service counters. Office areas have few safety hazards. A worker might slip on a wet floor, trip over an exposed cord or get a paper cut.
But vehicle drivers, warehouse workers, equipment operators and people in construction and utility trades work around potential hazards daily. So safety means a lot to them.
About half of BPA’s employees work in areas that have serious safety hazards. They include most of the Transmission folks. In a utility, the obvious big hazard is electrocution. Line crews, substation operators and others work around high voltage equipment much of the time. But other hazards in the field are equally dangerous. Workers can fall from heights, get crushed by a vehicle or piece of equipment, get chemical burns, smash fingers or break an arm or a leg.
With so many possible serious accidents, Transmission puts safety first. And TBL workers take it seriously. Each TBL district holds monthly safety meetings. Safety officers, managers and foremen don’t just report accidents and close calls. They talk about what workers could have done to be safer. The groups go over changes in safety practices and discuss tasks that may need to have new procedures.
TBL also gives employees rewards for safe work. Field folks earn gift certificates for each quarter they have without an accident. Some districts give their annual awards at a monthly meeting early in the year. Olympia regional manager Orion Albro says, “The Ross district employees like to celebrate their safety records, so we hold an annual awards breakfast before the February safety meeting.”
Office workers may sometimes tire of the meetings they have to attend, but the TBL folks don’t complain about their monthly safety meetings. “When your life and limbs are on the line literally,” Albro says, “you think more about what safety means in your work.”
SAFETY AWARDS GO TO FIELD CREWS -- Orion Albro, Olympia regional manager, hands out gift certificates to Ross district field employees in February. The district holds an annual awards breakfast to celebrate the past year's safety record.
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Across
1 H2O 6 Electric unit 9 Boxing term 13 Make amends 14 Australian bird 15 Ogle 16 Legal test? 17 ___ atomic theory 19 Sesame plant 20 Pilot’s yarn? (2 words) 21 Con- - - Stevens 22 Yesterday 24 At the start 27 Arrange 32 ____ measure 34 Strangers in Greece 35 French friend 39 Send power (2 words) 40 Raison d’___ 41 Top power salesperson (2 words) 42 Liquid waste 43 Sure sign 45 Waterless, prefix 49 Beatty and Devine 51 Caustic stuff 52 Computer input/output tools 56 VPs of old BPA 58 Switch between 60 Keep an eye on 62 Perch 63 A Stooge 64 Harden 65 Between L and Q 66 Dispute 67 Fog ices |
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Down
1 Unit of power 2 Breaker vacation? (2 words) 3 Golfer’s work? (3 words) 4 - - -ct (a law) 5 Replace wall boards 6 Change direction 7 Leave out 8 Moon goddess 9 ___ Marie 10 Aches and ___ 11 Golfer’s army leader 12 Start over button 15 - - - -benville, Ohio 18 Plum and fat (2 words) 23 Landscape 25 Japanese ceremony step (2 words) 26 Female suffix 28 Former female guard 29 Unfreeze airplanes 30 International phone acronym 31 ____ politics 33 Painting 36 Simple fact (2 words) 37 Suffix 38 And all (Lat.) 44 Response 45 Morning clock 46 Synthetic fabric 47 Him also (2 words) 48 Soil 50 Holy in Paris 53 Showed up 54 Part of a foot (2 words) 55 Coral and rock 57 Women 59 Clairvoyance acronym 61 Black cuckoo |
