Folks, as some of you already know, my long (and elongated) working career is coming to an official end on 2/1/2022.

I have been involved with utilities one way or another for my entire life, literally since birth, since my father went to work for PSE&G in the 1940s after returning from WW2 and completing his interrupted college BS in Mechanical Engineering. Born and raised in New Jersey, I got my first “real” summer job (burger flipping doesn’t count) as a high school laborer for the local PSE&G gas office, digging holes to raise valve boxes in the tree lawn or in the street. I first encountered RECs in 1971 as a college sophomore, when, along with two classmates, I rented a house on Lake Lorraine in upstate NY and found myself at the Hamilton District Office counter of Oneida-Madison EC of Bouckville, NY, signing up for service. A few years after graduating I was hired to work in claims by the Canton Ohio Regional Office of Nationwide Insurance and by 1977 I was moved to their office in Elyria, OH where I joined Lorain-Medina EC of Wellington, OH. Not long after that I was put on the disaster response team and stopped in to see the impact (happily modest) of hurricane Frederick on an insured REC, Singing River EC in Lucedale, MS. By the end of 1979 I found myself on the National Account Claims team as a Claims Supervisor, overseeing the package policy claims (liability, fleet, property, crime, basically all claims except WC) for the several hundred RECs that the brokerage Frank B. Hall had placed with Nationwide which, as fewer and fewer of you each year will recall, was the direct ancestor of the current program, now known as the Hurtado & Associates Power Program.

At the beginning of my insurance career, Nationwide was the NRECA’s endorsed carrier, following NRECA's four full decades with Wausau Insurance. That endorsement ended in 1985 when Nationwide bought Wausau itself and then shifted all large commercial accounts there, to the NRECA’s chagrin. N/W retained a book of utility accounts for years to follow, but eventually the company got out of large commercial business under its own name, and closed its National Accounts Department, after moving the business to other subsidiaries or departments. Seeing Wausau as a very cold place to live, I transferred to the company’s self-insured claims subsidiary company, GatesMcDonald, and worked there as the National Sales Manager for a couple of years before parting ways with them and joining PENCO, (a public entity specialist subsidiary of brokerage WillisCorroon) which had a market for RECs. Interestingly, it was The Hartford! Following a two-year stint at PENCO that taught me that British business management was a bit different from the US approach, I left and joined a small safety company started by an ex-Nationwide National Accounts co-worker of mine, Dean Wisecarver, and in 1999 we were able to put together a safety consulting program providing safety services to the national REC insurance program operated by AON at the time. From 2000 until 2022, this small specialty consulting operation has been the sole provider of safety and loss prevention consulting services to the members of this program, through its various incarnations prior to being settled as the Hurtado & Associates Power Program. Initially as Sandean Services, and then under the current name of Synebar Solutions, this is the same company being wound up in February of 2022 after over 2 decades of service to the present program.

In the fifty years since I first walked in to sign a membership application, it seems as though my life has always touched RECs in some fashion. First as an ordinary member and then throughout my insurance career, working in claims, sales, and loss prevention for Nationwide, PENCO, Sandean Services, and finally Synebar Solutions as the company’s President.  During my time working with the small power distribution industry I am happy to say that fatal accidents have been significantly reduced and safety consciousness in general is on the up! I hope you will all be able to maintain this trend.

So, I guess that’s about all from me. To steal a turn of phrase, it’s been a long strange trip for a boy from the NY Metropolitan area to have enjoyed. I have appreciated the acceptance and hospitality of the vast majority of the utilities I have worked with over the years, some of which have led to lasting friendships. I wish everyone well on road ahead, but I will no longer be traveling it with you.  

One final note: I may be leaving, but the Hurtado Power Program is moving ahead! The archive of articles will be transferred to the program’s main Web site, hurtadopower.com where they have a safety article listing at hurtadopower.com/category/safety. And in the very near future an announcement should be forthcoming about your new safety consultant. Like most of us, I may be unique, but I am not irreplaceable! When you meet the new consultant, please give them a fair trial.

Thank you all!