Straight from the heart

Usually my job as blogger here at the utility is to write about the world of energy. Today, though, I'd like to turn the keyboard over to some of my friends and colleagues at PSE.

I think their commitment to what they do speaks for itself:

"My name is Gloria Lambert and I have been employed by PSE for 30 years. Having read the Seattle Times article that tagged my employer as lacking compassion, I drew the conclusion that the author passed judgment on an entire organization with a 100-plus year history of service, due to one incident, in which he may not have gathered all the facts. PSE employees that I have had the pleasure of working with, are some of the most dedicated, compassionate, hard-working and driven to serve people in the industry.

As a woman working on the line crews, I sacrificed more than one holiday with my young children, due to inclement weather and power outages. My co-workers and I worked around the clock in snow, high winds, driving rains and freezing temperatures, so that our customers could be back in service as quickly as humanly possible. We had a board in our dispatch office and every address with customers experiencing hardship or life support was red flagged, and would always receive priority in the event of an outage.

Each Christmas, PSE employees find a family in need. We collect food, money and wrap gifts for the children. PSE has a matching gift fund for charities that has extended beyond our borders. Years ago when there was a mudslide that destroyed a village in Central America, my employer offered to meet our donations to the American Red Cross, dollar for dollar. I gave a sizable sum, knowing my donation was doubled by PSE. This act of giving was contagious in our building. It continues to this day.

PSE has visited schools and businesses to educate the public about electrical safety. You don't have to walk far down the hall to find someone collecting funds for The Heart Walk, or The American Cancer Society, which is near and dear to me having lost my own mother to cancer. The giving in this company has been generous and on going. Does PSE have a heart asks Danny Westneat? Yes, we do. It is big, it is compassionate and we care."

Here's another note from a PSE colleague about the December 2006 windstorm:

"My name is Greg Zeller and I was working at our Emergency Operations Center when I received a call from a waitress friend of mine working at a Kirkland restaurant. She said that a woman at a table had broken down in tears over the thought that her husband with terminal cancer would not see the holiday lights on their Christmas tree on his final Christmas.

As any of our team would have done, I made it my mission to not disappoint these people. I followed up and made certain that this would be worked into the priority for restoration by Christmas. As it turned out we were able to restore power to this customer as well as the majority of our other customers well ahead of Christmas day. This is just one example, and one customer, however every PSE employee that I have worked with over my 36 years makes restoration of electricity after a dose of our Northwest weather a mission on behalf of our customers. We can't control the weather, and neither can we control our passion for restoring power to our customers."