Basin Electric Transmission Systems Maintenance employees discuss safety, other updates at Fall Meeting

Basin Electric Transmission Systems Maintenance (TSM) employees met for their Fall Meeting Nov. 8 at the TSM shop located in Menoken, North Dakota.

The meeting, held three times a year, provides an opportunity for employees to receive updates on the cooperative and the industry. Ninety-three employees attended the meeting, including in-person attendees from North Dakota outposts in Menoken, Beulah, Logan, and Williston, and South Dakota outposts in Huron, Groton, Gettysburg, and Watertown. Remote attendees included employees from Wyoming outposts in Gillette and Wheatland, and the Stegall, Nebraska, outpost.

Derik Johnson, manager of TSM, said the opportunity to meet in-person makes the meeting valuable to employees.  “Since TSM is a distributed facility, folks don’t get to interact face-to-face very often. This meeting gives us the opportunity to do that,” he said.

Presentations included a transmission-wide outlook, human resources updates, and NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) compliance. Speakers included representatives from Basin Electric’s Security and Response Services, North Dakota Game & Fish Department, and the Life Critical Safety Program. Attendees were also briefed on the latest developments in ongoing TSM projects.

Kyren Miller, training coordinator for the TSM division, and Chad Sandve, safety coordinator at Menoken TSM outpost, were coordinators of the meeting and commented on what they hoped the attendees would take away from the meeting.

“First and foremost, we want employees to have some good takeaways regarding safety and upcoming projects that may affect them. We try to add guest speakers from different areas of Basin Electric they might not normally visit with. We also work hard to bring in external guest speakers to provide details about what they do and how it relates to our work within the communities,” Miller said.

“We would like employees to leave the meeting knowing we want them to come home safe from work every day,” Sandve said.

Steve Denouden, lead lineman for TSM in South Dakota, attended and said while the meeting was full of valuable information, the part that brought the most value was being together. “It’s important to have an in-person meeting from time to time because of the way our division is structured. With remote outposts, the trades from those outposts do not have much contact with other employees. These meetings are sometimes the only way we get to know our team members throughout the cooperative,” Denouden said.