Meet Blair McGinnis

My name is Blair McGinnis I'm the Chief Operating Officer with Lubbock Power & Light. Operations is one of the key elements along with overhead underground service department that responds to outages and helps keep the lights on. A winter storm or a thunderstorm rolls in, it's all hands on deck. Linemen more or less live for this type of activity.

A good example of the work that we do and the preparation that goes into some of the things that we do is the ERCOT transition, or the cutover of 70% [of our customers]. Our system had to go completely dead, and then we had to energize it back into the ERCOT system. We planned for probably a year on minimizing and preparing for all of the switching that needed to take place, so that the customer realized as little impact as possible.

I graduated from Texas Tech in 1996. I have actually moved back to Lubbock three times, so this is my third time to come back. I really enjoy Lubbock, it's got just about everything you'd ever want. I’d really like folks of Lubbock to realize that the lineman, the operators, the folks that are answering the phone are there to help. They respond in any type of weather; if you see one in the alley or you see one in a restaurant, just walk up to them and say I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you keeping the lights on and keeping the electricity flowing, because that's what they're there to do.