 
Thumb’s Up for Michigan Wind Power
December 2007, Electrical Worker
 It’s called the Thumb of Michigan and there, in the state’s Lower Peninsula, it’s thumbs up for wind power. Three IBEW locals have joined forces to sign new contractors and provide wireman and linemen to install dozens of 280-foot wind turbines. Their work has been so successful that they are receiving recommendations for more projects from general contractors.
Detroit Local 17 journeyman foreman John Locke
emerges from a ladder within a wind turbine in
Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
Wind studies showed good flow between Lake Huron to the east and Saginaw Bay to the west, says Detroit Local 17 Business Manager Kevin Shaffer. “Wind power is the upcoming alternative because of thousands of miles of water frontage and rural electric cooperatives are showing strong interest,” says Keith Sarns, business manager of Grand Rapids Local 876.
After Wind Connect, typically a nonunion subsidiary of Alliant Power, received the contract for the four-phase windmill project, Shaffer and Mike Aulseybrook, Local 17’s organizer, met with Pat Ringler, Wind Connect’s project manager. In June, he agreed to sign with the local.
SPE Utility Contractors, a Local 17 signatory contractor, wired 32 turbines and towers in the first phase in Pigeon, Mich. SPE, the first contractor in Michigan to be qualified and factory-certified on windmill work, also partnered with signatory contractor Spaulding Electric to build the substation, using some members of Detroit Locals 58 and 17.
Underground work and collectors were contracted to InfraSource. Since Local 876 had a signatory relationship with the company, Sarns helped broker discussions with Jim Cobbs, the company’s director in the area, resulting in InfraSource signing with Local 17. The various IBEW locals worked together to establish a new classification to cover the work.
Wind turbine work requires qualified climbers to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, so the work has been performed with composite crews consisting of a journeyman lineman and a journeyman wireman to insure the standards are met. Composite crews work on a turbine while one journeyman acts as a groundman and qualified safety person.
Next spring, work will begin on 104 turbines at Ubly, on the tip of the Thumb. Local 17 is holding discussions with Noble Environmental Power, a nonunion contractor, about joining the growing circle of union contractors to pursue more projects.
“Our guys stepped up to the plate,” says Shaffer. “This was a learning experience for them, yet they had no accidents and no workmanship issues.”
“The quality was second to none,” says David Postill, SPE’s owner, who says that manufacturer Vestas, project management company Alliant and G.E.’s wind power division are referring SPE to others in the competitive market for wind power.
With 80 to 100 workers nationwide, Postill is getting ready to start a wind power project in New York and looking at another in Wisconsin. “Our core guys want to jump around and do the work,” says Postill. “By bringing journeyman inside wiremen and linemen together from different locals,” says Postill, “we got a team second to none.”
“Our progress could have happened without the cooperation between Locals 17, 58 and 876,” says Shaffer.
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