PacifiCorp Director of Labor & Employee Relationships Fred Horvath

October/November 2001 IBEW Journal

President Hill, Secretary-Treasurer O'Connor, International Vice Presidents and IEC members, congratulations on your election.

To my friends and delegates from Local 57, 125, 659 and 415, thank you for your efforts on behalf of your members and our employees at PacifiCorp. And to all of you delegates, staff and guests, congratulations on this incredible event in allowing me to speak to you about our partnership with the IBEW for the 2002 Winter Olympics Salt Lake City.

I'll speak briefly about four items, provide an overview of the games and the logistics required, our partnership with the IBEW. I'd like to speak to you about Mark Hoaglin, our Olympic athlete, and Olympic Aid.

PacifiCorp, through Utah Power, and Local 57 IBEW will be the electricity provider for the Winter Olympics. The games begin with opening ceremonies on February 8th and will close on the 24th of February, 2002. There are will 3600 athletes from over 80 countries participating in the Winter Olympics. The opening ceremonies will be witnessed by over 3.5 billion people around the globe, and over 13 billion will witness the games over the 17 days that they will be held.

PacifiCorp and Local 57 will provide power and logistics for ten competition venues and four noncompetition venues, like the media center. So when the TV goes dark, you know we've got big trouble at PacifiCorp.

Over 7,000 press credentials will be issued for the 2002 Winter Olympics. And to try to put that into perspective for you, 500 press credentials are issued for a Super Bowl. And running the Olympics -- and as my friends at the IBEW and Georgia Power that went through this in Atlanta -- it's similar to running ten Super Bowls every day for 17 days. Through our joint logistical committee, led by Blaine Newman, business manager of Local 57, we are working together --

Thanks. We're working together to ensure the quality and safety of the games. The safety of the games have taken on a new perspective, based on the tragedies of yesterday. We have over 200 IBEW members that have volunteered to go through the security clearances that will be required to go into certain venues. Unfortunately, Blaine Newman and I have been deemed as lacking the sufficient character to get into those venues, so we'll have to go from there.

Secondly, with President Hill's vision, we are able to be very visible in our partnership with the IBEW throughout the preparation and hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics. President Hill, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, PacifiCorp, and I thank you for that vision.

From this partnership, we will have a very visible communication strategy throughout the country, throughout Canada, throughout the world and throughout Salt Lake City. A couple of items that I can offer as examples. We have a significant number of billboards being prepared displaying our partnership throughout the Salt Lake City area. We have a number of plant sites that we are painting commemorating our partnership. We will decorate the Eighth District offices and Local 57 union hall displaying our partnership throughout the entire games. I want to encourage each of you to look at the IBEW International Web site as we proceed through the games, as it will detail a number of events celebrating our partnership.

We have a member of Local 125 from Portland and a member of Local 57 in Salt Lake City that will be participants in the torch relay leading up to the lighting of the torch beginning the games.

I would encourage each of you to take the time to purchase some of the commemorative attire that's being sold at the IBEW location here at the convention commemorating our partnership. And I would ask you, if you haven't come by yet, to please stop by our booth, register for some free tickets that we are providing in conjunction with Local 57 for two incredible days at the Olympics, including a visit to our private box where we will witness the women's figure skating final in conjunction with Local 57.

I'd like to take a second to express my appreciation to Blaine and Local 57 for helping us make this possible. Again, President Hill, Eighth District Vice President Walters, Blaine, we truly appreciate the opportunity to partner with the IBEW during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Many of you have met Mark Hoaglin during the industry expo or upstairs at our booth. This is a special story; and if you would indulge me just a second, I'd like to talk to you about it.

Mark called me about a year ago and told me about an incredible opportunity that had come his way. I listened and took about 60 seconds to make the decision to fully support this dream. Mark was approached by a member of the four-man bobsled team at the gym that he works out. And over the course of the last year, PacifiCorp and Local 57 have fully supported Mark's efforts in this regard.

Mark, as any of you that have walked up to him and seen, was Mr. Utah at the age of 41, a fairly unprecedented event. Mark is a single father of three children. And growing up, Mark was not exactly an altar boy, in the fact that he found himself living on the street with his brothers and sisters at the age of ten. Got himself involved in a number of difficult situations, including drug abuse, but has found a way to turn his life around. Oh, by the way, in his spare time, he's a member of Local 57 and a journeyman lineman.

Mark is currently off work and training full time. PacifiCorp is paying him. Local 57 is helping with financial support for his team, and I'm going to talk to you about that. We've covered his expenses for training opportunities in Canada and Europe, and he's working diligently as his team moves toward the goal of being the Gold Medal winners in the 2002 Winter Olympics. His co-workers in the Ogden Service Center are covering for his absence. His family and friends are helping him with his fatherly obligations.

As I said, Local 57 has provided significant financial assistance, as well, to the team. One thing, and you may not be aware of, is that many, many of our Olympic athletes are subject to raising funds to make sure that they can actually live while they're training for these games.

So if there's any way that any of you are in position to help Mark and his team, please look up Mark at the booth, look up Blaine Newman at Local 57 or myself. They are one of four teams competing for the two spots. We definitely could use your help.

December 27th is the big day. It is the qualifying day where the four teams that are remaining will compete for the two spots for the U.S. team. We're going to have some fun between now and then. I would encourage each of you to check the Web site out, because we're going to actually take Jay Leno for a ride down the Olympic bobsled run.

We kind of found him at the Indianapolis Brickyard 400 and put some arrangements together. We're going to have a television camera attached to the back of the driver's head and we're going to take Jay down the slope and we're going to get some IBEW publicity on a national level. So keep an eye on that for the date when we're going to get that together.

So, again, on December 27th, the races will be run and we're very hopeful that we're going to have an Olympic athlete, the first ever for the IBEW, the first-ever journey lineman, and the first-ever employee of PacifiCorp.

So I would like to take a second, if you haven't had a chance, to introduce Mark Hoaglin.

Finally, each year that the Olympics are held there's humanitarian effort that associates itself with the Olympics and it's called Olympic Aid. I'd like to take just a second to talk to you about a very special effort that President Hill has agreed to work with us in partnership. It's a very, very important issue to me personally.

This year for the 2002 Winter Olympics, Olympic Aid is going to focus on the millions and millions of orphans created by the HIV virus around the world. Why does this make sense for the IBEW? I need to tell you something about the fate of the children, mostly in Africa at this point in time, and what's happening to them as a result of losing their parents.

You know, we take a lot for granted and I think we were shocked a little bit yesterday by some of the things that we've always taken for granted. But over the next four years there will be 35 million orphans in Africa alone from the HIV virus. And the greatest and most lucrative black market in the world today is not drugs, but it is gathering these children together and selling them as slave labor in Third World countries. I'm confident that I can count on you to agree with me that this atrocity must end.

Recently some of you may have heard about a ship sinking off the coast of Africa where hundreds of children drowned. It was this black market that influenced it. Olympic Aid is here to raise money, and you'll be hearing from your International Vice Presidents about an effort that we will work collectively to raise money to bring the enjoyment of sport to these children and to give them a better life. I'll be working through each of your companies in the Edison Electric Institute to see that I can match those gifts or whatever we can do together to bring this tragedy to an end.

I'd like to share some words in a speech that I found. "We want a world where a man can go to a safe workplace and earn a fair wage and use his skills to do a good day's work. We want a world where a woman can develop her talents to the fullest and have a wealth of opportunity before her; where workers can retire with dignity of knowing their health care is affordable and available; where children are treated like treasures, precious treasures, they are nurtured, educated, loved, so they can carry the torch into the future; and where workers can organize and bargain collectively to achieve the things in fairness and justice. "

These words are from International President J.J. Barry at your last convention. I think they echo exactly what we're trying to do with Olympic Aid.

In closing, President Hill, again, thank you for your leadership and vision in supporting the 2002 Winter Olympics. And to each of you that has stopped by our booth while we've been here, thank you for your friendship. Thank you for the invitation to be here. Please do me a favor when you go home, give your children an extra special hug for me.

I'd like to close with another video detailing our Salt Lake games. Again, thank you very much for our partnership with the IBEW.