Spotlight on Safety

79th TEC Loss Control Conference set for March 11–14 in Frisco

Timeout!

Ken Macken wants everybody to stop and think about their safety procedures. He says it’s time to reset game plans in the electric utility industry and reduce or eliminate injuries and fatalities.

“Take a timeout,” says Macken, NRECA’s director of safety programs. “Look at your culture. Look at your own certain practices. Look at your own commitment to safety, no matter what level you’re on, and just commit to that.

“It really is across all the crews, the foremen and management—this whole initiative of trying to get our work practices to where we cannot have any injuries—or serious injuries. We cannot have any fatalities.”

Macken will be among more than a dozen speakers at the TEC Loss Control Conference and Exhibit Show, March 11–14 at the Embassy Suites in Frisco.

He notes that based on claims reported to Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange, which covers about 60% of electric cooperatives, there were 18 electrical contacts and one fatality in the U.S. in 2024. Even as those numbers mark a decrease from 2023, Macken wants the hundreds of lineworkers, safety specialists and managers at the conference to consider them unacceptable.

The conference offers a perfect timeout, when attendees can take in sessions that will spotlight incident trends in Texas, leading by example, risky driving, work zone safety and why safety matters to an organization’s success.

Curtis Whitt, TEC Loss Control manager, hopes a timeout like the conference puts a renewed focus on the very work practices Macken cites.

“We’re overlooking our basic work procedures,” Whitt says.

The conference is the centerpiece of a program that in 2024 provided training to a record 1,204 utility workers at specialized schools around the state. In addition, TEC’s team of 10 instructors also conducted 849 safety meetings at 99 participating organizations—57 co-ops, 30 municipal utilities and 12 contractors.

The conference also celebrates organizations and individuals for outstanding safety records, and employees who changed lives in their communities will receive Lifesaving and Good Samaritan awards.

A golf tournament and auction of donated items are important fundraisers for TEC Loss Control scholarships. Last year they helped raise more than $95,000.