Informational interview

Ben Shipley

Informational Interview

Mark from Intermountain Power Service Corporation (IPSC).

 Title: Assistant Superintendent over Operations

·         What do you do? What are the duties/functions/responsibilities of your job?

My job title is Assistant Superintendent over Operations. There are a couple of us on the plant site that hold this position. I am over 27 subordinates on a full time basis, could be up to 50 if I am the only one on plant site (usually happens on weekends). I am responsible for everything that happens on the plant site.

·         What are the different departments that make up this company?

Operations Department- This is the heart of the company, makes the machine run, without this department there is no company.

Mechanical Department- Fixes the machines

Technical Services Department- This department houses the engineers and electricians who are responsible for the upgrades and improvements, and they also help with the controls.

Support Services Department- Human resources, personnel, and wear house

·         What kinds of decisions do you make? I make all of the decisions inside the plant site.

·         What percentage of your time is spent doing what?

    20% is reporting, he Emails 150 people at the end of each shift.

   30 % is dealing with issues concerning megawatt failure.

   20% is used towards bettering the work area, management, and policy.

   30% is dealing with people who don’t want to do their job.

·         What work-related abilities or qualities are more essential in this type of work?

Self-motivation, being able to better himself and the company on a daily basis, the person needs to be proactive doing things before they happen.  It can’t be someone who just sits around and waits for things to happen.

·         What sorts of changes are occurring in your occupation?

This sort of field or occupation is highly subject to political whim, and also to the environmental and green movement, there are constantly new policy hoops that we have to jump through to stay working. This plant sells almost all of their electricity to L.A. and L.A. has been trying to shut them down because they are a coal operated plant. The Green movement is not making this occupation stable. They constantly have to be on the outlook for better improvements and technological advances to make their product leaner.

Are you optimistic about the company's future and your future with the company?

·         What things did you do before you entered this occupation that has seemed to be of most help to you?

Developing a can do attitude, not to be afraid to take new opportunities, proactive attitude, respond to opportunities. The only level that is above him vice president of the company. Construction work, Farm work, Voluntary mission for his faith where he was able to acquire essential communication skills. He commented that if you don’t have good communication skills it’s really hard to advance, he has to use them all the time by presenting new ideas and reporting to the higher ups. Something else that has helped him  

·         Why did this type of work interest you, and how did you get started?

It was just an opportunity, I needed to support a family, I started at the base level.

·         From your perspective, what are the problems you see working in this field?

People who don’t do their job, that’s one of the biggest problems we have.

·         If you could do things all over again, would you choose the same path for yourself? Why? What would you change?

Get a college education so I could be more selective on what I could do as a occupation. And also so I wouldn’t have to work nights.

·         Do you have any special words of warning or encouragement as a result of your experience?

Make things happen, use others original ideas, just because you graduated from college really doesn’t mean you know anything. Be open to take instruction, and run to learn. Today we need people with practical experience, and who can make decisions, if you have an engineer who has both of those things your company will thrive. If they don’t have those things than they are not worth having around.

            I really enjoyed my time talking to Mark, we had a telephone interview. I was able to learn the importance of being someone who can take the initiative and make the company better. If you don’t you will only be hurting progress and should be let go. He said that because of his skills, attributes, and not being afraid of change he was able to move up quite quickly to the position that he is in now.  Not only did he emphasize about being a good worker but also the importance of getting a good education, without a college education you tend to have less career opportunities than you would if you had one. And how nightshifts and a family don’t mix very well together.

            This person knows many people inside the company as well as outside. Because of his position he deals a lot of people from the Intermountain Power Agency who own the plant, and also people in L.A. to whom they sell the power to. So Mark would be a very important person to know if you wanted to go into this type of work.

            A lot of my ideas for my questions came from the reading and the links that we were given, they helped a lot and they worked really well getting the information I needed for this interview.