Charles Hilton serves as General Manager of Breezy Hill Water & Sewer Co., Inc. and as the current President of the National Rural Water Association, the nation’s largest utility professional association. Breezy Hill Water and Sewer Company’s mission is to provide safe, high quality water services to the community, while maintaining a standard of excellence in customer service and environmental conservation. Similar to all water treatment plants (WTP), Breezy Hill Water & Sewer Co., Inc. operators face major challenges. Water is the world’s most widely consumed product everywhere and is a strategic resource. WTP’s require an electrical network that fits in with their continuous quality water processes while cutting operating costs and, in particular, energy costs. Therefore a plant’s electrical network must be reliable, easy to operate and maintain throughout the plant’s lifecycle, and scalable to facilitate future expansion and process overhauls. In addition, energy, mainly electricity, accounts for up to 30% of a plant’s operating costs, and makes the plant’s electrical network a crucial factor for cost effective water treatment.
As the result of meeting at a tradeshow, Transworld has been able to work alongside Charles Hilton to provide him the services necessary to effectively operate and maintain his water treatment facility and to ensure compliance with state and federal operating regulations, such as OSHA and NFPA 70E .
“Breezy Hill Water and Sewer Company is considered a larger utility and I’m fortunate that my board is very progressive and prioritizes safety. They make sure that we are aware of the many OSHA regulations and safety standards. The work that we do is dangerous: trenching and shoring, handling heavy equipment, working on the side of major highways, etc. These dangerous work conditions all have the potential for accidents and a life threatening injury. Electrical is just one component of our safety standards. Although we generally use an outside contractor when we detect an electrical issue that we can’t handle, there are times when we occasionally need to be looking in panels ourselves for minor issues so it is necessary that our men are safe and know what they are doing. We would never want our crew to be working on equipment that is unsafe due to a lack of maintenance. Safety should always be number one for our employees at work.
Before I was introduced to Transworld, I wasn’t aware that these services existed or the importance of preventative maintenance for safety and OSHA compliance. Since I started working at Breezy Hill Water and Sewer Company in 1988, we have always maintained the equipment through repair. Transworld’s services allowed me to find out the condition of the equipment. Transworld delivered diagrams of everything after the testing was complete. The report was very inclusive and had infrared heat readings of the controllers showing potential hotspots. This report allowed us to go into these panels with issues and correct hotspots.
I think we are one of the first to begin but I know many more utilities are starting, it just takes time. As the President of the National Rural Water Association, I have been to all 50 states either serving on the executive board or attending a function. I am exposed to a lot of things and talk to a lot of people in this industry. This experience has allowed me to become more conscience of safety regulations and the importance of preventative maintenance.
If I can prevent one injury by implementing this service then the cost is minuscule compared to a possible injury on the job site.”
