Power To The People—How one family leads the way in keeping the lights on in the South Plains and Bi
- Paul Wiseman
- Jun 11, 2016
- 2 min read
“I know I need a small vacation/But it don’t look like rain And if it snows that stretch down south won’t ever stand the strain.”
As contract linemen for several regional utility providers, the six members of the Hernandez family and their 70 or so employees, DBA Primary Utility, do indeed rarely find time for a vacation, small or otherwise. But for Sylvia and Arthur, Sr. and their four children the rewards of working together and keeping the power flowing to electric customers vastly outweigh the challenges that Glen Campbell sang about four decades ago.
“People take electricity for granted,” said Art, Jr., “but once they’re without power for a day or two, you’d be surprised at the reaction people have when you turn their lights back on. We have customers that will come up and hug you or provide you with food. It’s very rewarding knowing that somebody cares that much about you.” For Art Sr. it’s all about the people.
The satisfaction of keeping customers’ lights shining, the joy of working with family and the opportunity to instill his knowledge and values to family and employees, all these things get him out of bed in the morning—and sometimes in the middle of the night, whenever bad weather strikes.
This is part of what pushed him to start Primary Utility. After working for others in the electric delivery industry for a quarter century, the senior Hernandez decided to start his own company in 2008. It took six months of background work to get ready to go, but Hernandez had the full support of his family, including his wife, Sylvia.
While she had swallowed hard when he first broached the subject, she trusted him fully. “Art has always been a hard working person, he gives 100 percent on everything that he does. So when he came to me with that idea, we talked and talked about it. But I supported him from the start.”
The couple married at the tender age of16, so trusting and supporting each other has been second nature for decades now. As the business opened, Sylvia had another fulltime job. For the first year she worked that job as well as doing paperwork for Primary Utility. Now she’s just fulltime with the family business, so she at least gets to sleep at night. Art Jr. quit his job with Oncor right away to join his dad in the new venture.
With only six months of experience, Junior was not nearly ready to be sent out alone with 138,000 volts buzzing in his hands. He admits to being nervous, but trusted his father to show him the ropes—or wires, in this case—and to make sure he was safe and that the job got done right. With all the dangers lurking—hundreds of thousands of volts, lightning, tornadoes, ice and more—the strangest danger they’ve faced has been of the human variety.
Read about that in the next issue!ow one family leads the way in keeping the lights on in the South Plains and the Big Country!
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