The Kankakee Valley (KV) REMC team is a well-oiled machine with many departments working in tandem to power more than 18,000 residential and commercial members across rural Northwest Indiana. One cog in the REMC machine is its engineering department, headed by Director Bri Travis.
A vital function of the engineering department is analyzing data and systems to recommend modifications to the company's electrical system. "We are improving our system while implementing smart grid technology to minimize outage times or even eliminate them,” stated Director of Engineering Bri Travis. Many projects overseen by the engineering department have been in the planning stage for multiple years due to the project's complexity.
While the engineering department's specific tasks might vary daily, the central focus remains on the membership.
"The majority of our work is member focused. We're receiving orders from members for electric services, working with them to ensure installation is performed safely and promptly," Travis said. "Other times, we are doing a lot of project management and planning for everything necessary for a project, such as materials, permits, and easements. All our work is to create a better, more reliable system for our members."
The members of KV REMC expect reliable electric service, and the cooperative is committed to meeting that expectation. The engineering department plays a crucial role in projects focusing on reliability. These include replacements, reconductors, and more to ensure its members get the electrical services they need.
"Reliability projects are projects that are identified through an outside engineering firm. They do their review of our system, factoring in technology and its increasing load on the electric grid, and determine where we need to improve wire size, install substations, etc.," Travis said. "We take those recommendations and work closely with our operations department to design those projects. A project might be a new substation or rebuilding an existing circuit to install larger wire. Over the next three years, we have about 47 miles of line that we're replacing. Much of that is due to the reliability and forecasting of additional growth in our areas."
Travis and her team also work closely with many other departments at KV REMC to help carry out company operations.
"Being an engineering department, we work with all departments regularly. It's definitely a team effort to get projects to run smoothly," Travis said. "We regularly work with our customer service representatives (CSRs) to get the orders back to engineering and understand what our members need. We talk to operations and our storeroom to know if we have materials on hand or if we need to order them and what our lead time is. We often work with operations to look at projects and get their recommendations and constructability reviews. We work with our marketing or communications department to ensure our members are aware of all the projects in their area and how outages or road closures might impact them."
Every day is different, with many tasks to complete around the clock. These challenges and experiences have been Travis' favorite aspect of the work she and her team do at KV REMC. She enjoys knowing she'll take on a new venture whenever she enters the company's front doors.
"I love it. It's a different challenge; it's always a new problem to solve. We never get bored. It's a balance of field and office work, and I like that. It's always exciting," she said.
