2022 Hall of Fame
Willis Hale
Willis “peanut” hale has worked as a lineman for over 60 years and has worked in 25 of the 50 United States. From the East coast to the West coast, and Alaska, he has worked lines in 50% of our country. He has a perfect safety record with no personal work-related injuries or any injuries to any crew member on his watch. He is still working storms at over 80 years old and shares his wealth of knowledge with any on his crew. His favorite job was working to set structures and pull lead lines from a helicopter. He boasts that his favorite part of linework was that he could bring his family with him wherever he went to work lines. He is proud to be a part of the lineman brotherhood and is another who fully embodies the spirit of hard work that the industry requires. He is fast to answer calls and determined to get a job done right and bring all his crew home safe every time.
Chris Hedges
At the age of 5, Chris Hedges was introduced to linework when they built transmission lines over his uncle’s pasture. The linemen saw his fascination, showed him their work, and gave him his own insulator to keep. He questioned line crews throughout high school and taught himself much of the trade. In 1980, he started his own electrical company. He has been an instructor for various community colleges and was on the Board of the Electrical league of Kansas and Missouri for 20 years. He started a committee to standardize electrical service equipment with the serving utilities in the area and the efforts from this committee still show today.
Arthur "Tater" Lohr
Often described as “larger than life,” Arthur “Tater” Lohr began his linework career in 1997 at Lassen Municipal Utility District. He eventually found a home at Northwest Lineman College where he was often sought out by name to give additional training. Linework is a hard trade that not everyone takes to easily, those that struggled in the beginning often found Tater, who was caring and a big supporter of the underdog. He was great at teaching you how to reach your full potential, both in the line industry and in life in general. Arthur “Tater” trained over 24,000 pre apprentices and at least 500 journeymen throughout his career. He was exceptional in every aspect of his life and work.
Jacob Phelps
Jacob Phelps began his career as a car and diesel mechanic before shifting to linework in 1995. He became well known for mentoring and developed a passion for safety and training. His career at Northwest Lineman College began in 2003 as a skills instructor and grew to develop training curriculums for Afghanistan and becoming authorized to teach specific OSHA courses. He also was selected to lead a project to train locals in Tanzania, Africa on a complete training yard and curriculum. He also assisted many companies with establishing apprenticeship programs and registering them through the Department of Labor. In 2022, he was recruited to become the Vice President of Learning for Quanta Services. His career with safety in the line industry is incredible as well as international.
Brandon Wylie
Brandon’s line career began in the mid-1990s. His training career, however, began in 2007. Like too many in this industry, he lost friends to the hazards of linework and shifted his focus to safety and the importance of safety training. Brandon has had a profound impact on the safety and training industry: he helped transition paper testing to online, he created a comprehensive underground training, and he created an auditing program to measure safety metrics for utilities (just to name a few). He is often personally requested for safety events due to all he has shared with the industry. His safety and training contributions helped earn him the position of Vice President of Power Delivery Programs at Northwest Lineman College.
Steve Stanfill
Steve Stanfill has a renowned reputation as one who is always willing to share his knowledge with anyone in the line industry, but especially with apprentices and anyone newer to the trade. He has been with Jackson Energy Authority in Tennessee since 1987. He is the oldest tenured employee company wide for JEA. He has taken holiday shifts as well as on-call shifts for many coworkers with young families. He has worked in each weather scenario that has hit the states and never once complained, at least to any one of the numerous people who nominated him. While not necessarily in an official position to teach, he is looked up to as a mentor by so many. He has a wealth of knowledge on safety and linework and a patience to share it with anyone. He has driven cross country to help restore power lines and was praised by Billy Joel himself after Steve and his crew helped restore power after Hurricane Sandy. He has been both competitor and judge for several rodeos and on the planning committee for some as well. He truly embodies the spirit of brotherhood in the line industry and has touched many with his work in the Rodeo circuits as well.
