A Bash in The Bucket – Larry Roe Celebrates 25 Years of Persistence and Curiosity

A Bash in The Bucket – Larry Roe Celebrates 25 Years of Persistence and Curiosity

Larry Roe

Last month, lineman Larry Roe celebrated 25 years of service at KREMC. We sat down with him to reflect on the challenges and rewards a quarter of a century of service has brought his way.

Early Career

Right out of high school, Roe began work trimming trees for utility companies across Northern Indiana. During the next 10 years of tree work, Roe operated alongside many linemen and got to know many of them. Driven by curiosity, Roe was known for asking the linemen he knew tons of questions about their work. At one point, one of them told Roe, “You ever think about being a lineman, Larry? For every question I answer you’ve got five more behind it.”

So, Roe began submitting resumes with local utility companies. After five years of steadfast persistence, he was finally hired at Kosciusko REMC in 2001.

Moving Up

Roe participating in pole top rescue training

Once he got hired in at Kosciusko REMC, Roe started off right away in the linemen apprenticeship program. Despite struggles going on behind the scenes in his personal life, he successfully graduated from the program as a full lineman.

“I made it. Thankfully I did it, and it all paid off.” Roe remembered.

Over the years, Roe has taken on several special projects such as regulator testing, and he played an important role in helping ensure KREMC’s electric lines met new requirements during the build out of fiber internet to our members. This was a massive undertaking that took a year and a half of hard work and learning new regulations. Less than a year ago, Roe was promoted to Lead Lineman. He passed on earlier leadership opportunities, preferring to be out in the field, up in the bucket truck.

“I always enjoyed doing bucket work and doing line work, going up in the air every day, day in and day out,” Roe said.

He is ultimately proud to have successfully done his job for this long without any of the bad incidents that can happen in linework.

Grounded by Relationships

Roe moving powerline poles with crew

The personal relationships at Kosciusko REMC are what ultimately attracted Roe to the company and what has kept him here for the past 25 years.

“They know me personally. I know them personally. Sometimes the relationships weren’t the best, but we still know each other on a personal level, and that’s somewhat what attracted me to this trade,” Roe explained. Roe describes KREMC as a place where he isn’t just a number or just replaceable like he might be at a larger company.

Biofreeze & Tablets

The job has certainly not always been easy. The physical toll linework takes over the years adds up, and Roe described facing multiple shoulder surgeries and a hand surgery in a short period of time which was difficult to face both physically and mentally.

“I enjoy it, I still do. I just usually pay for it at night with Biofreeze,” Roe described the struggles of aging in this in this industry.

Another challenge he has faced in his career is the rapidly advancing technology.

“The outage management was a little bit challenging when it first was implemented. It was challenging to deal with the new tablets. We didn’t grow up with that technology. We still just had paper.” Roe describes taking on this new learning curve.

Happy in the Bucket Truck or Boat

Roe providing a bucket ride for kids

In his free time, he tries to spend as much time with his family and his grandkids as possible.

“I’m really tight with my family,” he said. He also enjoys going out in his boat and fishing and working on remodeling projects at his house.

Roe’s favorite memory from his time at KREMC was giving kids bucket truck rides at schools and at events like the Annual Meeting and Family Safety Day.

“That was pretty fun!” He reminisced.