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News and Updates from Seattle City Light

Seattle City (spot)Light: Lynne Smith

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Lynne Smith is a relatively new member of the City Light team, now in her sixth month at the utility. She has a bachelor’s degree in math and French from Whitworth University and got into the energy industry on the private side first, working at a company in Bellevue. In this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light, Lynne tells us about her unusual job in power marketing and how City Light’s work reflects her values.

Power Marketer Lynne Smith rockclimbing on Mt. Garfield near Snoqualmie Pass

“Power Marketing buys and sells power every hour as we watch the water levels of all of our hydroelectric projects. I work with our partners in the Bonneville Power Administration on the Columbia River, monitoring it to make sure the water levels and fish flows are where we need to be. Every hour, power marketing assesses where we are with different dams and decides how much power we are going to generate. Then our real time power marketer will buy or sell depending on whether or not we have extra.”

“City Light has a load that needs to be served and that determines our load forecast to satisfy. We can match our generation exactly to our load, or we can generate more than our load. If there is too much water behind the dams and we generate more, or if power prices in the market are cheaper than what it would cost us to run our water, we might sell or buy power,” said Lynne.

“Power marketing has forward marketers that look ahead and try to put us in a good position by balancing what we need. As we get closer to real time, their forecasts get more and more accurate. We’re in an hourly market, so each hour you need to have a set of balanced schedules. Our dispatchers run our water flow and watch our load to the second to make sure it is always balanced.”

“City Light has a portion of federal power generated from the Columbia River. We take a percentage of what is generated there and I manage it by telling the real time power marketer how much power we are going to use from that system.”

“I’m from Seattle, so I like working for my hometown electric utility. I’m also a mountaineer and a climber… Mainly rock climbing. Being really careful and accurate with what you’re doing is very important in mountaineering. You always doublecheck your knots and observe safety protocols, no matter how confident you are in your skills. It’s kind of like making a power schedule every hour. You always need to pay attention, even if you’ve been doing it right for a long time. All it takes is one mistake to have serious consequences.”

“I like that City Light has so much hydropower, and that we get to spend so much time looking at the Skagit River in the North Cascades. It seems common in the energy industry to not worry about conservation. A lot of people are at City Light because it is a greener utility and they care. Since City Light has these great hydroelectric resources, we don’t have to say ‘it’s just business; we burn gas and we burn coal because we don’t have a choice.’ We are lucky where we are situated and with the resources that we have.”

Seattle City (spot)Light: Liz Zimmerly

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For Chicago native Liz Zimmerly, a move to Seattle was an initial test run to see if it was a place that she and her family would enjoy living. Ten years later, they are established Washingtonians who embrace the natural beauty of the PNW whether it’s camping, gardening or exploring the tide pools near their Rainier Beach home. The outdoors also serve as a training ground for Liz, who competes in the annual Seafair Triathlon (this summer will be her 3rd year).

Liz is City Light’s manager of Performance Support Services, and she has helped to implement programs like the Race and Social Justice Initiative, Women and Minority Business Enterprises, the Business Case Process and Benchmarking and Best Practice Research. “My team and I are responsible for managing several programs that serve the utility. It’s a common theme that the programs are focused on helping the utility be efficient, effective and equitable in the way that we do business,” said Liz. The work draws on Liz’s technical expertise as an analyst in the energy and environmental field, as well as her social justice leadership experience with organizations such as Su Casa, a house of hospitality for homeless women and children on Chicago’s Southside.

Today, as the world celebrates International Women’s Day, we asked Liz to share City Light initiatives that are raising the visibility of its female workforce, specifically the “Women in Energy” group that’s led by Sarah Davis. In keeping with this spirit, Liz also talked about the two women whom she admires most…her grandmother Virginia Doede and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.


Liz with her son Elijah after the Seafair triathlon. She competed in the sprint distance and he completed his first kids’ triathlon.

“I’m very excited about this ‘Women in Energy’ group that’s forming. The group is just getting started (spread the word!), but it’s something I’ve always wanted to see here. With my engineering background, I’m used to working in organizations where women aren’t in the majority. I’ve even worked in a few places where I was the first woman doing different roles. While City Light does have many successful female employees, we’re not represented equally in all different parts of the organization…some of the trades, our top leadership. When I see those kind of outcomes, I think that City Light is missing out by not having everyone’s voices in the room. So, it’s an opportunity. As women, we have shared experiences and it can be very encouraging to come together and support one another in terms of mentorship, career advice and other avenues.”

“One of my heroes is Madeleine Albright; the first female U.S. Secretary of State, fluent in multiple languages, completely brilliant and accomplished. She plowed the way. I’m most inspired by my grandmother Virginia. She went to college, which wasn’t very common for women at that time, and wanted to be a doctor. She was married right out of college, had six children and went back to work in an office once her kids got older. I just always loved her kindness and her love of learning. She was somebody who taught me about loving and accepting everybody and is my inspiration for supporting City Light’s equity work.”

My driving passion, no matter if it’s professional or personal, is to try to make a difference. A positive difference in some way. My favorite quote is ‘Do all the good that you can, by all the means that you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.’ ”

Thank you, Liz, for sharing your drive and motivation, inspiring others with your work and for being a part of the City Light team since 2011.

Seattle City (spot)Light: Kevin Lidtka

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Kevin Lidtka is a Laser Scanning Technician in City Light’s Power Production division, a title that might make it sound like he works on office equipment. That perception couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Kevin is in a one-of-kind position at the City of Seattle; he uses lasers to produce 3D images of physical environments.

Kevin got his start in laser scanning by working as a land surveyor at a private engineering firm for eight years before joining the City. He’s been at City Light for four years now, and in that time he’s put his laser to use on many projects.

In this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light, Kevin tells us how he got into laser scanning and exactly how it works.


Laser Scanning Technician Kevin Lidtka

“I got into surveying because it was outdoors and it seemed like an exciting thing to do; it’s not a cookie-cutter job. I was working as a surveyor out the field when I saw my first laser scanner, and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Today I map City Light’s assets with a 3D laser scanner, which is a survey tool that accurately maps everything its sees within a thousand feet.”

“The scanner sits on a tripod because it is a big heavy piece of equipment. It’s like a camera, I suppose… And calling it a 3D camera is the easiest way to explain it. I really enjoy photography and art, and the same eye for composition that you need for photography is what’s needed for laser scanning. Everything you can see, it sees,” said Kevin.

“The scanner shoots a laser beam out and spins it around with a mirror. It’s just a single line, but that line maps every surface that it touches with a single point. Those points create a 3D point cloud.”

“Once it’s done scanning, I drop the point cloud into a computer program where you can look at it. You can view the scan in 3D and spin it all around, zoom in and out and examine things all the way down to one millimeter. This is useful in all sorts of ways.”

“For example, I’ve been going to Boundary Dam for four years now. Over time, I’ve built a point cloud of all the facilities there. Since it has about a millimeter accuracy, we know the exact dimensions of every space. If they want to add a building, they know what to avoid. If they need to move equipment, they know their clearances. It’s perfect for any task which calls for the knowledge of what fits where.”

“Here’s another example: In the last four months, I’ve set up at the exact same spot every time I visit Boundary to get a really good vantage of the face of the dam. I scan the face and then overlay that data with the last version. Over time, this will tell us how the dam expands when it’s really hot or contracts when it’s really cold. We will be able to animate the data and watch the dam ’breathe.’ That data goes to the Dam Safety group, of course.”

“It takes someone willing to think outside of the box to jump onboard with laser scanning. It’s a powerful tool, and City Light has given me the platform to produce some amazing things. Laser scanning is starting to become well-known, and I imagine in the future it is going to be in even greater demand.”
If you want to find out more about Kevin Lidtka or laser scanning, read Kevin’s posts at xyHt magazine or visit his YouTube channel to see animated scans.

Seattle City (spot)Light: Ruben Diaz

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Ruben Diaz came to Washington to find a sasquatch: Squatch from the Seattle Supersonics, specifically. The man who played Squatch was a family friend who moved to the Seattle area from Ruben’s home in the rural, open land of southern New Mexico.

When Ruben was ready for a change, he followed suit. Since he had been employed as a journeyman lineworker at the Otero County Electric Coop while in the Land of Enchantment, getting a job at City Light was a natural choice when he arrived.

These days, Ruben lives in Snoqualmie on 1.5 acres–plenty of room for his horse to roam. He’s worked at City Light for eight years, and in that time he’s climbed the career ladder to his current position as overhead crew coordinator for the North Service Center.

In this week’s Seattle City (spot)light, Ruben talks about his journey to the Seattle area and his crucial job function at City Light.


Overhead Crew Coordinator Ruben Diaz (r) and Tatum (l), his daughter and cowgirl-in-training

“Me and Squatch were friends in school, and he moved up here first. My brother-in-law followed, and I came up here a couple of times to visit. My journeyman lineworker card was a ticket out of New Mexico, so I thought I’d give Washington a try.”

“Basically what I do is review every overhead job. Overhead work is just what is sounds like. It includes everything from setting poles to connecting the equipment on the poles themselves,” said Ruben.

“Any overhead job for the North service area comes to my desk. I review it for mistakes, check for materials to be available, order poles, get locations for digging and make sure permits are accurate and ready. Then I go out into the field to do a visual inspection before coordinating with supervisors to assign a crew.”

“There are three people at City Light who do the same job I do. These three desks are hubs, and during outages everything comes back to us. If crews need something, they pick up the phone and we get to their requests right away. Crews also tell us what they see—poles broken, wires on the ground, etc.—and we get that information to dispatch and keep supervisors informed. We do all of this while we’re also coordinating with crews down south.”

“I came on as a journeyman lineman, and I was on an overhead crew that did jobs with large scopes then. But it wasn’t until I got this job that I really started to see all the piece of the puzzle come together.”

“As a lineman, you get in the mode of seeing the task at hand. In my seat, you see that there’s a lot of work that goes into getting the entire crew to the point where they can accomplish a task. There’s a lot of people involved.”

“It never ceases to amaze me, what people can do when they have the tools and the resources they need to accomplish something.”

Seattle City (spot)Light: Uzma Siddiqi

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Uzma Siddiqi believes our destiny is ours to create. As she puts it, “20% is what happens to you and 80% is what you make of it.” In her 14 years at Seattle City Light as a principal electric power system engineer, she has seized her opportunity to work towards long-term change.

Uzma obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University. During her tenure at City Light, she has worked with City Light’s Transmission and Distribution Planning, Engineering Standards, and Customer Service teams before landing in her current position as the principal engineer for Technology Innovation on City Light’s solar resiliency microgrid project.

In this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light, Uzma talks about the benefits of taking a long-term view on major projects.

Technology Innovation Principal Engineer Uzma Siddiqi

“At a municipal utility, you can act in the public good. That works for my values. I’ve been in the private sector before, and I know about the financial constraints of working quarter to quarter,” said Uzma.

“When you’re constantly working toward an immediate bottom line, you don’t always do the things that make the most sense in the long term. At City Light, we tend to think and work in a bigger arc.”

“I do things that (hopefully) make the world a better place for somebody. I don’t need to worry about the minutiae of ‘this quarter, we only made this much money… What are we going to cut next quarter?’ I like that City Light has a longer vision. We are thinking about the public and making sure we do good work on their behalf.”

“Early on, when I started at City Light, I worked on the Sound Transit line. That helps people be mobile and as traffic has gotten worse we have seen the benefit. Providing power to that system in an equitable way was important.”

“The transmission planning work we do makes sure we have power available for our system, and providing reliable power to our customers is crucial. We do our studies and when we see weaknesses we take care of them.”

“Microgrids are another example of looking at the long term. We are working on a resilient solar microgrid community project- basically, a community center that will continue to stay energized, even after a catastrophic event like an earthquake.”

“It’s hard to know what will work in the long run, but you must try. If you don’t play the long game, you will only achieve short gains.”

Seattle City (spot)Light: Christopher Peguero

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Christopher Peguero is in a unique position at City Light, one that was born from his motivation to provide a voice for under-represented groups in our community. As City Light’s environmental equity advisor, Christopher uses the City’s Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI) as a tool to implement a culture shift in the way that City Light does business. As the founder of the City of Seattle’s SEqual affinity group, Christopher also advocates workplace equality for all City employees, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

Christopher has been with City Light for 10 years, and he holds a degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. He lives in Beacon Hill with his husband Anthony Potter and their children Alexander and Adela. In this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light, Christopher talks about how (and why) issues of equity became the focus of his job.


Environmental Equity Advisor Christopher Peguero (foreground) with his husband Anthony Potter and their children Adela and Alexander.

“Race and social justice, equity and engagement have always been central to my work in the environmental sector. I wanted to deepen my knowledge of how you do that work, especially in a large municipality. When I began my work at the City, I spent three years on the City of Seattle Race and Social Justice Initiative Core Team.”

“I’m a multi-racial person; I’m of Mexican and Native American and European descent. I am also gay. In my work with the RSJI team, I asked the question ‘How does LGBTQ equity fit in with the City’s RSJI policy?’ The answer was that the City leads with race,” said Christopher.

“Race is most central to addressing institutional oppression since it is central to historical inequity in the United States.  I feel that an inclusive model is the only way that we will ever reach collective liberation from institutional oppression. I wanted to bring LGBTQ concerns to the table too, so I started the City’s LGBTQ affinity group, SEqual. SEqual has been around for seven years now.”

“Later, I proposed a three-year pilot program at City Light looking at environmental justice issues, because I wanted to integrate the work that RSJI was doing into City Light’s environmental work. Simultaneously, the mayor came out with the Equity & Environment Agenda, so that dovetailed nicely. My proposal was accepted and now we are looking at how to make it a permanent program.”

“Traditionally, the environmental sector has been led by white, affluent folks, and often this work tended to benefit that same demographic, not necessarily by intention but because that’s how it evolved and who was at the table.”

“My focus is working with tribes, immigrant and refugee communities, people of color, low-income and limited English proficient communities. Environmental equity looks at developing pathways of opportunities towards employment in the environmental sector and towards influencing environmental policies that have traditionally not centered the needs of these demographics.”

“Now the environmental movement (at least in Seattle) is having a deeper conversation about what inclusion and engagement looks like. The question we’re asking is ‘as we are addressing environmental issues, is there a way to look at disparity as part of the puzzle? Is there a way that all people can share the benefits of environmental progress?”

“We are proudly committed to our work in the environment and conservation at City Light, but there is a need for environmental equity too. There is an opportunity for City Light to lead in the energy sector around this work.”

“We have a strong RSJI program along with the mayor’s Equity & Environment Agenda, and with these two policy commitments at City Light, I believe we have a structured foundation to move toward positive outcomes for communities that have not traditionally been invited to the table.”

“It’s rare for anyone to find a position that really calls to them and all of their passions, and I am incredibly grateful to have found a role doing exactly that at City Light.”

Seattle City (spot)Light: Leigh Barreca

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Leigh Barreca is the Strategic Planning project manager in the Power Supply and Strategic Planning business unit, a position she attained after 26 years of service at the utility. After joining City Light in 1990, Leigh spent her first 26 years in the information technology group and the Corporate Performance Division.

Leigh received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Idaho and her MBA from the University of Washington. In between her college stints, she spent three years in the Peace Corps, an experience that exemplifies her love of travel and volunteerism and which she was happy to discuss for the Seattle City (spot)Light.

 

Strategic Planning Project Manager Leigh Barreca

 

“I come from a quite conservative family in Idaho, and much of what I heard in those surroundings didn’t ring true to me. I was always seeking a voice to describe my own belief system. Going to college in Idaho didn’t expand my world much,” said Leigh.

“My mother often talked about how she wished she had gone into the Peace Corps. Her father was in the Air Force and so she had traveled a lot as a child. Even though we didn’t travel much as a family, my mother always talked about travel in a way that made me think I might like to do it. At some point in college during my last semester, I saw an ad for the Peace Corps so I applied,” said Leigh.

“I was one of the first Peace Corps volunteers from the University of Idaho. I decided to apply in February and was on a plane to Gabon in June. I was an English major, but I had a minor in secondary education and French, so I was the perfect person to send to French-speaking Africa to teach English.”

“When I got to the Peace Corps, I realized that I’d had a sheltered upbringing. That blew the doors open for me. I spent two years in Gabon before I heard about a new Peace Corps program in West Africa that involved training African English teachers. I ended up in Togo traveling around the region on a motorcycle, holding workshops on teaching techniques.”

“I’ve always felt like you should help people if you can, in areas that you feel are important. And that’s led me to become a lifelong volunteer. Recently I’ve worked for Catholic community services at a downtown women’s shelter and now I’m finishing up my fourth term on the board of a social service agency on Bainbridge Island.”

“It’s really important to me to work on things that I believe in. I’m proud of the fact that I work for a city and an organization whose values largely reflect my own.”

Seattle City (spot)Light: Toni LeClare

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Antoinette (Toni) LeClare is a woman who saw an opportunity at Seattle City Light and seized it. As a hydroelectric operator, she is something of a rare breed; very few women have made a career out of the work she does.

Toni is quick to credit pioneers like Heidi Durham and Megan Cornish with paving the way for women in electrical trades at City Light, but despite her modesty Toni remains a ground breaker at the utility. After almost 34 years at City Light’s Skagit Hydroelectric Project, Toni has proven herself to be persistent, tough and very good at her job.

Toni’s work ethic has been rewarded with a leadership position. She is currently working as an out of class generation supervisor, one of five supervisors at the Skagit Project. In this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light, Toni talks about her career in the electricity-generating business.

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OOC Generation Supervisor Toni LeClare

I came to work for Seattle City Light because they invited women into the workforce, just like the RSJI initiative today is trying to make our workforce look like the community at large. It’s flattering to me that people think of me as someone who broke ground for other women (and I probably was to some extent), but there were women before me who really took risks. They were very politically-minded and outspoken and really opened the doors for other women to come to work here.

Now women are supervisors, crew chiefs, lineworkers, operators or anything they want to be. But in my career, I’ve only known two other women who were hydro operators.

I am a high school graduate, with two years of college. I was working at an aluminum plant in Vancouver, WA, where I was apprenticing with the electrical maintenance crew when I got laid off. I had only been in the program for one year, but the aluminum company continued to pay for my school after I got laid off.

Minimal qualifications for applying for my City Light job were two years’ experience or the equivalent. City Light considered my time working at the aluminum plant in combination with my schooling in order to qualify me to take the test. I did well on the test and I must have had some OK interviews, because I got hired and started as a hydro operator in 1983.

It was challenging when I came to work at the Skagit Project. Operator jobs are very sought after, and I took a lot of flak. There was a rumor mill going that said I hadn’t passed my test and lots of other things. I had to overcome people’s preconceived notions about me. I thought about leaving, but I’m pretty stubborn. The harder it got, the more determined I became to stick it out.

So it was difficult for me at first. When you’re an operator, you eat, sleep and breathe the job. My son was eight years old when I started working in Newhalem, and I was a single parent. The operating job is very demanding of your time. When he was playing sports in school and I was working all these weird shifts, I still made it out to support him.

I lived in the camp for 27 years and responded to callouts during that time. I’m proud of the fact that I would go out by myself, in the in the middle of the night and the worst weather imaginable, to respond to a bad situation. I was in the volunteer fire department for 20 years and I was an EMT for 13, so most people see me as very competent. I have a sense of accomplishment about that, and it gives me confidence.

The way I look at things, if you have an interest, you pursue it. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the traditional jobs women have had over the years. My mother was a very good secretary, but I always knew I didn’t want to do what she did. When you have an opportunity, you can either make the best of it or let it pass you by. Now I make a very good living here.

I get along with men really well, but that doesn’t mean that I look at things the same way men do. And I don’t keep my mouth shut if something needs to be said. I hope my presence here brings some balance. I really care about what happens here, and I’m emotionally involved.

The most satisfying things in life are often not the easiest ones. I don’t think I am anything special; I just take things one day at a time and put one foot in front of the other. If I’m anything, I’m persistent.

Seattle City (spot)Light: Benjamin Rushwald

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Benjamin Rushwald plays an important role at City Light; he’s the Interim Director of Technology Innovation, a division that is preparing the utility for the future. Ben has both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering (from the University of Colorado and University of Washington, respectively), so he has plenty of know-how to back his career in technological innovation.

Ben has also spent lots of time putting his knowledge to good use some 4,000 miles away from Seattle in Nicaragua, where he has been organizing communities and volunteering his time for over a decade. In this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light, we talk with Ben about how his volunteerism led him to find his passion and a family to call his own.

BR2Ben Rushwald working on reforestation in Nicaragua

“The ex-pat community is small in Nicaragua, and on my second trip to the country I met a Scottish woman who was living in a small community there. They were suffering under significant drought. They had lost a lot of livestock and people were getting sick from a lack of clean water. She had a goal and a plan to put in a water system, but needed to build infrastructure and a system for it. The community was also off the electric grid, which made things even more challenging.”

“She had a vision, but she didn’t have any technical knowledge. She reached out to me and said “hey, you’re an engineer…” and when I told her I am not a civil engineer, she said “but you’re an engineer, c’mon!” so I agreed to take part in the plan. I worked with a retired Canadian engineer who lived in Managua, the capital, and he played a key role in supporting me during the design of a solar powered water distribution system. I worked with the community to build the system and the community politics around how they would run their own water utility. I was only planning to be in Nicaragua for year, but one year quickly turned into two when I met my future wife.”

“I was staying in the town of Achuapa, which is a village of about 4,000 people in the department of Leon. I was the only American there, and nobody in the community spoke English. That was part of my goal. I didn’t want to be lost in the big city; I wanted to be somewhere small where I could assimilate and be part of the community, which would force me to speak Spanish,” said Ben.
“I met my wife in Achuapa. My Spanish was already improving, but my romantic interest in her provided a big incentive towards learning the language. She’s an amazing person. She was the first in her community to go to college, and she did it on her own. She came from a very rural, farm-based setting. Her parents didn’t understand why a woman would need to go to college. She fought tooth and nail to educate and support herself.”

“Family is very important in Nicaraguan culture, and we go back all the time. The time I spend working on even small projects brings me so much satisfaction… I just love doing it and it has become my passion.”

“My wife and I also started a nonprofit called the Nicaragua Educational Scholarship Fund. Education through high school in Nicaragua is free, but there are still a lot of barriers, particularly for people from rural areas. It can take hours to walk to get to the nearest school. The cost of travel, food for the day, things like that are barriers that can stop kids from attending class.”

“We provide the financial means to overcome those barriers for rural Nicaraguans. We ask the students who receive support from the organization to give back to their community through reforestation projects, and support the elderly with things like washing their clothes by hand on rocks as washing machines are not available.”

“In some ways, you could say volunteering in Nicaragua is a thing I am doing for myself. I enjoy the interactions and the warmth of the people in the community. Those bonds, those relationships with people, are what matter and what has made me the person I am today.”

Seattle City (spot)Light: Barb Haight and Kelly Regan

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Visitors to the town of Newhalem in the North Cascades inevitably end up in the Skagit General Store, a welcoming supply point in that rugged locale for nearly a century. Newhalem was established as a company town in 1917 by Seattle City Light. Shortly afterward, the general store opened to provide food and supplies to City Light’s workforce in Newhalem and later to the nearby hamlet of Diablo. Over the last 95 years, the Skagit General Store evolved from a company store to a public operation, offering food, dry goods and its highly-regarded fudge to the populace. In the summer, 180 pounds of fudge are sold there every week!

If you’ve visited the Skagit General Store in the last decade, you’ve most likely met one of two unofficial ambassadors for City Light behind the counter. Barb Haight, the store keeper, has worked there for 11 years; Kelly Regan, the store clerk, has worked in the store for nine. The duo has known each other since grade school, and their respect and affection for one another is infectious; the mood inside the Skagit General Store is usually jovial and warm. We caught up with Barb and Kelly for this week’s Seattle City (spot)Light.

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Store Keeper Barb Haight and Store Clerk Kelly Regan

Barb: “The store opened in July 1922. It started as a commissary. Employees would call the store and have meat cut to their specifications and the meat would be delivered to their homes. Bread was sold in the store, which is why old timers still refer to visiting the store as going on a ‘bun run.’”

Kelly: “My grandfather Elvie Barnett retired from the store. He was the store keeper in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and he actually lived in J.D. Ross’ old house in Diablo. As a kid, I thought it was a huge home, and I used to ride my tricycle around the wrap-around porch. When I went back as an adult, it seemed so little! Of course, when I was a kid I had no idea of the uniqueness of the place.”

“I happened to be in Newhalem for my birthday one year, and I ran into Barb in the store. Not much had changed. A picture that I remembered from my childhood was still on the wall. I told her that if she ever needed somebody, I would be happy to work there!”

Barb: “I took her up on it. Sure, we went to school together in Concrete, and we had kept up with each other through our kids (our daughters are the same age), but we reconnected over this place. Now they call us Thelma and Louise.”

Kelly: “We really take pride in our job here. We love our customers and we have built quite a clientele. The store has history for lots of people, going all the way back to the Dam Good Chicken Dinner which has always been served next door [at the Gorge Inn] for tours. Now we are known for our fudge. Some people come through once or twice a week.”

Barb: “Some only come through once or twice a year, but we are always happy to help them, and they often remember us. We want people to feel at home. As far as we are concerned, we’re the face of City Light here. The first place any visitor to Newhalem goes is to the general store. When we get questions about why Seattle City Light is in the North Cascades, we get out a placemat that explains the dams and what’s going on up here.”

Kelly: “We’re always trying to build a connection with our visitors. I think the friendly atmosphere and the history of the place makes it something special.  And Barb and I do good work together. I love my job and what we do here. I’m employed by the city of Seattle, but I get to work in this gorgeous place! How cool is that?”