Rising from the Ashes of Black Saturday

Rising from the Ashes of Black Saturday

The Black Saturday fires were still raging when Chris Garlick received the call from AusNet Services in February 2009. The situation was critical. Fires had hit the backbone of the grid and thousands of homes across central Victoria were without electricity. The energy company desperately needed all the resources they could mobilize to restore power.

When lives depended on it, Chris’ business was surprisingly well-equipped to deal with the crisis on hand.

ERP Power

Chris Garlick is a linesman and arborist by trade – 2 essential areas of expertise to assist power companies maintain the integrity of the powerline distribution network. He found his way into the energy industry by conducting risk assessments. If there were hollow trees that were going to fall on power lines, he’d be there to identify, fell the tree and stop the problem before it happened.

In 1999 he began to diversify on demand of the power companies. Chris purchased a cherry-picker, hired 2 linesmen with experience in infrastructure maintenance and started ERP Power.

An entrepreneur with a healthy appetite for business, Chris understood that the path of growth lay in high-value tenders. In order to qualify, ERP Power needed to have a Safety System in place. Chris went to a Management Consultant and bought one off the shelf, purely for the purposes of procuring work. The system ticked all the boxes and for several years was sufficient.

In the mid-2000s, a solid team of workers meant that ERP Power was seeing tremendous business growth. “We were winning businesses like crazy but the nature of operations were changing.” The nature of the industry was such that many of the best linesmen were out of work and ERP Power needed to be able to engage them as contractors.

For quality and safety assurance purposes, these contractors needed to work independently AND deliver consistent results in a high-risk scenario. The system desperately needed to be evolved and adapted to suit ERP Power’s needs, however Chris needed a consultant that would work closely to understand his business and develop specific systems.

Chris was forced to shop around for a management consultant. “PQMC built a Management System around what we did – to truly reflect our business operations and needs.”

Not only was their new system flexible, it was robust, met all their needs and, most importantly, their clients’ expectations. Where it usually gets burdensome from filling in details about Management Systems, ERP Power effectively provide their company overview and their price, churning out far more tenders than they would otherwise have been able to do without a Management System.

But the benefit of a comprehensive Management System goes far beyond merely winning jobs.

Walking On Fire

Pine Ridge Road was the convergence point of 3 major Black Saturday fires. It was here that ERP’s 8 crews were called back from Western Australia and Victoria and deployed to support the recovery effort.

None of men had any idea what to expect.

Past the checkpoint, the destruction was absolute. There was no sound. It was eerie. Smouldering vehicles lay everywhere. “You could see how crashes had happened when there was low visibility. You could see where people abandoned their cars and attempted to escape.” Where the rare patch of grass were spared, countless asphyxiated birds had dropped out of the sky.

No coroners had gone before them and Chris’ men had some difficult discoveries ahead.

While it was emotionally harrowing, the technicalities of the job were the ultimate challenge. The dangers were completely unpredictable and the crew had no manual to adequately prepare them. Things like burning asbestos was never in our OHS system because it was never a real risk. But while not exhaustive and scenario specific, thankfully ERP Power had a solid Management System and processes to fall back on. Enough elements were in place for a safe and measured approach.

8 crews conducted careful risk assessments over 2 days. Some dangers were impossible to predict. Walking through what seemed like a flat surface of thick ash could actually turn fatal as holes, drops in the roads and sharp objects were masked.

After months of rebuilding and restoration, ERP Power emerged from the ashes a stronger team. And while they today are regularly called upon for other post-disaster jobs including storm event recovery.

The memory of the 2009 fires and the way in which ERP was able to play their part to assist in the rebuild of vital infrastructure is still today something Chris can be proud of.

Punching Above Their Weight

Today, ERP Power’s house is in order. Their team of highly-skilled and competent workers are enabled to operate within an ever-evolving system that continues to train them annually, keep them safe daily and ensures consistent quality standards are met every step along the way.

“Grabbing a live 22,000 volt power line can be safe,” asserts Chris, “however you require safe systems and extensive training to make it so.”

Despite his confidence, Chris does not take safety for granted. He knows that you can do the right thing for 20 years and build a terrific business but you can lose everything you have built over just 1 incident. That is why a system needs to be there – to ensure every reasonable safety measure has been undertaken and to ensure as far as practicable that all employees return home safely each day.

“We pay a lot for insurance but you can’t insure against negligence. Following your system is your insurance against negligence.”

PQMC is proud to be associated with Chris Garlick and the team at ERP Power.