Andrea Morandi, please share your story with us. Why/how did you get into linework?
I was hired by Terna (The Italian electricity transmission operator) as Transmission Lineman at the end of December 2014. I jumped in a world I never knew. I had 2 month of courses about Power Lines, Substations, Regulations and Methods of Work at the Terna Campus in Rome. Now, after more than 6 years of experience in the field of High Voltage, and the world around it, I become a quite good lineman, committed to utilizing his skills to further the mission of a company.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road becomes smoother as you start to understand the difficulties of our job, and you learn how to solve them. That means experience.
I advise every apprentice lineman, to never get discouraged in the face of hardships, but to face them. Not all hard days have warm sunny skies.
Please tell us about your work in Italy and a bit more about yourself.
I do perform routine and overtime maintenance on power lines, replacing conductors, insulators, pylons and cutting trees. And also conducting regular inspections to check the health status of the power lines, other activities associated with transmission work.
I'm known to be an almost-international linesman. I speak and write English quite well. I keep myself informed about my "colleagues" working in various companies around the world, so that I can learn new ways to perform our jobs more productively or safely. And I love traveling.
I’m quite proud of Terna.
What do you feel are the biggest barriers today to lineman, in the industry or generally?
The barriers are always the same: old chiefs that never believe in new ways of working. Our industry can get a lot out of improving technology, it just has to look for it.
What is the craziest thing that has happened to you while working the line?
I was in the process of replacing a broken stockbridge. The pylon was shaking so badly that it was impossible to work. I couldn't disassemble the stockbridge until the conductor vibration subsided. This happened this year, working on a 132 kV line, in the wastelands of Ferrara.
Contact Info:
Instagram: andrea.morandi6
Facebook: the same
Other: andrea.morandi6 (on TikTok)