To quote a line from the original Transformer movie franchise: There is a mystical bond between man and machine.

Walk into the Electric Shop at the Co-op and you’ll find people who understand this. Our real-life repair heroes can transform equipment from the battered into the operational. While not every transformer, regulator or recloser you see on the line can be restored, hundreds of pieces of equipment can be revived, reenergized.

“Our motto in the Electric Shop is: It’s not broke until we say it’s broke,” said Aaron Comeau, System Electrician I.

Aaron started out in collections at the Meter Shop and has been in the Electric Shop for about three years. John Ames, a 13-year Co-op veteran, started as a mechanic at the garage and worked there for eight years there before moving over to the Electric Shop as a System Electrician I. A few months ago, Mark Monahan hung up his boots after almost 30 years as a Lineworker First Class and moved over to the shop as a System Electrician 2.

Together they have transported their hands-on experience and knowledge from other Co-op departments and roles to working their mechanical magic and sensibilities in the shop, which, among restoring other equipment, puts an average of 30 to 40 transformers back in circulation each year. Their talents and expertise come back to the membership each year, as the shop saves tens of thousands of dollars putting equipment back into circulation and not at the expense of reliability or safety.

“It’s kind of a combination of using your mind to figure out the problem and determining that you can fix it and then using a little bit of brawn to get the job done. It’s just satisfying when you fix something and get it back out on the line,” Aaron said.

John agreed, saying, “We like to make it look good and make it work again.”