Employee of the Month > October

October’s Employee of the Month has played a critical role in, quite literally, energizing our communities.

Sarah Mayo, Professional Engineer, was key to the electrical design for two of the PUD’s brand-new substations, Twin City (energized 2022) and Sky Valley (energized 2023). Sarah provided exceptional design and coordination that allowed those projects to remain on track despite supply-chain issues seen across the industry.

“We have five Strategic Priorities here at the PUD, and Sarah’s exemplary work greatly contributes to meeting all five,” said Guy Payne, Assistant General Manager Distribution and Engineering. “Her efforts on the Sky Valley and Twin City Substations not only bolstered operational reliability and resiliency in those communities, but it helped us deliver important value for our customers into the future. I want to express my gratitude for Sarah’s contributions to her team, the PUD, and to the customers we work so hard to serve every day.”

Our rate payers have benefited tremendously from Sarah’s efforts. New substations provide additional reliability to our electrical system allowing customers to have the peace of mind of knowing that their power is safe and reliable. In addition to benefitting our customers, Sarah never hesitates to go the extra mile to support her Team PUD colleagues. She is known for taking on additional responsibility and assisting others, whether answering questions or helping to figure out a complex engineering design.

“Sarah has played a key role in developing improved substation processes and designs, including revising outdated Substation Engineering Design and Construction Standards,” said Bob Anderson, Manager Substation Engineering. “It doesn’t matter how busy she is handling complex new Substation projects; she will always lend a hand to assist the department as a whole or help out a colleague.”

“It feels really good to create a design, issue drawings, and, magically, by the efforts of our superb crews, projects get built into something that I can point out to my family and say, ‘that’s something I worked on!’

Sarah is recognized by her colleagues as someone always willing to go above and beyond when assisting others. She consistently provides high quality, cost-effective and timely substation engineering and project management. Her attention to detail in her electrical design supports Substation Engineering’s mission statement of providing a safe and reliable electric system that is valued by our customers.

“Sarah has a high work ethic and positive attitude,” said JeVon’e Sims, Engineer. “She is a great communicator and makes herself consistently available to anyone who needs her help. She is highly respected by Substation Engineering as well as Substation Construction.”

Often what sets our Employees of the Month apart is their genuine passion for the work they do and the customers they serve, whether internal, external or both. With Sarah, it is no different.

“I love the design work that I do here,” said Sarah. “It feels really good to create a design, issue drawings, and, magically, by the efforts of our superb crews, projects get built into something that I can point out to my family and say, ‘that’s something I worked on!’ It feels so good to work for a utility and know that I’m helping build something that is strictly beneficial to our customers. The other reason working at the PUD is so great is that all my teammates, and most everyone else I’ve worked with, has the same passion for doing the best job that we can. Everyone on my team loves to help each other, we can ask each other questions about any problem, and I really feel welcome every day I come in to work. When I need to coordinate outside of my department, I see that same energy for wanting to get the project done in the best way possible, and it’s a huge morale boost that everyone at the PUD is on the team.”