A little history on Utility Innovations and Line-Man.com

In 2001 Wayne VanSoelen, author of Electrical Essentials for Power Line Workers and Field Manual for PowerLine Workers launched a website to promote his professional cause in the electric power industry. Wayne is a consultant to many Fortune 500 Power service providers through North America and other parts of the world providing risk management analysis and helps to implement standard operating procedures for effectively and safely getting power line work accomplished.

Through the years Wayne has served on multiple review panels and boards in assisting and developing training programs, instructional manuals and also assisted college educational institutional development for Northwest Lineman's College and the NAJTC.

In 2003, Robert Jackson and Dave Miles, both communication workers, launched a website that's initial purpose was small, basic function and intended to sell a few t-shirts here and there. A month into the venture a message board with discussions about utility trade work was installed on the site and with the help from lots of friends from across the country and selling quite a few t-shirts to help finance the site, Line-Man.com has developed into an online mecca where Power Lineworker, Telecom Technicians, Cable Contractors and Installers have grown to know as a fun place to stop by and chat with fellow workers of the trade. In less than 2 years, the sites message board has over 40,000 messages on the boards, literally thousands of photos, summary's on utility industry events as well as schedules to expo's and lineman rodeos throughout the US and Canada. In 2004, the site had over 30 million hits and 30 Million Pages viewed by human visitors. In 2005, the sites off to another record year, with the typical day hosting over 18,000 page views from 1,000 unique visitors from all over the world.

Like most of you Pole lines and utility work is our passion, so much so that Robert left his day job and has committed himself full time to managing the daily operations of the site.

The message board we host are a professionally moderated area, where no questions go unanswered and our 11 man/woman moderating team fuels the boards with a positive environment of industry and non industry conversations. We pride ourselves on making everyone's experience a fun one and encourage you to pass the word along about our site, as we are completely aware that tailgate discussions are our best means of advertising.

Also in 2004, Wayne became one of our moderators and has since provided top quality, lengthy posts regarding safe practices and procedures to getting jobs done effectively and safe. About 8 months into his tenor, Wayne, asked if we would like to take over the Utility Innovations site as he was excessively busy and looking to spend his spare time of planning his retirement. Within 2 weeks of taking over the site, Robert went to town re-developing aspects of the site the site was reborn in Jan of 2005.

Although the business plan has somewhat changed from Wayne's original site, a lot of the same content still exists. Resources such as links to lineman training schools & programs, instructional manuals for power line work, information new products developed by fellow line workers, and access to resources to utility industry content is still in full effect and will continue to exist.

Robert and Dave, have decided that UtilityInnovations.com will always' remain a resource zone and Line-Man.com will continue to be the leading message board community on the web for utility professionals.

A few more plans are in motion and should be completed in the next few months, so keep coming around and we won't sleep until we know you have everything Lineman at your fingertips in the Lineman Network were building for you.

Best Regards, Robert, Dave and Wayne