In a 31-year career filled with twists and turns, Ginger Dean’s path has come full circle, with engineering bringing her back home to the Dothan area.
After she earned an electrical engineering degree at Auburn University, Dean began her Alabama Power career at Farley Nuclear Plant in Dothan. It’s a small coincidence that Dean worked at Plant Farley seven years, then served in seven other positions around the state, finally returning to her old stomping grounds in January 2009.
It is at her home turf – serving as Power Delivery-Distribution manager at Alabama Power’s Enterprise Business Office in Southeast Division – where Dean is making strides in readying the next generation of employees. Dean, who is among the company’s 86 female Power Delivery engineers, is keen on spurring young people into the field.
It’s part of Dean’s supervisory role to consider hiring needs. To provide reliable electricity now and in the future, Alabama Power must hire well-trained employees to perform highly technical work.
To that end, Dean was among a small group of employees who represented Alabama Power March 9-10 at the Southeast Worlds of Work (WOW) career expo in Dothan. The team discussed engineering and utility work with eighth-grade and high-school students. Along with employees from four other utilities, Dean and her team talked one-on-one with students.
“We had about 3,000 students come through,” Dean said. “I shared with our folks who were supporting WOW, ‘Are we going to make a difference in 3,000 lives? Absolutely not, but we might make a difference in one or two.’”
Her organization recently interviewed a young man for a utility assistant internship who attended the WOW event in the eighth grade. He told the committee that what he learned at WOW played a big part in leading him to pursue a career at Alabama Power.
“So, there’s one person that we or another utility have touched along the way, and it did impact their position, so I thought that was pretty cool,” Dean said.
A few days after the WOW event, Dean hit the “career circuit” again, bringing home to Eufaula High School students the importance of career planning. Dean wants to steer young people interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) to explore engineering or electric-utility work, which will allow them to launch a promising career in a few years.
Dean’s message to students is to prepare for their futures – the sooner, the better.
“We’re finding that as we’re reaching out and engaging with students at a younger age, they’re oftentimes not in a position to look that far ahead, but at least they’re able to mentally explore and compare their likes and dislikes,” Dean said. “It might plant some seeds as to what their future career may look like.”
At WOW and during her visit to Eufaula High School, Dean engaged with students and tried to “drum up” discussions to help them understand the myriad opportunities offered by the electric-utility industry.
“I take great satisfaction in the career I’ve chosen,” she said.
While growing up in South Carolina, Dean leaned toward the technical side, with math and science as favorite subjects. Her father graduated from Auburn University (then called Alabama Polytechnic Institute) with an Agriculture Engineering degree in 1953.
“I always admired my dad and he always encouraged my sister and I to get an education where we could provide for ourselves,” Dean said. “He was my encourager, and my mother as well. I didn’t fully know what engineering discipline I wanted to go into, but I did stick with electrical. Secretly, though, I want to be a mechanical engineer,” she added, with a hearty laugh.
With family members in Ozark, she attended Wallace Community College in Dothan for two years. Dean followed in her father’s footsteps to Auburn University, often tutoring students in calculus until she graduated.
Dean’s great uncle, Albert Smith, was one of Alabama Power’s early linemen. Born in Ozark in 1914, Smith worked at the company during the World War II era and beyond.
“Tradition has it that he hung the first transformer at what is now Fort Rucker, as well as at Napier Field,” Dean said, recalling the construction of Dale County’s aviation training ground, where the nation’s first military pilots began advanced training more than 80 years ago.
“I would give anything to be able to sit down with my uncle today and talk to him,” Dean added, with a wistful air. “I’d love to gather up a bunch of my foremen and listen to my uncle tell what it was like to work as an Alabama Power lineman in the 1930s through the 1960s.”
With this long family legacy, it is not surprising that Dean focuses on helping train and develop Alabama Power’s future employees. In her present role, she hires and works with many up-and-coming utility assistants.
“As you develop in your career, you see the need to give back, and see how important the mentoring component is to these younger individuals who maybe are already starting out in their career or who are still trying to hone in on that career,” Dean said. “Just being able to broaden their view about various career paths and spur them to see beyond the immediate, that’s very needed.”
Dean is grateful for the many growth opportunities the company has provided. She has worked in Power Delivery-Distribution in Tuscaloosa; in Commercial Marketing in Birmingham Division; took a short rotation through Distribution Engineering Services at Corporate Headquarters; served in her first Engineering supervisor job in Wetumpka; and was an Engineering supervisor in Montgomery, followed by Prattville, until she took her present position.
Strengthening her community
A longtime member of the company’s volunteer arm, the Alabama Power Service Organization (APSO), Dean has taken part in numerous community projects in the Wiregrass area. She enjoys going Christmas shopping for older residents and helping with other projects for APSO’s Southeast/Farley Chapter.
“I have a heart for teachers, aides and all of those folks who constantly give of themselves to help our children and others in the community to feel special, important and valued, as they are,” Dean said.
Two community events tug at Dean’s heartstrings: the Special Olympics and the Buddy Walk, where hundreds gather at the National Peanut Festival Fairgrounds in Dothan to support individuals with Down syndrome.
Dean’s son, Andrew Hamm, who was a high-functioning special-needs student, took part in the Special Olympics. Supporting Andrew, now 25, was a family affair. Dean and her eldest son, Joshua, uplifted and congratulated Andrew after the track-and-field contest.
“I have probably dedicated a little more of my APSO time toward these types of events,” Dean said. “It makes your day. All kinds of things can be going on at work and you’re pulled in a million directions, but as soon as you walk into Special Olympics bowling or attend track-and-field day, you are met with kids and adults who are overjoyed to see you and are just so excited to be there.
“It makes all of these things – these other concerns and anxieties – kind of melt away, in the moment,” Dean said. “It’s a ‘time out’ and it’s really refreshing. They do a lot more for me than I could ever do for them. It was a lot of fun, and I was glad I got to participate.”
She finds real satisfaction in supporting a group of employees who are invested in one another and the communities they serve. Serving others “doesn’t have to be a big, grandiose thing,” Dean noted – it is more about letting others know they aren’t forgotten.
“Serving in APSO is a very good reminder about our company,” Dean said, “that it has offered us a phenomenal career and a way to provide so well for our families, and the need to be good stewards of those blessings, of providing and helping our communities.”
Dean finds contentment in helping others
Dean feels fortunate to work in a job – and for a company – that makes a real difference for others, every day.
“I can truly say that I take great satisfaction in the career I’ve chosen,” Dean said. “I couldn’t be prouder of our organization – lots of hard work and long hours. From a customer service and reliability standpoint, Southeast Division continues to rank extremely high – No. 1, as matter of fact – in reliability.
“It takes a lot of daily pounding the pavement to do what it takes to try to manage that,” she added. “I could not ask to serve alongside a more committed group of people, both to the success of our business but also in serving our community, where we see our customers as neighbors and friends.”
(Courtesy of Alabama NewsCenter)
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