FLORENCE-Richard Morrissey, Senior Department Leader and Manager of the Florence Electricity Department, is announcing his retirement after 46 years of service to the community. Mayor Steve Holt has officially accepted his letter of retirement, effective in December of 2019. Mayor Holt said, “Richard has been an outstanding Department Leader. He made Florence a model for other cities as a leader who embraces technology and efficiency. He has dedicated his career to the City for almost half of a century! We appreciate his service to Florence and Lauderdale County and wish him God’s blessings as he moves forward.”
In 1973, Richard Morrissey began his career at the Florence Electricity Department as an 18-year-old co-op student from Auburn University. He learned about the job opening through his friend and colleague, Chip Rasch, who was already a Florence Electricity co-op student. Morrissey earned his Electrical Engineering degree in 1977 and was then hired by the Electricity Department Manager, Howard McClanahan, as a full-time engineer. He achieved his Professional Engineering status in 1981.
Reflecting on how the Electricity Department has changed and progressed in the last 46 years, Morrissey recalls the following about the early days: “In 1973, the dispatch center consisted of a 150-square-foot room with one desk, a green peg board covered with orange electrical tape representing high voltage lines, and white buttons to indicate the power switches. There were no roads shown on the maps. This was before 911 addresses were established and very few county roads were numbered. It is hard to imagine how we managed to dispatch crews to outages in a storm without mapping technology.”
Milestones
As the largest City department, Florence Electricity is responsible for the distribution of electricity purchased from TVA and the maintenance of more than 2,500 miles of powerlines operating throughout Lauderdale County. Its 180 employees are on call continuously, regardless of the weather conditions or the time of day. With the help of his employees, Morrissey has kept the Department on the leading edge of technology.
- In 1977, a new dispatch room was built. It was a much larger area, containing plexiglass covered road maps on the walls with color-coded tape to represent the high voltage lines.
- In 1984, Florence Electricity began staffing the dispatch center 24-hours-a-day.
- In 1987, a computer system (SCADA) was installed to give dispatchers instant feedback concerning problems at substations and also allowed them to control substation equipment from the main office.
- In 1999, a Geographic Information System (GIS) project was launched to collect the location of every piece of equipment installed on the electrical system (poles, transformers, lines, and meters). The data collection took three years to complete. UNA Geography Department interns were trained to use special GPS receivers connected on mobile computers to collect this data from more than 250,000 locations in Lauderdale County. The GIS data allowed dispatchers and engineers to operate and maintain the electrical system much more efficiently and included an outage management module which enabled customers to report outages on up to 24 telephone lines.
- In 2011, the new “Dispatch Bunker” at Reeder Street was constructed with rebar reinforced 12-inch concrete blocks, a solid concrete roof, backup generators, and a secure server room for computers. This bunker was designed to withstand an F4+
- In 2015, the legacy GIS system was converted to a new state-of-the-art system called Milsoft Dispatch which offers the following:
- Increased customer telephone lines from 24 to 48 for reporting outages or problems with their service
- Recognition of the customer’s telephone number to instantly report service problems
- Automatic plotting of the customer service location on the dispatcher’s computer monitor
- Prediction of the upstream breaker or tripped fuse
- A real-time outage map for customers http://florenceelectricityoutage.com/
Biggest Challenges
- Hurricane Frederic, September 1979
- Ice Storm, February 1994
- Wind Storm, June 1998
- Ice Storm, Christmas 1998
What Does the Future Hold?
The next step for Florence Electricity is the installation of an Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. The benefits of AMI include:
- Notifying dispatchers automatically of service
- Remote meter reading
- Remote connect and disconnect services
- The option of pre-pay, allowing customers to have real-time information and control of their energy usage and cost
- The option of time of use rates so customers can realize savings during peak usage periods
The City of Florence is proud to recognize Richard Morrissey for his 46 years of service to the citizens of Florence and Lauderdale County. He has been instrumental in paving the way for the successful future of our electrical operations.
Media Release/Rachel Mansell/City of Florence Mayor’s Office/Media & Outreach
