Federal Employee Spotlight: Phillip Farmer

(Federal Workers Alliance)

Phillip Farmer, vice president of Dardanelle, Ark., IBEW Local 2219, has worked in federal sector hydro-electric power plants for most of his life. 

“I feel proud to be here,” says Farmer, a power plant mechanic at the Greers Ferry Power Plant in the Little Rock District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where two 48,000-megawatt units supply electricity to tens of thousands of homes in several states served by the Southwest Power Association. 

Farmer, who began his career at the Tennessee Valley Authority and worked at a Colorado power plant run by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, has already seen massive downsizing in craft jobs leading to workers picking up new mechanical disciplines.  “We need to know what we are doing,” says Farmer, who serves on the Little Rock District Training Board.  “That’s why we have a four-year hydro training program.”  His duties include preventative maintenance, disassembly/assembly and rebuild of main units requiring skills such as machining, welding, pipefitting, millwright, along with  rigging and the operation of 200-ton cranes.

Located on the Little Red River, Greers Ferry Dam was completed in 1962 and dedicated by President John F. Kennedy  in 1963 only one month before his assassination.  Farmer, 52, who enjoys his time off work bass fishing on the 30,000-acre reservoir created by the dam, is concerned that federal budget cuts could result in cuts in preventative maintenance leading to units being run until failure, hampering the effectiveness of his three co-workers and superintendent in serving their surrounding communities and states with clean  green energy.

“We’re hard-working here and our power plant is self-sufficient.  We bring in the money for our salaries and put millions of surplus dollars back into the federal system.  We are proud to be Army civilians of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.”