As he readies to retire this Thanksgiving week, Bob West, an energy counselor and Clark Public Utilities employee for 33 years, checks his phone messages. The woman’s voice at the other end was full of emotion. She’d heard of his retirement. She wondered who she was going to call for energy advice now, because West had handled her questions for many years. Finally she gathered herself up and, apologizing for her emotion, wished him a happy retirement. “It’s nice to hear that I’ve had that kind of impact on a person’s life,” West says, then picks up the phone to call her back.
As an energy counselor, West’s job meant going into customers’ homes every day to help them find ways to cut energy waste and save money. Sometimes it was a simple fix such as switching out incandescent light bulbs for CFLs; other times it was more complex, like recommending new windows, or a more efficient heating and ventilation system.
You’d think a big bald guy like West wouldn’t have a dandruff problem, but his dusty shoulders are a hazard of the job. Even with his broad shoulders, he’s able to wriggle around tight spaces in attics and crawlspaces on a daily basis, leaving his shoulders covered with flecks of wood shavings, sheet rock or insulation. He jokingly refers to his “energy review dandruff” as he brushes it away.
West recently went out on two of his last in-home energy reviews. The first was a large Camas home. The woman living there was having trouble figuring out why her electric bill was so high. As he entered her home, he pulled on the shoe covers he always sports inside a home before he started to work. The woman’s two dogs tried to distract him, but experience has prepared him for almost anything. He pulled a couple doggie treats from his clipboard and for the rest of the appointment, the dogs gnawed away while West worked. Down in the basement, he found the culprit. Unknowingly, the woman was heating her garage, causing her electric bill to shoot through the roof.
