mr chairman judges of the no your city aeration contest ladies and gentlemen for the subject of my operation i have selected my company my father has one of the most important jobs in the city he's an overhead mine for the detroit edison count and while it is true that my dad's job is extremely important and my many many days of research throughout the various departments of the detroit edison company made me realize that there are other departments that can be considered almost as important as the overhead lines only get on the committee goes for that stuff about doing lots of research ever since the edison company was founded in eighteen eighty six it's applied low cost electricity for light and power to an ever growing list of customers today it serves more than three million people supplied ninety five percent of the power needed to run detroit great factory hi dad just practicing my speech for the operation content it's fine sounds pretty good is it all finished three quarters yes but nowadays everybody knows about that everybody knows that electricity lights the house makes the toast shave your face curls your hair wakes you up keeps you war heats the water cooks the  which is that even if everything in my house is run by what i call a silent servant electricity it only costs about thirty cents a day and for an average home it only costs eleven and a quarter cents a day see what i mean would have been ok but i've got a better idea i knew it what's the new idea it's based on this picture chart here you with the audience not try it out on you electricity made by the detroit edison company is the product of cone air and water these three elements are brought together in each of the company's four big steam power plants which are located on the waterfront and married still conner's creek trenton channel and del ray to produce electricity in one year alone almost three million tons of carefully selected high volatile coal are brought to the company plants by trains or boats then it's transported into the power plant where the coal is crushed and made ready for the giant boilers with their big furnace is some of these burn as much as twenty tons an hour in other words nearly one pound of coal is burned for every kilowatt hour that's generated and for every ton of college used the power plants pumped a thousand tonnes of river water these are the machines that actually make the electricity the amount of electricity generated in the companies for hydro power plants is relatively small actually less than one percent of the total next door to the big power plants are what is known as step up stations complicated structures of steel with transformers copper cables and heavy overhead lines the purpose is to raise the voltage or pressure of the electricity in order to most efficiently send it along its way over the miles and miles of high tension wires that carry the power to the cities towns and villages next the power is delivered to one of the company's twelve big step down transformer station naturally the voltage has to be reduced before it can be used in the farms factories stores and homes solve the big transformers when they step down stations reduce the voltage and again send the  on its way along the overhead lines and whenever necessary through the costly underground cable system then it goes to one of the neighborhood substations where the voltage is again reduced from here the electricity at proper voltage is distributed throughout the community naturally it takes a tremendous amount of specially quitman for the detroit edison company to supply an electric service to its millions of users and that leads me right into the next part of my r ation what do you have in the next part i found a lot of interesting information on the back of a company's magazine see now i want to talk about equipment for instance look at this the company has to start over fifteen thousand individual items these vary from a transformer that costs more than a house see dad there's a lot of good stuff here look at this one there's enough wire in the company overhead lines to go around the equator three times  and it takes three million five hundred thousand gallons of insulating oil to fill the company's transformers alone and look at this one more than five million trees have to be kept trimmed so they won't damage the overhead line and look at this one on the number of lamp bob wait a minute from is all this the kind of stuff you're going to have in your speech sure i've spent a lot of time gathering all this information i know how many trucks i have i know this is what i mean after all this research it's it's too bad you didn't see the company especially since that's what you said you were going to write about but this is all about the company i said i was on here's what i'm getting at th choice edison company is more much more than just a big collection of closely power plants buildings trucks transformers and other electrical equipment the thing that makes a company any company the thing that gives it well that gives it character is the people and you didn't say a word about them for example you talked about the big coal piles instead of the men who handle all that tonnage that takes skill it takes skill to pack all that coal into piles that are never too high and yet getting as much coal as possible into the storage space if you've taken the time to talk to those men you might have found out how important that job is those tons of coal have to be properly packed to avoid fires from spontaneous combustion and while we're talking about skills while you were in the power plant you should have brunch the men getting ready to start the fires in the big furnaces those friendships are so big the men get right inside and do the job right and you have to know your stuff those boilers in a power plant you have to know when to feed and more coal and when to cut it down you have to have enough steam ready at all times for the turbans ready and at the right pressure to and did you number one and two are turning it boat generator speed number three is gradually picking up speed ready to come in on the line with extra power and how do they know that extra powers need well remember the central control room in the company's main office it's quite a set up on that one big board you can see the entire high voltage system covering over seventy five hundred square miles of southeastern michigan and just by looking at the lights you can tell what turbans are running in each power plant you can see the stations the substations as well as all the main transmission lines but here again it's the men on the job that count it's the experience and skill of the dispatcher and the men who work with him that makes all this mean something the best way i know to describe the low dispatchers job is to say that he has to order the amount of electricity that the customers are going to meet whenever a customer closes a switch to start production on a factory turns on a range to start breakfast in the home that customer is demanding the immediate delivery of electricity electricity can't be stored must be made the very second it's used it's the low dispatchers job to order it for them and have it ready for a split second delivery and how does he do that but wait a minute i could spend all day talking about the low dispatcher nice job see in addition to everything else he has to watch the weather the temperature the date the holidays the clouds not thousand other things because all those things influence the amount of electricity the customers may demand at any given time why they load despite your even guards the accuracy of your electric clock they now if you said the edison company had a reputation for dependable service well it's men like the dispatcher the people who know their stuff that make that possible just by looking at this one book you can see that there are people with special skills all through the organization take the department heads the managers the men who actually manage the company apart from the skills it takes to operate the business for the investors the people like me and the other doc olders the managers have to decide on company policies hire and train the right kind of people people with personality as well as ability and according to this book they have to plan ahead for the future be sure that the company's finances equipment and facilities are big enough to handle all the power needs in the forseeable future i guess that takes experience as well as skill again for instance takes the people who do the planning for the construction department their mechanical civil and electrical engineers there are the snark attacks they design and plan the company's buildings power plants district offices and lots of other things there's plenty of skill there or take the map making department we have to have thousands of maps and blueprint showing every street road in the alley in the system we have to have up to date detailed maps of every foot of overhead and underground lines system and believe me i know these detailed maps help plenty when it comes to giving dependable service and how about the men in the meter department all the meters are tested at regular intervals and when necessary repairs i understand it takes people with the skill of a jeweller to adjust the meters and everyone is checked for accuracy against special instruments certified by the united states bureau of standards and while we're on the subject of skills the men who trim all those millions of trees you mentioned have it they are trained in the necessary techniques of forestry working under the direction of governmental foresters they are always trying to preserve the natural beauty of the trees they train you watch the men on my crew the hops take game that john takes a little knowing how to in fact it yeah you'd have found all kinds some types of special skills around the company if you'd look but as far as i'm concerned i think the thing that counts most with practically all the addison people is their attitude a kind of pride they take in their work i don't know you might even call it spirit but whatever it is you can sure find evidence of it all over the company the folks in the customer service offices have it it's a friendly attitude of helpfulness that help for the lack of a better way of expressing it seems to go beyond the line of duty you certainly can see it with the people in the district offices and it's more than just common courtesy and surveys you can find a good example of what i mean in the people in the company's farm service department they don't stop with just doing a job of helping the farmer with his electrical problems because the farm service man is more he's a friend and often a mighty helpful friend to any of the prime service men i've ever talked to get a real kick out of their job being friendly and giving extra service that's what makes a company  ideas our lamp in court exchange is an example of the company's extra service policy and so is the policy of repairing customer's electrical appliances i and another example is the home service department where the advisers hold cooking schools for customers or experimenting preparing well balanced meals in the company's model kitchen whenever the customers ask for them the home advisors call and make recommendations for better lighting or demonstrate the best methods of operating ranges ayers or any other home appliance that's certainly extra service and the point is most of those extra services are provided without extra charge after all it's just good business to help customers to get the most out of their electrical equipment and as far as the emergency service it is our concern it doesn't matter whether it's day or night the switchboard is open twenty four hours a day detroit edison service department like trashed me i have the address please nearest cross street and the servicemen are always on call ready to make emergency repairs or replace fuses as fast as humanly possible when we say our customers have a minimum of interrupted service bore that's what we mean that's one of the main reasons why line crews are on twenty four hour duty too many of our trucks are equipped with shortwave  when we get an emergency call in the case of a sudden power failure carlon wires or a home down a q b to a four to forty seven one four one two six rockdale ol know it's just as i said son after all it's the people who make a company what idiots oh sure a company needs equipment the best and most efficient there is and also a company needs good operating policy it's training experience and skill and the spirit of the people that counts anyway all that is what i see as the detroit edison company just ordinary folks like me who work big you see sun it isn't the fact that the company or a man for that matter is big or has a lot of physical possessions account the thing that matters is how well you do your job just how you cooperate with everybody else you work with just how much you contribute to the enjoyment of living right in your own community in other words both a company and a man should always be judged as i see it by just how well they stack up as a good citizen see what i mean