Case Study Florida Power & Light In April, 2009 when Florida Power & Light (FPL) and Miami-Dade County executives were joined on a Miami stage with dignitaries from Cisco, GE and Silver Springs Networks to announce the biggest and most advanced Smart Grid project yet—a $200-million Smart Grid Initiative codenamed Energy Smart Miami that will install smart meters in one million homes and buildings in Dade county, with FPL planning to spend an additional $500 million on bringing smart meters to its entire customer base—TBW Solutions was nowhere to be seen. But behind the scenes it was a different matter. For over two years, TBW Solutions had participated in a series of pilots that proved the feasibility of the project and, at the time, was in negotiation to provide the work force to change out over half of the approximately 4.5 million meters. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. As the "muscle" behind many of today's largest Smart Grid projects, TBW Solutions is used to working behind the scenes. But over the next several months, TBW's contribution became more and more apparent as it staffed up the project and began the roll-out in Broward and Dade counties—two of Florida’s most populous counties. This also was not unusual. This approach was evident in South Florida as TBW staffed up from a few experienced technicians brought in temporarily to get the project started to over 50 full time field technicians in a little over 3 months. Tim continues with his story. "We placed employment ads in select local newspapers and utilized community outreach organizations, church groups, job training centers and state unemployment offices to identify potential candidates." The high visibility strategy worked and TBW was inundated with applicants for the green collar jobs. From the first group of applicants, TBW selected a few individuals and put them through an intensive and rigorous multi-week training program involving technical, safety and life skills classroom training, field training and job shadowing. Each recruit was also subjected to intensive quality and safety audits and retraining where necessary. The success of the program is self-evident. In a little over three months, TBW Solutions has successfully changed out over 100,000 meters utilizing a high-caliber local project work force that reflects the diverse make-up of the communities in which it is working. "It's been a huge success," stated Tim, "We were able to recruit, hire, train and develop a great project "We have a very simple philosophy," stated Tim Strickland, TBW Solutions Vice President team. Many of the individuals we hired through no fault of their own were either Energy Services. "Recruit and hire locally. This means that after the dignitaries have left unemployed or chronically under-employed. It’s good to get a project off to a smooth start, we go from working behind the scenes to but its even better knowing that the individuals taking a highly visible position within the community. We utilize every resource possible working on our project are members of the to identify high potential individuals from the local community. Creating high paying green jobs in the local community—now that truly is community who have the attitude, aptitude, a great feeling." and desire to be part of our team." TBW Solutions Case Study FastFacts™ FPL is the largest investor-owned electric utility in Florida, serving approximately 4.5 million customer accounts. It is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States and ranks #1 among electric utilities nationwide in energy-efficiency programs. TBW is a leading provider of Smart Meter technology deployments and the only one that is also a national master contractor to North America’s three largest wireless carriers. “The skill and professionalism exhibited by your team during the pilot phase of our Smart Grid Initiative were instrumental in the award of the overall project.” FPL 2555 Marconi Drive, Suite 300 Alpharetta, GA 30005 770-521-8281 www.tbwsolutions.net Copywrite 2010 TBW Solutions. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in part or in whole without permission is expressly prohibited.