“For us, there is no Mother’s Day, no Father’s Day, no Christmas, no New Year’s Eve, because incidents and unexpected events happen mostly on those days”. Rafael Mendieta and his team are at the service of Enel customers 24-7-365.
He is Head Coordinator of the Medium- and Low-Voltage Emergency Service in the department of Maintenance and Distribution, and provides operational support (squads and teams) to the control centre so that appropriate medium- and low-voltage operations are carried out in the network, whether scheduled or unexpected ones.
“On Christmas, while families enjoy their company, we stay alert and ready with all the resources to assist in case of a cut-off”. This holiday together with New Year’s Eve and Peru’s National Holidays are the most critical days. As a result, Rafael has to place immovable resources near the Government Palace, the Congress and the Torre Tagle Palace, just in case.
With 19 years in the company, this electrical engineer from Peru’s National University of Callao, with an MBA from USIL, recognises that his best teachers have been his older colleagues. He remembers with fondness one technician, Mr. Velásquez, from whom he learned the procedures to identify electrical faults. He awakened Rafael’s curiosity to learn more on the topic.
When one of his 15 squads has a hard time identifying a fault, he springs into action. He asks which techniques they have used, performs a diagnosis and thinks which other techniques they can apply. Once he solves the situation, he shares the experience with his technicians so that they learn something new.
“Our work is on the street, and everything can happen there: dangerous areas, areas of difficult access, etc. Our creativity turns on to solve the problem”, he concludes, but he also tells that his family understands his job. “I am like a doctor working at the Emergency Room”, he says and smiles.
