Ryan Hewitt continues to advance in his career at Community Electric, which has promoted him to the position of Lead Lineman. Hewitt joined CEC in 2017 as a lineman trainee. The Windsor native achieved journeyman status in 2021, and this promotion moves him into the lead role.
“Ryan has been an invaluable part of our team in his daily routine as well as participating in CEC’s community engagement opportunities,” CEC President and CEO Steven A. Harmon said. “We have every confidence that Ryan will excel in this position and continue to drive our team towards success.”
In his new role, Hewitt will assume greater responsibility for the performance of the lineman crews and team safety.
“It takes you out of the bucket truck more often; you’re more so on the ground overseeing the work and leading a crew. It puts their safety in my hands,” he said.
Hewitt’s activism in the cooperative’s engagement with the community includes several major components of CEC’s Youth Programs. He has frequently participated in the “Day in the Life of Lineman” program since joining Community Electric and advocated for wider representation among linemen so that student attendees can gain perspectives from well-tenured crew supervisors and relatively new hires alike.
For the past two years, he has served as a chaperone at the week-long summer Youth Tour in Washington, D.C., conducted by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. And he is a regular participant in the Career Day appearances that CEC linemen make at schools multiple times per year throughout the cooperative’s service territory in Suffolk, Southampton, and Isle of Wight.
“Having kids and coaching their baseball teams have really made me want to help out the youth in the community as much as possible,” Hewitt said of his civic-mindedness. “Also, working in the same small town I grew up in makes me want to see the younger generations thrive.”