IBEW Lights Up Tampa Bay

December 7, 2005

Fourth-year Local 915 apprentice Chris Everingham, left, and journeyman wireman Russ Dehmel join Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Rod Storle and firefighter Angelia Rorison as they prepare the light fixture for the light house.

Members of Tampa Local 915 helped build the first lighthouse commissioned in Florida since 1927 on the grounds of the new location of a Tampa Bay environmental organization.

IBEW members employed by Production Installation Services, St. Petersburg, wired the new educational building and marine center, upon which the 70-foot lighthouse is perched on an island on the western edge of Tampa Bay. Tampa BayWatch, a group dedicated to the protection and restoration of the marine and wetland environments of Tampa Bay officially opened the site to the public on December 2.

Production Installation Services Owner Bruce Knepp and six other members of Local 915 wired the buildings on the grounds of Fort De Soto Park, which marks the place where Hernando DeSoto, the first Westerner to set foot on Florida soil, landed in 1539.

Fourth-year Local 915 apprentice Chris Everingham, left, and firefighter Angelia Rorison.

Tampa BayWatch Executive Director Peter A. Clark said Production Installation Services donated much of the electrical work for the $2 million, 10,000-square-foot center. “They went above and beyond what we thought we needed – extra lights, plugs, all those little details that add up to so much,” Clark said.

A third-generation IBEW member who grew up on the bay, Knepp said in the 12 years since Tampa BayWatch was formed, the health of the bay has markedly improved. “The pollution level is down dramatically,” Knepp said. His father is a retired member of St. Petersburg Local 308, which was amalgamated into Orlando Local 606 and Local 915 earlier this year.

IBEW Local 915 members installed the light for the octagon-shaped lighthouse with the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard. Local 915 organizer Jon Dehmel said the light on the small island at the westernmost tip of the peninsula surrounding Tampa Bay is powerful enough to be seen from across the bay in the city of Tampa.