A lot has changed in the Florida Keys in the past 50 years, and FKEC's Willie West has seen it all. In September 1957, a 22-year-old West worked his first day at Florida Keys Electric Cooperative. Now five decades later, he is the longest-standing employee at the co-op and the company recently celebrated his milestone anniversary with a company-wide dinner party at the BPOE Elks Lodge in Tavernier.
West was presented with a collage of his company photos framed and signed by all the employees, a money tree, and other anniversary gifts.
"FKEC would be a better company if there were more employees like Willie," said CEO Scott Newberry. "He is dedicated, hard-working and loyal, and an irreplaceable member of our Fleet Maintenance Department and our company."
West joined the young utility on the line crew, helping install thefirst electric poles for growing neighborhoods from Marathon to North Key Largo.
On one of the company's first eight trucks, the crew carried an air compressor to run a jackhammer. They used the jackhammer, picks and shovels to chip holes in the coral rock to set the area's first wooden power poles.
The electric cooperative itself was only 17 years old when West was hired. He has watched the co-op's customer base increase over ten times and the fleet size multiply from those first eight vehicles to more than 70.
West, who is originally from Georgia, worked briefly for a crop-duster in Homestead and then for a contractor in the Keys before finding his "home" at FKEC.
Click Here to Return to the FKEC Press Release List.
