Electrifying News about MPB Progress!

Dave Diamond sends us the inside story on our Multi-Purpose Building:

Progress over the last week on the extension of IRM's Power Grid to the
new Multi Purpose Building has been made! Since the passing of Max Tyms
in late August, the museum has reached out to numerous electrical
contractors for assistance. We discovered that many of the big and small
overhead line contractors in the area are extremely busy with projects
and were unavailable until after the new year or simply not at all. It
was becoming a concern until last week when through a conversation with a
representative from MJ Electric he put me in touch with a volunteer! It
turned out that a retired Com Ed lineman and supervisor who also had
worked in their Operations, Testing and Design/ Engineering Department
lived in Woodstock and had long thought about volunteering at IRM! Mark
Afeld who worked 37 years for the utility contacted me last week and
offered his assistance! We had a meeting last Friday, December 13th and
he immediately agreed to come out the next day and get started. Much to
my surprise he recruited another Com Ed retiree, Bob Hauser of Belvidere
to assist. Great progress was made framing the line poles last Saturday
and today, Thursday December 19th they came back and set 3 of the 4 poles
needed to reach the MPB. Work will resume after Christmas and we hope to
have power to the building early in the new year. Their expertise and
assistance is sincerely appreciated and we look forward to their guidance
and help on this and possibly other projects in the new year.