Employed at Repap since August 1998, Graham is one of a crew of three electricians who repair and maintain equipment at the 130-employee mill.

It's an important job, because the mill produces so much stock that any equipment breakdown quickly makes itself felt.

Some machinery, like Repap's large hydraulic presses, can break down fairly regularly because of heavy use. A few months after joining Repap, Graham took a one-week hydraulics course in Toronto to learn how to take care of them.

One of his responsibilities is to stop problems before they happen. "We spend a lot of time on preventative maintenance," he says. "For example, we change the oil in grinder bearings every so often. Today we set up a probe in an oil tank, and hooked up a Programmable Logic Controller to see where the levels are. We also checked its temperature and pressure."

One of the key areas in preventative maintenance is dealing with hot spots in motors. Once a heat detector has indicated spots in a motor that are heating up too much, "we shut it down and fix it" Graham explains.

He is hard-pressed to name his favourite part of the job, because "I love what I do; I love playing with everything electrical."