Mike McClintock is planning to retire soon. But if you’ve been an East Texas lineman in the last few decades, or ever met McClintock, you’ll never forget him.

A long-time Distribution Crew Supervisor in Athens, McClintock is a big guy who’s at least six feet tall and a shock of silvery white hair with a moustache to match. He’s usually wearing a pair of blue bib overalls. You might also notice his no-nonsense attitude about lineman safety.

While he’s worked 48 years for Oncor, McClintock is known today for a safety project called the Rubber Cover Academy. In fact, last year, he received the top Spirit of Innovation Safety Excellence Award for that initiative.

“I’m a teacher,” McClintock said recently. “That’s what the latter years have consisted of more than anything. Teaching the young people. And, of course, Rubber Cover is going to stand out amongst all of the work I’ve done.”

McClintock turned 70 on April 15, a date he set to begin the process of easing his way out of Oncor and into a life of retirement. Once that happens, you’ll likely find him somewhere near Athens, in his hometown of Tool or in his backyard garden.

It was six years ago that the Rubber Cover project started with a suggestion from the local safety committee.

“I thought it was a very good idea,” McClintock said. “My main concern was, ‘OK, you want me to tell a 20-year journeyman lineman how to cover. Well, he’s not going to accept that.’ I had to figure out a different way so it would be accepted. And that was to find the best way to cover.”

For those not familiar with covering, it means using the orange rubber blankets and orange hoses that line workers carry with them to protect themselves from making accidental contact with energized conductor or wires.

McClintock and Hunter Withers, Distribution Operations Tech Sr., Tyler, developed the four-hour Rubber Cover Academy No. 1 in 2017. For the class, the two men and several others built a set of low utility poles outfitted with cross arms, insulators, conductor and a transformer near the back of the Tyler service center.

McClintock and Withers instructed an estimated 200 area linemen on the best way to use the rubber covers and hoses to keep themselves safe on the job.

“Not everybody has the same experience level or been exposed to the same jobs,” McClintock said. “There were comments from young and old alike, such as, ‘Oh, I never thought of that.’ ”

The academy, McClintock said, is a good way to reach the younger employees.

“If you teach linemen the best way starting out, then that’s their way. You don’t have to change a way, you learn it that way,” he said. “It’s all about safety. It’s all about preventing an accident. But if an accident did occur, at least we’re going to minimize it with the proper cover.”

McClintock said he’s not the only long-time employee retiring. “One goal of the Rubber Cover Academy was to make sure we’re passing on that knowledge to the younger linemen before it’s too late,” he said.

In recent years, he’s provided his course materials to other Oncor districts. Many of them have built their own training facilities for the course, he said.

In 2018, McClintock teamed up with Jake Flowers, Crew Supervisor, Jacksonville, to teach the Rubber Cover No. 2 course.

Chris Thiem, Crew Supervisor, Jacksonville, has worked with McClintock since that time to teach the course and prepare a No. 3 course. But with McClintock’s retirement in the near future, someone else will serve as the instructor for the next round.

“I enjoy what I do,” he said. “But it’s just time to go. I don’t like working all night in the storms like I used to.

“And the bottom line,” he said with a chuckle, “the recovery time is longer than it used to be.”