An Open Letter Introduction from Company President, Ben Lee
I would like to take some time to introduce myself and our company. My name is Ben Lee, and I serve as company president for Lee Inspection & Consulting Services. For my entire life, I have been around the utility pole business. I grew up surrounded with the family business that was started by my grandfather, father, and uncle. When I was a kid, occasionally I would get the special treat of going to work with my dad, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Still the memories remain of riding shotgun in his four-wheel-drive truck throughout rural Missouri and Oklahoma roads checking poles. He would have me do things like carry his Garmin GPS unit or put the treated wooden plugs in holes that he had just bored. Although I was not doing much, I still remember how proud it made me feel.
Fast forward to when I was sixteen, I began working through the summer months checking poles. Those couple of summers when I was still in high school taught me a lot about hard work. Under the supervision of our supervisors, I learned to properly do sound and bore inspections, and I started to learn about the RUS & REA specifications and assembly codes. My favorite part of the inspection work quickly became being in a new place and seeing new things each day. When you are following the power line from point A to point Z, you get to see some cool places and meet some interesting people along the way.
After graduating high school, I continued with the inspection work. I began to really hone in my inspection skills, learning as much as I could. I had a great time traveling throughout the country doing the work that I loved. I began to gain more confidence in what I was doing and soon began to supervise my own projects. I continued with this work for about 3 more years before taking a year off to earn a certificate in geographic information science or GIS for short. I used what I learned in my GIS courses to greatly advance how we were collecting our data and the types of deliverables that we could offer our customers. I split my time between the field and the office for the next few years, until moving full time into the office in 2019 and eventually taking over the role of company president in 2023.
Since transitioning to the office, my focus has shifted into the administrative roles of our business and to improving what we are doing as a company. I work closely with our customers to identify their needs and how we can best serve them. Since taking on this new role, I have also worked tirelessly to improve our training and safety programs and expanding our quality control efforts. I am very thankful that we employ a great staff that is very professional and good at what they do. None of what we do as a company would be possible without them.
It is interesting to me how much the technology surrounding the inspection business has changed throughout the years since I was just a kid riding along with my dad. Our data collection has moved from paper notes and photos from the first digital cameras sporting a 3x5 floppy disk, to advanced mapping programs on iPads with high-tech GPS devices. We have gone from mailing or faxing inspection results to customers to weekly digital data submissions. Still, much of what we do is rooted in the generations of knowledge surrounding wood products throughout their entire life cycle. I look forward to seeing how technology continues to evolve around the inspection business with technology such as drones, AI capable technology, advanced inspection devices, etc. My goal is to continue implementing the latest technology to improve upon what we are doing, while maintaining the basic fundamentals that we have learned throughout the years.
One of my main goals is to uphold our company slogan of “The Brand of Assured Quality” and offer the highest quality inspections and GIS data possible. Throughout the years, we have seen continual growth as a company, and I think this is a testament of the work that we perform. I wish that my grandfather and uncle were here today to see what the business they started has become. I am honored to be able to continue their legacy as the next generation of Lee Inspection. At Lee Inspection, we offer a valuable service to utility providers that can greatly improve their electric distribution system’s reliability. We are very good at what we do, and we are continually learning and improving. If you have a need for inspections or GIS services, reach out to us today to see how we can help!
