For more than 40 years, Dennis Truttman helped keep the lights on for Pierce Pepin Cooperative Services (PPCS) members. Now, nearly two decades after his retirement in 2008, his grandson Jack is continuing the family’s service as a lineman apprentice.
Dennis started at PPCS in 1967 after returning home from serving in Vietnam. His mother had become ill, and Dennis was grateful to find a steady job close to home. He soon married his wife, Patty, and even held their wedding reception in the original PPCS building, now known as the “lower” building. Dennis laughed as he recalled, “Getting married got me a 25-cent raise!”
Jack gave his grandpa a quick tour of one of the PPCS small bucket trucks.
In those early days, line work looked very different. Crews had no cell phones or GPS, just paper map books and long hours on the road. When calls came in after hours, the office phones rang directly to Dennis and Patty’s home. “If I was out on a call, Patty would take the call from a member and write down the details,” Dennis said. “Sometimes even the kids had to answer calls!” After working an outage in Pepin, for example, Dennis would drive back to Ellsworth only to find out he had to turn around and head back to Pepin for a different outage.
The equipment was different, too. Line crews used to have to drive up and down roads or walk rights-of-way to try to find where a power outage originated. Today, PPCS has fault indicators installed on the lines that help isolate and identify the problem. Dennis remembered the first underground lines being installed. They didn’t have a trencher, so they had to shovel out trenches by hand. “That kind of stuff builds character,” Jack joked as he listened to his grandpa’s stories.
Dennis’ wife, Patty, and their children, Angie, Dan, and Mike, played an important role in answering after-hours outage calls.
Jack is now beginning his second year as an apprentice, having started as summer help in 2024. He says he’s inspired by his grandpa’s long career at PPCS and hopes to build one of his own. One of Jack’s earliest memories of Dennis on the job was as a boy in daycare. “They were out working by the town shop,” Jack recalled. “We ran up to the fence, and he came over and said hi. That’s one of the times I can remember.”
Looking through an old photo album, Dennis reflected on his career. “It’s kind of fun to look at them once in a while,” he said. When asked what advice he would give Jack and other young linemen just starting out, Dennis didn’t hesitate: “Enjoy your work, first of all, and enjoy the guys you work with. And work safe—that’s the main thing.”
Dennis and other PPCS linemen often assisted with installing Christmas lighting along Ellsworth’s Main Street.
Now, with Jack carrying on the family tradition, the Truttman’s story is a reminder that while technology changes and tools evolve, the heart of PPCS remains the same: dedicated people helping their communities Live Better, one member at a time.