HERMISTON â When Mitch Colvin started working as a lineman for Umatilla Electric Cooperative six years ago, he spent a lot of time looking at maps.
The maps, which crews hauled around in their pickup trucks, spanned two black binders, each several inches thick and much wider than a standard binder. When linemen needed to locate a specific utility pole or other infrastructure, they had to look up the right paper map out of thousands, then search the tiny numbers on the page, looking for the right one.
Now, everything is digitized and everyone has their own iPad.
âIt speeds up the process a ton,â Colvin said. âYou just type it in and it pulls it right up.â