Page 8 - Tennessee 811 Magazine 2021 Issue 1

Before I tell you about our next Damage Prevention MVP,
I want to stress the word passion. Merriam-Webster defines passion as a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept. To describe a man named Donny Whittaker, “passion” absolutely fits the bill.
Donny just recently retired
from Piedmont Natural Gas as
a supervisor at the end of 2020
after 37 years. In 1984, he called a family friend, Darrel Byrd to see
if there were any openings at the
gas company. Darrel gave Donny
the office number to call for an interview. There he met a supervisor named Herb Ball who told him if he could pass a physical, he would be hired. Passing a physical would not be a problem. Donny came from a background of hard work instilled by his parents Jim and Betty Whittaker. He says, “We were taught how to work when we were young. We didn’t know there were lazy people around, because everyone did what they were supposed to do.” Early on, Donny and his father went into business together owning a feed and tack store. Donny told me, “That’s where we really learned how to work. It was really hard work, toting the 100-pound bags, mixing them, and making the feed bags.”
He said, “We didn’t have the equipment we have now, and we had to do a lot of hand digging and breaking pavement and concrete, and my job was to run the jackhammer.” Donny was under the supervision of a gentleman by the name of Dwayne Cotton who most folks just called “Cotton”. Cotton was a foreman when Donny started at Nashville Gas and they became good friends. Donny
said, “I had been working there for about two weeks and Cotton came up to me and asked how I was doing, so I asked if they were going to stop every morning to get us something to eat. ‘Are we going to stop every day to eat
By Jason Fryer
Damage Prevention Liaison Tennessee811
In his new role, Donny got his first introduction to damaged gas lines. He and his crew of men, usually three to six employees, repaired the damaged lines. This was in the early days of Tennessee One-Call System and not
many excavators were using one-call to place locate requests. “It was rough out there; everyone was just digging through utilities and they had no relationships with anyone they worked with.” Excavators were tearing up gas lines faster than crews could fix them. “We would
get one line fixed and have to run
to another damaged line,” Donny tells me, “Those were long days.
We were having to work 10 to 12 hours a day just to keep the gas flowing safely and that frustration lasted three to four years.” Donny and his men grew tired of having to repair damaged gas lines caused by excavation without a locate request and Donny got a great idea from the telephone company, BellSouth at the time, now known as AT&T. The idea was to start sending excavators a bill when they damaged their gas line without having a valid one-
call ticket. Donny took this idea
to both Cotton and Bobby Garner who was the superintendent. Donny suggested, “Hey, let’s cut out the good ol’ boy system and let’s start
billing these folks for cutting our gas lines.” Nashville Gas agreed to start billing excavators for damages.
As Donny’s priorities shifted to damage prevention, his relationship grew with Bobby, who was also one the board of Tennessee One-Call. Bobby brought Donny to different industry meetings with excavators, other utilities, and locators. He introduced Donny to
Bill Turner and Kathy Quartermaine with Tennessee One-Call System,
Donny Whittaker
6 • Tennessee811 2021, Issue 1
Donny Whittaker
lunch?’ And he said yes, so I said, ‘I know I’m going to make it just fine.” After six months of being on the job, Cotton was promoted to supervisor and because of Donny’s hard work and how well liked he was by his bosses and peers he got promoted to the now-open foreman position. Donny continued to work underneath Cotton and he said, “I was fortunate because there was a
lot of growth in Nashville which meant Nashville Gas was growing too.”