Curtis Ashton is the kind of OSP pro who lives and breathes his profession -- respecting the intensity of power quite literally. (You’ll understand what we mean when you read about his near brush with death as he dodged a lightning strike during a hike at 14,000 feet!)

It’s clear that he’s all about The Greater Good. One of his objectives is to help the general telecom worker see the true value of the OSP as it moves away from a CO-centric equipment world to a distributed OSP-centric equipment world. Call us overly enthusiastic infrastructure fans, but OSP® gives a standing ovation to that kind of attitude!

Q&A
OSP: Explain what you do for a living in 20 words or fewer.
Curtis: Help techs and engineers with backup power and grounding.

OSP: What is the favorite part of your job?
Curtis: The variety of the work.

OSP: When do you feel the most frustrated professionally?
Curtis: Explaining to others that not all of their ideas can be implemented due to the complexity of the projects.

OSP: What is the quality you like most in a colleague?
Curtis: Work ethic.

OSP: What treat do you keep hidden in your office/desk/truck that helps you through an OSP day?
Curtis: Diet Dr Pepper.

OSP: Where would you vacation if money were no object?
Curtis: The International Space Station.

OSP: What is the trait you deplore most in yourself?
Curtis: Pride.

OSP: What is the trait you deplore most in others?
Curtis: Laziness.

OSP: If you had only ONE OSP tool, what would it be?
Curtis: A battery internal ohmic tester.

OSP: If you could change one thing about the OSP, what would it be?
Curtis: For the general telecom worker to see the true value of the OSP as we continue to move away from a CO-centric equipment world to a distributed OSP-centric equipment world.

OSP: Where and why do you read OSP magazine?
Curtis: I read it at home, at the desk, or on the plane because I want to learn how the OSP equipment world is changing, since that will affect the power and grounding that I need to help provide.

OSP: When do you feel the most satisfied professionally?
Curtis: When I finish a project early.

OSP: What is the quality you admire most in a colleague?
Curtis: The ability to make other people feel welcome and good about themselves.

OSP: What’s your favorite quote?
Curtis: “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (Churchill, House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)

OSP: Tell us the most extraordinary/unusual experience you’ve had out in the field.
Curtis: Wanting to be a better father by spending more time with my sons, I needed to visit an RT cabinet site one day to look at the grounding, so I went home and picked up my boys (who were 9 and 6 at the time) on my way to the site. About a month later, I received a Father’s Day present of a beautiful water color showing 2 boys, a bald dad, and a perfectly colored and proportioned stub-pole mount SLC Series 5 51 cabinet. The wording read: “My favorite thing to do with my Dad is to go to a battery-powered box.” I don’t know what this shows, but it might show that I’m a little nerdy for taking my boys along on trips like that.

OSP: Tell us the funniest customer experience you’ve experienced, or seen, in the field.
Curtis: A co-worker constantly complained that she had about 9.6 kpbs DSL speeds. Further investigation by another company determined that she herself had installed a commercially-available bandpass filter (from a local electronics store) years ago to knock out signals above 20 kHz so she would not hear radio interference on her phone line.

OSP: Tell us how you got into telecommunications. By chance or plan?
Curtis: By chance. I was put through Engineering school by an electric utility, but nearing graduation, they wanted me to be a computer programmer for load flow. There were a lot of subjects I liked in college, but programming was not my favorite. The local phone company at the time was looking for a power engineering intern, and I applied on a whim.

OSP: If you could have your perfect job in telecom, what would it be?
Curtis: I already have it.

OSP: What topic in telecom do you wish you could learn more about?
Curtis: SNMP.

OSP: What’s your biggest safety concern?
Curtis: Arc Flash/Blast.

OSP: What is one simple thing your company’s teams can do to remain safe?
Curtis: Put on the PPE when dealing with AC power.

OSP: What’s your most important safety-oriented tool?
Curtis: My head -- to pre-plan so that I don’t get in a dangerous situation.

OSP: What’s the most dangerous situation you’ve been in and how did you get out of it?
Curtis: I was on a family trip to the top of a 14,000+ ft. mountain at 12:30 p.m. on an August day (showing my own stupidity by being up there that late in the day) when lightning started to strike nearby (closest strike was on a peak about ¼ mile away). I literally sprinted the ¾ mile to the vehicle in spite of the altitude, trying to stay close to cut outs for the road, etc. There really was no cover though, and I was truly scared, having studied the effects of lightning and the possibilities of a hit when on top of a mountain like that without cover.

Curtis: Safety = The ability to continue to have a quality life.

Curtis Ashton has been employed with CenturyLink (which acquired Qwest April 1, 2011) and some of Qwest’s predecessors for 19 years. Mr. Ashton provides technical support to Engineers, Procurement, Alarm Centers, and field personnel on Power and Grounding issues, with special expertise in Co-location and Outside Plant.

Prior to his work with Qwest, Curtis worked as an electrical engineering technician for Salt River Project, an Arizona electric and water utility. Curtis is a graduate of Arizona State University with a B.S.E.E., emphasis in Power, and a significant outside emphasis in Spanish (in which he is fluent). Mr. Ashton has been published numerous times by various publications and has presented at many conferences. He sits on the technical committees for the BattCon and Intelec conferences. He is an NFPA and IEEE member, and actively participates as a working group chair in the IEEE PES Stationary Battery Standards Committee. He also served a term as a member of the IEEE Standards Review Committee (to which he was appointed), and is the vice-chair for the ATIS-STEP group (responsible for telecommunication energy and protection standards).

He can be reached at Curtis.Ashton@CenturyLink.com or at 303.707.5699.