With Lineworker Appreciation Day being Monday, April 18th, 2022, we honor a lineworker this week. Chris was nominated by his co-worker, Amy Di Leo, who said “Relief Emergency Service specialist in PSEG Long Island’s Emergency Service department, Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force Air National Guard, husband and dad of three kids under 5, volunteer. That’s Chris Jensen.

I met Chris, who lives in Bay Shore, in December while volunteering with a group of PSEG Long Island colleagues laying wreaths at the National Cemetery at Pinelawn. A month later, in the middle of January, he was raising awareness about veteran suicide by running 2.2 miles and swimming in the frigid Great South Bay as part of the Operation VEST 22 Degree Run and Plunge.

Chris clearly is committed to the causes he cares about, his community, his job and his family.

On the job at PSEG Long Island, he is called on to restore power – day and night – in snow, ice, rain and 90-plus degree temperatures.

And the conditions aren’t the worst of it.

As a front-line electrical worker, you sacrifice family time, miss birthdays and holidays for the job. Yet Chris says there’s nothing more fulfilling than successfully restoring power in the aftermath of Mother Nature’s worst conditions. And, while it’s not easy to juggle his family life, job and service to our country, he says he has to learn to adapt and accept what comes his way and react in a positive way.

Chris says he gets satisfaction in helping people. As an Air Transportation Specialist in the Air National Guard, he manages the personnel and cargo movement on military aircraft – from processing to loading. And he steps up to provide relief from floods or natural disasters as a lineworker, including helping to restore power in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and in Florida after Hurricane Irma.

Lineworker Appreciation Day is Monday, April 18. Thank you, Chris, and your nearly 200 lineworkers/first responder brothers and sisters at PSEG Long Island whose job it is to provide us all with safe and reliable electricity, in storms and on blue-sky days.”

Chris, thanks for all you do for the community.

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