Inside the Ever-Changing Career Path of a 55-Year PG&E Coworker

There’s an old saying: “The elevator of life doesn’t have a destination. It’s about enjoying the journey.”

Al Badella began his PG&E career in 1970 by having to ride wooden construction elevators on the outside of the company’s new 34-story headquarters building at 77 Beale St. in San Francisco. He was one of the people responsible for setting up the building’s phone system and engineering the microwave dishes on the roof.

Al has now been on a 55-year ride with PG&E. His career path has seen plenty of transitions in technology and workplace culture. In fact, the principal IT solutions engineer was part of the team that decommissioned the system at 77 Beale when the building was sold in 2022.

Shrinking phone networks, three-part forms and cigars

Al graduated from San Jose State University in 1970 with a bachelor’s in science. He was looking at jobs in aeronautical engineering and with major airlines. But Al met with PG&E recruiters shortly before graduating and accepted an offer to be in design drafting. “I would’ve preferred to be in telecom,” he said. “I kept watching for job postings and eventually got the job in telecom.”

Over the years, technology has changed his job.

Once upon a time, Al said the company had multiple customer service platforms throughout the service that customers could call if they needed help. Thanks to the internet and 800 numbers, that’s down to two customer service systems in Sacramento and Fresno.

Al remembers the recently-sold 1919 Webster St. building in Oakland housed a phone exchange, known as a private branch exchange (PBX). It routed the internal and external calls from East Bay cities such as Fremont, Hayward and Livermore. He said the company had 114 PBXs throughout the service area. It’s down to one now.

“Each division had its own customer service department and contact service phone system,” said Al. “All of the dispatch centers had their own radio control consoles. There were different networks floating throughout the system. Now, everyone calls a central number. It’s all done by internet protocol. We didn’t have that back in the day.”

Internal phone systems have evolved dramatically. “We called coworkers on rotary dial telephones,” said Al. “We hoped someone picked up since there wasn’t voicemail. No cellphones or pagers were available.”

The phone system isn’t the only thing that has changed during Al’s career. He remembers using a typewriter to type interoffice memos, which were mailed, on a three-part carbon form (original hard copy, a carbon copy for another person and a file copy).

There was smoking in the office, which is unheard of these days. “I smoked a cigar in the office,” said Al. “PG&E actually issued brass-colored ashtrays.” He recalled the company provided ashtrays in front of the waterfall near the front door at 77 Beale, once smoking was banned in the office.

The dress code has also evolved. “When I first started as an engineer, you wore a tie and a sports jacket,” said Al.

Being curious keeps the career going

Al’s current supervisor, Sam Kingsbury, first learned about him upon joining the company as a technician in 2002.

“Al was the one to call for anything you need to know about how PG&E works in the realms of our telephony infrastructure,” he said. “Al was the person to reach out to if you had a problem, whether that’s from the technicians in the field, to our specialists and to our architects.

“He’s been a director, a manager, an engineer, an architect and now he’s a solutions engineer,” added Sam. “He’s fulfilled leadership and technical levels. He knows where stuff is and how it works. He’s a very important asset to our team.”

These days, Al works on setting up communications systems in new buildings, assessing the size of their communications demands (such as number of circuits and bandwidth), and uses his technical expertise to work with service providers to meet company needs.

“I really love looking at the new technology that comes in,” said Al. “It’s really interesting to me to see how the technology has grown over the years and how the IT industry is moving ahead.”

“Some people gravitate to technology change and they enjoy it,” said Sam about Al. “They look forward to it. It’s a challenge for them. They like to learn and absorb the new things that come in.”

Being curious has kept Al on the job.

“I never expected when I got out of college I would’ve been here this long,” he said.

No doubt, Al has enjoyed the journey.