Remembering Cynthia ‘Suni’ Miani, One of PG&E’s Earliest Female Lineworkers

Cynthia “Suni” Miani, a pioneer among PG&E’s early female lineworkers, has passed away at the age of 66 in Tennessee.

Suni (pronounced Sunny) joined the Air Force at the age of 18 and served as a crew chief on a KC-135Q in-flight refueler. She was recognized with the Air Force's Commendation Medal during her tenure as a sergeant.

She began her career with PG&E in October 1980 as a groundsman in Marysville, then became an apprentice lineman in Oroville in 1983 and then a lineman beginning Feb. 7, 1986. She left PG&E three years later and moved to Oregon to work for Portland General Electric, eventually directing the group that oversees the region’s power poles.

In an interview with an Oregon newspaper in 2004, Miani said she believed being a woman helped her get started in the industry.

“I may have gotten the job because I’m female, but I kept it because I could do the work,” she said.

Being a good lineman, she said, requires that you can’t be afraid of heights and you have to love what you do.

“I absolutely loved it,” she said. “I can drive down the street today and say, ‘I put that pole in,’ or ‘I made those wires do what they do.’ It’s very gratifying to be able to see what you’ve built.”

Miani was a staunch advocate for LGBTQ rights and made her voice heard. At Portland General Electric, she and a colleague co-founded the company’s first support group for gay and lesbian employees. She drove bucket trucks in pride parades and participated in walks to raise awareness for AIDS.

Suni met her wife, Alex, while the two were umpiring a softball tournament in Florida and they married in Tracy in 2013 as soon as same-sex marriage became legal in California.

Alex Miani described Suni as non-judgmental as well as the handiest person she knew.

“She didn’t know skin color,” Alex Miani said in an interview with PG&E's Communications team. “If you needed help, she helped you. She was a whiz with power tools. There wasn’t anything that she didn’t know how to do. It endeared people because she was always there.”

Suni Miani was devoted to family members, her wife said. The couple loved to travel the country in their RV.

For all she achieved in life, her wife said Suni downplayed her own accomplishments.

“She was stupidly humble when she should have screamed that she was something,” Alex Miani said. “It just never occurred to her.”

Suni Miani was buried Monday, March 11, with military honors at a veterans cemetery in western Tennessee.