Fleet Maintenance selected an Overachiever for six different categories based on reader nominations. This is the winner of the Supervisor category. You can view the Technician category and the Trainer category here.
Hector Varela, fleet supervisor for CPS Energy, San Antonio’s major electric and natural gas utility, said the most difficult part of transitioning to a leadership role in 2021 was learning to spend less time in the shop and more in the office.
That’s because he spent so much time in that shop. He was a technician at CPS for 22 years maintaining the mixed fleet that now has around 2,800 assets spread throughout the region. These range from Ford F-150s and F-750s, Peterbilt Model 579s, and International HX Series, as well as heavy equipment, cranes, and trailers. They even have an all-electric Terex EV aerial bucket truck.
When one technician would come to him with a maintenance problem, his first inclination was to jump in and help. But he knew that all seven techs depended on him to focus on higher-level shop responsibilities. “I had to push back and say, ‘Okay, figure it out,’” he recalled. Varela would first provide some questions to jump-start their reasoning process and identify the true issue.
Varela had already proven himself a solid and organized leader on the floor, and “having that respect made my job a lot easier,” he offered.
Data provided to us solidified Varela’s spot as a top Overachiever. His team achieved a 100% on-time rate for aerial boom inspections and state inspections, and greatly increased the Nacogdoches Street shop’s PM compliance rate from 40% to over 84%.
This wasn’t easy, as he inherited 600 open PMs and well over 400 open state inspections. After a lengthy analysis in the SAP fleet management system, Varela discovered this included several duplicate orders and decommissioned trucks. He “data cleansed” the system and routinely reviews telematics data for mileage milestones.
To colleague Bo Villarreal, fleet operations supervisor at CPS’s Southwest Service Center, Varela’s transition was not only seamless but also a model of perfection for how transitions from the floor to office should be judged.
Read more: How to spot new shop leaders
“He was a high-performing mechanic and has used his hard work and determination to now become a high-performing leader that many of our mechanics aspire to become once it is their time,” Villarreal said of Varela.
Drivers may get automatic notifications based on mileage that PMs are due, but Varela will check the truck history and let them know if they actually need it or not, saving the driver and shop time.
He also has the shop stay ahead by doing as much as possible when the units are in, such as little things like changing the wipers at the annual PM to performing pending PMs and state inspections.
And though he focuses more on data and spreadsheets now, Varela doesn’t stray far from the bay.
“He may have traded in his Snap-on impact gun for a coffee mug, but this doesn’t mean that Hector has forgotten where he came from or that he is afraid to roll up his sleeves and get dirty,” Villarreal wrote in his nomination. He referred to a time this summer where job volume outpaced what the techs could handle.
“Knowing that the job needed to get done, Hector mounted and demounted dozens of tires to have them pre-mounted and readily available for quick-fix/drive up situations in order to better serve his customers during the peak of the hot Texas summer heat. He may have ruined a nice fishing shirt, but his customers didn’t suffer from lack of inventory.”
The staff also doesn’t suffer from hunger around Varela, who will cook for the shop during safety training days. If you think this is a rather mundane work perk, you haven’t had Varela’s brisket. All Texans are considered competitive when it comes to who has the best barbecue, but Varela and his family started a small catering business just to fund their entry into competitions.
More impressive is Varela’s dedication to CPS’s annual Grills Giving, a barbecue event that raises money for customers who can’t afford to pay their bills during the winter. They raised $406,000 this November and his team, Just Dig It, won People’s Choice for Best BBQ Team and Best Side Dish for his pineapple red velvet cake. If that’s not enough, he supports the company’s Lineman Rodeo Team.
And when he’s not poring over data or slathering on BBQ sauce, he and his wife Jennifer are supporting their daughters Mia and Rachel in their volleyball careers. Like their father, the girls know their way around a grille. They have won a kid's barbeque competition multiple times since the age of 4, Varela proudly reported.
