Students tour Eversource's Big Mo vehicle

Eversource’s “Big Mo” mobile response center travels all over New England, has even been as far as Louisiana, and was in New Hampshire last week. But on March 2, it stayed local and made its way to the University of Hartford.

Staffed with three Eversource employees, including Lynette Perez ’21, Big Mo gave UHart students a behind-the-scenes look at company operations on the road, as well as information on internships and career paths. Students from all majors were invited, though Eversource expected the opportunity to resonate most with those in engineering, IT, communications, and environmental studies programs. Eversource also spoke with students at UHart’s Spring Career and Internship Fair at GSU just across campus.

Perez pursued a career at Eversource because someone from the company spoke in one of her classes at UHart. Though she’d taken a different job after graduating, Perez never forgot what she heard in class that day, and later connected with the representative on LinkedIn. Perez is currently a staffing consultant as part of Eversource’s university relations team.

“It’s a place where I feel I can grow, and there are many avenues I can take in different departments,” said Perez, who was a communications major at UHart and is now on a human resources career path. 

Perez, along with Tom Mulinski ’87, P’22, a senior supervisor of field communications, and Jeff Allen, a senior specialist with field communications, spoke with UHart students while explaining Big Mo’s capabilities when it heads out to a scene for a storm or a power outage, or if equipment needs to be repaired.

A giant screen covered one wall of the vehicle with live camera footage of UHart’s quad, while conference tables, work stations, radio communications equipment, and computer monitor after computer monitor filled the rest of the space.

“There are monitors and cameras for situational awareness in staging areas. If cell phones go flat, we have satellite capability. There are radio communications to coordinate line trucks and crews in the field. It also supports material logistics for the right flow of material to a site to facilitate restoration activities for the customer,” Mulinski explained.

Business students were some of the first to visit Big Mo, and plenty more were expected over the course of the afternoon.