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Anyone who has ever been stressed about being late to work because they couldn’t find their keys can relate to issues two Lewiston Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories employees spotted on their line that assembles one of the company’s most popular products.

Jessica Smith and Travis Movius, at the time, helped build recloser controls for electricity transmission that prevent and reduce the magnitude of power outages.

The process starts by employees gathering parts for the product and putting them into plastic bins that look similar to curbside recycling containers.

The problem was that tiny but often expensive pieces, such as screws and fuses, would hide in the recesses of the bins, forcing employees to hunt for them.

While the searches only added seconds or minutes to how long it took to build the recloser controls, they caused extra stress in a job where people’s performance is rated partly on how efficiently they complete tasks.

Enter Smith and Movius about three years ago. They invented small baskets that fit into the bins for miniature parts. The two also created holders for documents called travelers with instructions that tell employees how to build each custom recloser control and track what tasks have been completed that make them easier to read.

“We were standing around talking about the pain points of what we were doing, losing small parts in our bins,” Movius said. “And we were like, ‘How about we do something? We can fix this.’ I had just started being a three-dimensional designer at the time. It was a perfect opportunity.”

What Smith and Movius created performs so well SEL patented their inventions and deployed the innovations on the line where they worked in Lewiston. Since then, the baskets and holders have made their way onto SEL assembly recloser control lines in Pullman and at operations in Lewiston and Lafayette, Ind., that make other products.

The patents are a reflection of Smith’s and Movius’ initiative and SEL’s company culture. The business holds galas to honor patent recipients, authors of technical papers and those who help set industry standards. At the most recent celebration, close to 175 employees were recognized for contributions over an 18-month period that ended Dec. 31.

I spoke with Smith and Movius about their collaboration and the impact it had on their careers. Edited highlights of our conversation follow:

Elaine Williams: Let’s start by talking a little bit more about what a recloser control is. How would you describe it?

Travis Movius: If you see your power kind of flicker maybe three times, the recloser control has just detected a potential problem in a transmission line and either resolved it or rerouted power so your home or business still has electricity. If something breaks a line, like a tree branch falling on it, the recloser control will cut the power to the line, reducing the chance of it starting a fire. Each of the reclosers contains at least one digital relay, the shoe-box-sized product that launched SEL. The relays pinpoint where issues are in power lines remotely. Before they debuted, electric utilities would have employees walk or drive sometimes hundreds of miles to locate the source of outages.

EW: While the recloser controls are expensive pieces of technology, the baskets and holders you designed only cost about $1.50. What was the hardest issue you encountered inventing the baskets and document holders?

TM: The biggest challenge in the design was actually figuring out how to get the baskets and holders to stay in the box where you wanted them to go, instead of sliding to the bottom. We found we had to put them in corners. We use ridges on the bins to compress them into that area and hold them in place. They’re movable. They can be as high or as low as the employee wants. Employees can use more than one basket.

EW: Your innovations are now used by hundreds of SEL employees. They have saved SEL a significant amount of money by reducing the amount of time it takes to assemble recloser controls and decreasing instances where parts are accidentally lost. What other benefits do they have?

TM: In some situations, you were literally picking up all your parts, kind of lifting them up, so you can look under to find that part you want. It’s quality of life for people on the lines that are building these. It’s just so much nicer to know where things are at.

Jessica Smith: What seems like a small idea had such a huge impact to the people on the floor, which is nice.

EW: Let’s shift gears and talk a little about your positions at SEL. Neither of you had worked in manufacturing or the power transmission field when you started here. What prompted you to join SEL?

TM: I worked at the Money Saver for 19 years starting just after I finished college. My job was super stressful. I was looking for something new. My wife was like, “Why don’t you apply here at SEL?” My wife, my mother-in-law and a bunch of other friends worked here. That was the best decision I’ve made in a very long time.

JS: Just after high school, I worked as a custodian at Mick McClure Honda and as a hostess at Tomato Bros. before I landed a job as an administrative assistant with SPAN Construction, which goes all over the nation and builds Costcos. I traveled for two years before I decided I was tired of living out of a hotel room. When I was ready to move back to the area, I applied at SEL because I had heard nothing but good things about the company.

EW: Could each of you talk about what’s happened to your careers since doing the work on the patented technology?

TM: The patents have been a really cool, neat process. I have been promoted twice. I now supervise 16 employees.

JS: When you do something like this, it empowers you. It gives you that piece of motivation that maybe you were missing to help you go to the next level, no matter where you are in life. I worked on the recloser control assembly line for maybe three years. Then I did an apprenticeship in manufacturing tech support for six months. And I decided that’s where I want to end up because I love it so much. In order to be in that department, you have to have a degree, so I enrolled at LCSC, where I am taking one class per semester that’s paid for by SEL as long as I earn a B or higher. I applied for and landed a job in manufacturing test support. I troubleshoot the product that fails on our manufacturing floor. If a unit, board or test equipment is failing, it is our job to find the cause of the failure and get it fixed.

EW: How do you see what you learned working on the patent shaping your futures?

TM : When I started pursuing leadership, I had to give up three-dimensional design. I started training another person into it. He loved it and took off with it. Now I’m his supervisor. I’ve got two people on my team who do three-dimensional design. I’m trying to encourage them. After these patents came out, I’m like, “What can you guys patent?”

JS: I don’t have any ideas for SEL at the moment, but I keep thinking about, “How could I improve this? How could I make my work easier?” or even, “What can I make easier at home?” Between work and school right now, I don’t have a lot of time. But once I’m done, I have all these projects in mind.

Williams is the business editor of the Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News. She may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.

Reprinted with permission of The Lewiston Tribune, copyright 2025.