Randy King
Work History - CP&L until
Racing Connection Days.
- In 1972 after returning to
Roxboro from my military training, I started to work with Tommy Lawrence
Electrical Contractors. I was teamed up with Cozy Cozart for training
(Cozy likes to tell everyone that he is responsible for all my electrical
background).
- Cozy did teach me a lot and
it wasn't long before I was
leading jobs myself. Some of the most memorable jobs are: Bumpass
Motors new dealership, Mac Donalds in Roxboro and Chapel Hill, and several
antenna towers - I was one of the few that was daring enough to climb
tri-pod towers to guy them off. This carried over into CP&L when I
joined them in 1974. I hadn't been there long when they needed someone
to change light bulbs on the 800' #3 chimney. I remember it to this
day - making $3.43/hour, I climbed to the top. I would do this on
three occasions, each time getting a new buddy to go with me. Once,
one of my assistants quit at the 400' mark and I thought I was going to have
to throw him off to get him down because he just "froze up".
- The CP&L years were good
to me and for me. I had many jobs while there and never met a
challenge I wouldn't attempt. There were a lot of people I worked with
that molded my work ethics forever.
Some of them that I will forever be indebted to or remember for whatever reasons are: Clint Wallace - for hiring me, Terry Roberson, Jim Rose,
Johnny Goode, Jerry Stubbs, Jim Benton, Walter Debnam, Al Farthing, Harry
Nicholson, Al Flowers, Joe Tomlinson, C.V. Bailes, Cranford Hathcock, Butch
Winstead, Ned Kirby and many others. These were some of the best
dog-gone power plant men in the world and at one time, I'm happy to say, that
we had the best management team any company would want.
- I started as an
Electrician's helper and advanced as I&C Tech before going into
Operations. Shift Foreman was a job I had before going to the startup
team on Roxboro Unit 4 as an I&C Foreman. Keith Wood and I were
responsible for all the electrical and instrumentation systems. After
this I went to Unit 1, then on to the new Mayo Steam Plant as I&C
Supervisor. We successfully started up Mayo and then I returned to
Roxboro Steam Plant as Maintenance Manager. I spent time as Planning and
Scheduling Manager, Operations Manager and even a period of twelve weeks
during start-up of Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant.
- In 1991 I started weekend
travels to all of the NASCAR Busch Series events with the race team of Bill
Davis. The driver was Jeff Gordon! The part time racing, full
time power plant jobs continued until 1996 when I had the opportunity to go
racing full time and left CP&L after 23 years.

Jeff Gordon in 1991 driving the
Carolina Ford Dealers car. Yes, F-O-R-D
Jeff had never driven a gear
shift car before his entry into NASCAR racing.
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