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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