Montana's electric company

As most Americans know, following Hurricane Maria's devastation, Whitefish Energy is this small, two-man electrical contractor, based in Whitefish, Montana, that was awarded a $300 million, no-bid contract to rebuild the electric grid in Puerto Rico, completely destroyed the hurricane.

The sweetheart deal that involved $400/hr rates, seemed to have been facilitated by another Whitefish resident and Secretary of Interior, Ryan Zinke. When everyone came to their senses, the contract was finally canceled at the end of October.

Now, it seems to me that there might be ways to mitigate this sad conclusion and help both parties by encouraging Puerto Rican who can't do anything anyway at the moment, on their devastated island, to come to Whitefish, get trained on everything electric, lower the hourly billing rate to say, $100, and help beef-up the ranks of that tiny company so, when the next hurricane strikes, it will have the sufficient size and manpower to handle any reconstruction effort, no matter how large.

Since Whitefish is home to a ski resort, there should be enough pillows to accommodate several thousand Puerto Ricans during their training and bring some badly needed diversity and high-energy to the region.

If all works out as I would hope, the place could be renamed “Pez Blanco” in short order and this would be a true win-win idea for two communities that nothing ever destined to come together!