Photo by Mike Lamb Monte Buntjer of Monte’s Electric stands next to his servicing truck outside his shop in Marshall.

MARSHALL — Monte Buntjer says his interest in an electrical career started in FFA.

“I found it fascinating. I just thought it was pretty neat,” he said. “Grew up on a dairy farm south of Worthington and learned at an early age milk and cows wasn’t my calling.”

Buntjer enrolled in the electrician program at Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Jackson.

“Originally, I wanted to go become a lineman, power lineman. But there was a two-year waiting list for that, so I decided to go for the electrician instead of the lineman. It turned out pretty good for me,” he said.

After graduation from the electrician program, Buntjer interviewed for jobs in Gaylord and Marshall. He ended up picking the Marshall job.

“A bigger town and a little more stuff going on. I worked for a company in Marshall just short of 10 years before I decided to go on my own way in March 2000. Monte’s Electric was started and I haven’t looked back since. It’s been crazy. I worked for that company so I had a lot of people I knew, contacts, stuff like that. There was always work to do and always has been. We got some customers we had for 35 years,” he said.

Buntjer enjoys the electrical business and challenges that go with it.

“It’s something different every day. You don’t have the same thing every day. One day you might be working on a piece of equipment in a restaurant. The next day on top of a grain elevator or going to a house to do electrical services. There’s a lot of variety to it,” he said. “If it was easy, everyone would want to do it. We will work on equipment and stuff like that — troubleshooting. It’s just not replacing light switches and putting lights in. There’s another aspect that really works your brain to try and figure

Even during the Minnesota winters, Buntjer says he enjoys the work.

“We do a fair amount of outside work during the winter because some of our customers, that’s their down time. That’s when they need their equipment upgraded,” he said. “You just work with Mother Nature and when Mother Nature doesn’t want you to work outside, you take a day off or go work inside.”

Buntjer started out with renting a shop outside Marshall, but now his shop is located off of Main Street.

“It works out well to be in town. There is a wholesale house in town to where we get a lot of our parts from. That helps. Some people are 30 miles away from a wholesale house. Either you have to run to get parts or they have to stock a big inventory. We’re fortunate to have that in town,” he said.

For the past eight years, Nick Schultze has worked under Buntjer. He said the two of them work well together .

“He’s good and he know his stuff. I’ll send him on any jobs. If he has questions, he can call me and if I need any help, I can call him. It works well,” Buntjer said.

“People say, ‘don’t you want to get bigger.’ Not really. We take on what we can take on. We always try to keep our customers happy,” he said. “When you have customers for 35 years, obviously you are doing something right. We will put in a light in, change out their service and five years down the road they are remodeling their bathroom. If you treat them right, take are of them, they will call you back. It works out pretty good.”

Buntjer says advancing technology has changed everything he does in the electrical field. He said electricians have continued education classes and the National Electrical Code changes every three years. It is the benchmark for safe electrical design, installation and inspection on the U.S. to protect people and property from hazards. It covers residential, commercial and industrial electrical requirements.

“When I first started, it was regular light switches and incandescent light bulbs. Now you got LEDS (light-emitting diode), light bulbs that are more energy efficient. You have wireless controls. You can mount a switch on a wall over there and not have any wires running to it to turn on a light across the room,” he said.

Besides the Marshall area, Buntjer says Monte’s Electric also has done some servicing in Montevideo, Renville and even South Dakota.

“We will go anywhere they will pay us to go,” he said.

Buntjer says electrical servicing is a rewarding career.

“When people call you and they need something — like a lot of them needed it yesterday. They will call you today and needed it yesterday. Sometimes you get called at 2 o’clock in the morning. Stuff not working. That’s not always ideal, but you get out of bed and take care of your customers,” he said. “We were at a lady’s house last week and did some ceiling lights … We put lights in her ceilings. She was pretty pleased. ‘I’m going to tell all my friends about you.’ That makes a guy feel good. She was happy. It turned out nice.”

Buntjer encourages young people to check out electrical servicing as a career.

“If there is any kids in high school, take a look at the trades. Plumbing, heating, cooling, electrician. It’s a really good field to get into. If you are willing to work, there is great opportunity there. There is always going to be a need for it. AI can’t take it over,” he said.