Signal and Lighting Coordinator, Tim Baltazar, reduces failure rate by standardizing on Clary
When I first started here. We were blacking out once a week. We were seeing a 68% failure rate. It was a lot of stress, and a lot of panic. It was probably the most dangerous situation to go into as a technician.”
Nestled at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Rancho Cucamonga is a beautiful little city featuring stunning natural attractions, great food and shopping, and one historic gas station that’s been serving travelers along route 66 for over a century. But, when Tim Baltazar joined the city’s traffic light maintenance department fourteen years ago, things were anything but ideal.
How these things are installed and initially tested is huge. These things were installed improperly, they weren’t wired up to go to flash, there was poor maintenance at the time. I learned a lot and I locked the whole system down.”
It didn’t take Tim long to discover that his city’s power supply wasn’t good. Rancho Cucamonga had grown too quickly during the 80’s and 90’s and the infrastructure and maintenance processes just couldn’t keep up. The power supply was dirty and inconsistent. That explained why the lights were failing, but not why the backup systems weren’t working. That, Tim soon discovered, was the result of poor installation, poor equipment, and poor maintenance.
Clary had the experience to help find different ways to adjust our systems to the unique cabinets that were installed on our traffic lights. Together we established a very rigorous testing program. We went from a 68% percent failure rate to a very minimal failure rate.”
The traffic lights through the city were installed at different times, by different providers. Consequently, inverters were housed in a number of different cabinets, each requiring a unique installation. Working closely with two of Clary’s most trusted field technicians, Tim addressed each installation independently. It was a long project, but for Tim and Rancho Cucamonga, it was worth it.
I can’t say anything bad about the company. That’s from the rep to the service to the whole company. And the product. Anyone that asks me, I’ll tell ‘em straight up that I’ve got no issues with Clary and I recommend them 100%.”
In 2019, Rancho Cucamonga removed the last of its non-Clary backup systems and Tim couldn’t be happier. And that’s saying a lot, because Tim, now the interim Signal and Lighting Coordinator, has always taken his job very seriously. He considers the maintenance and upkeep of his system a matter of life and death, and believes he owes it to his community to keep the traffic flowing and its people safe.
