The Lake Today

From his job as a consulting engineer for Ameren Missouri, through major involvement in a wide variety of community projects, to his full-time commitment to the roles of husband, father and grandfather, Alan Sullivan truly is a “Man for All Seasons.”

Although born in Kansas City, Sullivan has spent nearly his entire life in the Lake Area.

His ancestors are from the Tuscumbia region of Miller County and that is where Sullivan grew up. His grandfather and uncle actually worked for Union Electric in the early 1930s as part of the original Bagnell Dam construction crew. And, Sullivan loves to reminisce about how the two men got those jobs and how he has been affected by that inherited work ethic.

“The country was sliding into the Great Depression, when they went to a Sunday night church service where the preacher told the congregation that if any of the men were looking for work, Union Electric was hiring men to help build a big dam across the Osage River,” Sullivan said. “They rode their horses to the job site and got in line to apply for a job. The line was so long that they couldn’t see the end of it from where they were standing.”

Sullivan goes on to tell that because there were so many men applying for the jobs that were available and the applicants had to wait so long, tensions were running high and it wasn’t unusual to see fights break out among the men standing in line.

“A fight broke out just behind Grandpa and Uncle Lloyd and rather than get involved they just stepped out of line and waited,” Sullivan said. “The line boss saw them refuse to participate and came over and told my grandfather that he liked his attitude and offered him a job on the spot. Grandpa said he would take the job if his son got hired, too. So they worked there until the dam was completed two years later.”

Sullivan, himself, went to work at Bagnell Dam shortly after earning a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla and has been employed by Ameren for the past 34 years.

In 2006, he spearheaded a Lake Area-wide celebration of Bagnell Dam’s 75th anniversary and as part of that celebration he brought his aging “Uncle Lloyd” to a number of events to speak about his experiences in working on the original construction crew.

“He loved to tell stories about those times,” Sullivan said. “And he liked to end his stories by saying he had to help build the dam so ‘the boy,’ meaning me, would have a place to work.”

The “work” that Sullivan performs at Bagnell Dam includes a wide variety of technical jobs that include being responsible for preparing an emergency action plan for dealing with the remote possibility that the dam might one day fail.

“I wear lots of hats here,” he said. “Including preparing an emergency action plans for both the Bagnell and Taum Sauk dams and making the day to day calculations that determine how much electricity we need to generate and whether or not we need to open the flood gates to maintain safe water levels.”

But maintaining the daily water levels in Lake of the Ozarks and the Taum Sauk reservoirs isn’t the only responsibility that Sullivan has. He also fills in for the maintenance supervisor when needed, was involved in Ameren’s 8-year-long Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing project, just recently completed a project to replace some pumps inside the dam and is currently working on a project designed to determine the amount of erosion along the banks of the Osage River below the dam.

“As part of our license requirements, we survey the Osage River periodically to determine the extent of erosion on its banks. We use a technology called LiDAR, which in simplistic terms is an airplane mounted laser scanner,” Sullivan said. “The plane flies the Osage River from (Bagnell) dam down to the mouth of the Missouri River at Jeff City (86 miles) and shoots millions of data points. From that we can create a 3-D digital model of the river and by comparing it to data collected in 2008 determine how the bank has changed over time.”

And if all that isn’t enough, Sullivan is also responsible for coordinating with the company’s structural engineers to make sure the dam remains structurally sound at all times. Then in his spare time he likes to take on a few community projects.

Sullivan has been a member of the Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors for eight years, and has frequently spearheaded various chamber projects, including chairmanship of the annual Magic Dragon Street Meet Nationals car show.

A show that has grown under Sullivan’s leadership to become one of the premier car shows in the state of Missouri. Last year alone, there were more than 2,000 participants in the show and Sullivan has plans to make the event even bigger.

“We’ve about out grown the (Bagnell Dam) Strip,” Sullivan said. “So last year we held a junior car show at Prewitt’s Pointe and we’re going to continue holding that, and we would like to expand the Magic Dragon show to a full week. We’d still keep the part where the cars are displayed on the Strip to a four-day event, but we’d also stage other events that would deep the car owners at the Lake for the entire week.”

Sullivan has also been instrumental in changing the way the annual Lake Area Chamber of Commerce dinner is staged by turning it into “more of a celebration” and for years worked as director of the Crossover Christian Music Festival in Camdenton.

“As you know for a variety of reasons we didn’t hold the festival last year, but some things have changed and we’re looking at bringing it back next year,” he said.

And, Sullivan doesn’t limit his involvement with worthwhile projects to the Lake Area only; he is also involved with a talent show that takes place the week after Labor Day at the Magic Kingdom inside the Disney World amusement park in Orlando, Florida.

“It’s a talent show for performers trying to break into the Christian music scene,” Sullivan said. “There are tryouts and performances through the entire week, then the winners are selected and get to perform in one of the Magic Kingdom shows for a limited period.”

Having been involved in the music scene himself for most of his life, performing is something that Sullivan knows quite a bit about.

From his “long hair and rock and roll band” days in high school, through his current performances at various events around the Lake, to his weekly gig playing the guitar during services at the Potter’s House Church in Camdenton, Sullivan says, “music has always been an important part of my life.”

When he steps away from his time serving the Lake Area, Sullivan also has a private life made rich by his wife, Lori, a teacher in the Camdenton R-III district, and the two daughters, one son and one grandson the couple have together. When he finds time, like the rest of the Lake community, Sullivan loves to go hunting and fishing. However, he isn’t quite ready to turn those leisure activities into a full-time occupation, at least not just yet.

“Ameren offered early retirement this year to anybody over 58 who had enough time to qualify,” he said. “I thought about it, but decided I’m just not quite ready to take that route yet.”