PG&E Crew Wins HDD Rodeo Showcase, Advances to 2026 Nationals
A PG&E crew took first place at the 2025 HDD Rodeo Showcase at The Utility Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, completing a 200-ft horizontal directional drilling bore in 50 minutes and 6 seconds, Trenchless Technology reports. PG&E entered two crews with help from Ditch Witch West, choosing operators based on experience running the Ditch Witch JT32. Crew 2, made up of Chris Hernandez, Chris Trejo, and T’Jae Gibson, took first place, while Crew 1 finished third with a time of 66:32. Teams were judged on speed, accuracy, and grade, with checkpoints along the bore path. Crews had to contend with unmarked utilities and buried pavement remnants from an old parking lot at the competition site. As the winning crew, PG&E Crew 2 has qualified for the 2026 HDD Rodeo, set for December 2-4 at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, Georgia, where it will face 20 other teams from across North America.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- Utilities like PG&E are using competitive events to identify and validate HDD operator skill internally, a model smaller contractors could adapt with in-house “rodeos” to benchmark crews before bidding complex bore work.
- Operator familiarity with specific rigs (here, the Ditch Witch JT32) was the deciding factor in team selection, underscoring that equipment-specific certification and hands-on hours matter more than general HDD experience when staffing crews for precision bores.
- Contractors bidding utility-adjacent HDD work should watch for PG&E and similar operators expanding internal HDD capacity and training pipelines, which could shift how much trenchless work gets kept in-house versus subcontracted out in California distribution territories.
