By: Stephen Schoepfer, COO – VANQUISH
We built it. Delivered it.
The install went clean. The raccoons haven’t made it through since.
That substation hasn’t had a single animal-related outage.
These days, the manager says he still sees raccoon tracks near the fence—just not inside it.
And for the first time in a while, he’s sleeping better.
The raccoons are gone.
The twins are settling in.
And the power is staying on.
What did this job teach me?
That creativity is born in constraint.
No space. No budget. No time.
And yet, a solution had to exist—because the problem wasn’t going to wait.
This wasn’t a long-lead project with planning meetings and design reviews.
It was a high-pressure moment with no margin for error.
And the way we answered it said everything about how VANQUISH shows up.
Because leadership doesn’t always look like a big presentation or a five-year roadmap.
Sometimes it’s just asking the right people the right questions—then getting out of their way.
We prototyped a system that didn’t exist before that call.
A modular, no-dig fence system that installs safely inside energized substations.
It started with raccoons.
But what we built changed the way we think about space, speed, and protection.
And we’ve been building on that model ever since.
If I had to sum it up?
We didn’t just block raccoons. We brought someone peace of mind.
That’s the part I’ll always remember.
Because not every job is about scale.
Some jobs are about clarity.
Urgency.
And the willingness to solve what’s right in front of you—with speed, creativity, and care.