Abstract: Highly skilled South African experts are responsible for controlling the voltage levels of the electrical transmission grid. This paper reports on the research methodology, which was used to identify the mental structure of their expertise. The research was multidisciplinary in nature, including, Power System Engineering, Industrial and Cognitive Psychology, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).Of these, the NLP elicitation techniques used form the main body of this paper. NLP represents a body of knowledge with which human experience can be investigated and altered, by adopting a “whole-person” approach. Eight controllers of varied competence were interviewed. The main findings were that the expert controllers use sophisticated mental strategies that allow them to simplify the overwhelming quantity of data presented to them. These results will be discussed in the full paper together with the applicability of the NLP elicitation method.