| The City of Gillette Electric Utility has earned the American Public Power Association’s Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2014. The utility earned a first place award in the category for utilities with less than 60,000 worker-hours of annual worker exposure. Kenneth Roberts, chair of the APPA Safety Committee and Line Supervisor, Huntsville, Alabama Utilities, presented the award on May 18, 2015 during the association’s annual Engineering & Operations Technical Conference, held in Sacramento, California.
“Working day-in and day-out with the power of electricity is not something we take lightly. We can’t afford to,” said Roberts. “The recipients of this award understand the essential nature of safety in our line of work. It’s embedded in their work culture.”
More than 290 utilities entered the annual Safety Awards, which is the highest number of entrants in the history of the program. Entrants were placed in categories according to their number of worker hours and ranked based on the most incident-free records during 2014. The incidence rate, used to judge entries, is based on the number of work-related reportable injuries or illnesses and the number of worker-hours during 2014, as defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“We at the City of Gillette are proud of the service we provide to our customers,” said Mick Wolf, Electrical Services Superintendent for the City of Gillette. “But above all else, we are proud of our safety record - proud that we do everything we can to send our people home to their families each and every night.” The Safety Awards have been held annually for the last 55 years. APPA is the national organization representing more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community- and state- owned electric utilities. |