The City of Collinsville's Electric Department was recently awarded 1st place for the annual MESO (Municipal Electric Systems of Oklahoma) Electric Operations and Safety Competition. The press release is copied below...
April 17, 2012
Press Release
For Immediate Release
For more information contact: Shane Woolbright, General Manager
Collinsville Electric Department Receives Electric Safety Award
Municipal Electric Systems of Oklahoma (MESO) announces that the Electric Department of the City of Collinsville was named as a 1st Place Winner in the association’s annual Electric Operations and Safety Competition. Collinsville was recognized in the category for cities under 10,000 population. Collinsville’s Electric Department has gone six consecutive years without an on the job accident in one of the nation’s most dangerous occupations.
Collinsville was recognized for outstanding distribution construction standards, good customer service, and very low margin of customer service disturbances. Collinsville employees meet the requirements of their work with professionalism and safety due to employer efforts. These efforts include four years of rigorous field experience and testing for each line worker before he achieves journey lineworker status. In addition, employees do safety reviews before each job and attend monthly training and safety sessions in addition to other training provided by the utility.
Collinsville scored well in reliability with crews normally responding to and correcting a customer outage within 80 minutes. By having local ownership of the electric system and crews located within one mile of most customers, residents in Collinsville don’t wait long for electric service crews to respond to problems.
MESO General Manager Shane Woolbright presented the award to the Collinsville electric department staff. Said Woolbright, “The City of Collinsville has demonstrated a continuous effort in the past decade to be the highest quality public power system. This is evidenced by such actions as training of employees in system preventive maintenance and having employee development programs to prevent problems from overvoltage and overcurrent. Good tree trimming practices play a big role in reliability as well.”
“The current construction standards and employee training standards of the utility are superior, and that effort has resulted in the outstanding reliability citizens receive and the presentation of this award. It should be noted that good service and 100% employee attendance have a connection. “
MESO is an electric utility trade association representing cities in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. The association’s 90 member utilities provide non-profit electric services to some 600,000 people in the four states. Collinsville has been a member of the association since 1972.
Collinsville is also a signatory to the MESO Mutual Aid Agreement whereby the member cities pledge to work jointly to assist each other in cases of emergency of natural disaster. The agreements, recognized by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), insure that trained utility crews are promptly dispatched to locations in the event of emergency.