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Spring is traditionally a time of change and NEPPA is no exception. As the New England public power industry continues to change, so does NEPPA leadership. This month Vinnie Cameron is retiring from Reading, MA. Vinnie has been a long-time Board member and is stepping down as NEPPA Treasurer. During his tenure he oversaw our Audit Committee and was involved with decisions like our new Training Center in Littleton. For those who don’t know Vinnie, he is an avid golfer and a hockey dad. I would like to thank him for his long service to NEPPA and we are all the better because of his efforts.

The NEPPA board will be approving a person to fill Vinnie’s seat and naming a new treasurer on March 1. Look for those announcements next month in our Newsline. I want to extend my congratulations to Dave Schofield from Peabody, who has just been named General Manager at Georgetown! Dave recently completed the Public Utility Management Program and Dave impressed the instructors and fellow students.

One element that is always changing is NEPPA’s efforts in representing our members’ interests to elected and appointed leaders. This past month, NEPPA met with Congressmen Richard Neal and John Larson to discuss tax exempt financing. To do this, we collaborated with MMWEC and CMEEC. In 2011, this issue was not on NEPPA’s radar; however, this year we have added gas market issues. With the generators in our market moving more and more to natural gas as a source of power generation, these issues will probably be around for a long time to come. If you are interested in becoming more involved in NEPPA’s federal efforts, please see the Rally announcement in this publication. NEPPA members will be having a full meeting, scheduled for the week of March 11, in Washington. It is not too late to attend and you will be led by experienced participants and our friends at Morgan Meguire, so there is no reason not to!

As we begin to come out of this traditional New England winter, we begin to review the 2013 educational offerings and what we should do for 2014. This means reviewing current classes for relevance and member requests for new offerings. One request we have received is to create a class for non-operations managers to learn the basics of crew functions. In the past, one such request resulted in the development of customer service classes. Please take a few minutes at your utility and discuss any educational needs you have that are not being met. Please email suggestions to myself (lbrownell@neppa.org) or Steve Socoby (ssocoby@neppa.org). We will review the requests with our trainers in March and then begin development. All new classes will be published in our annual Education & Training Catalogue this August.

In 2012 we were proud of the efforts of our Education and Training Committee and staff at reaching out to meet the needs of our members. In 2013, we want to expand this outreach past education and training to any member needs. One of the groups we really want to hear from is engineers. Whether you are on staff at a utility or an outside consultant, we would like to know what we can do to help you better collaborate with your peers and meet your needs. There are not a lot of opportunities for continuing education and forums for electric utility engineers and we would like to know what we can do to ensure the same quality of service that we provide to the rest of the industry. Please feel free to contact me.

With all of these changes, staffing the NEPPA training department can be challenging. You will see in this publication an article/announcement seeking safety and technical trainers. If you know someone who would be a good trainer please ask them to contact us. The positions are flexible and a great opportunity to give back to the industry that has provided for all of us.

One last note on change relates to communications and our website. Later this year we will be launching a new website and one of the goals of this new site is to improve two-way communications. That means we would like to hear from you! Please let us know what you would like to see out of our new site or any ideas for improvements. This site will be in place for a while, so any suggestions or feedback you have is welcome. Please contact Courtney Crouse, our Communications Manager at ccrouse@neppa.org for any comments or suggestions.

Thanks for your continued membership and support!