What happened to the summer? Driving back from the Annual conference, I actually noticed some leaves beginning to change. While I welcome the color and cooler temperatures, I wouldn't mind slowing things down a little; it seems that NEPPA has seen constant change in my short, tenured 22 months.

People have been a large part of this change process; we have turned over four Board seats in this brief time frame. The latest two have been the retirements of Vinnie Cameron and Eric Werner. Both of these individuals have been cornerstones of the industry and NEPPA leadership. Anyone who was at the awards banquet in Stowe will tell you that the individual greetings that Eric and Vinnie received by the audience was unparalleled. 

NEPPA has always been fortunate to have outstanding member leaders and Greg Destasi and Craig Myotte have assumed the seats vacated by Vinnie and Eric’s respective retirements. Greg is the General Manager of Paxton Municipal Light Department and Craig is the General Manager of the Village of Morrisville Water & Light Department. Welcome Craig and Greg! Additionally, the following Board members were re-elected:

• John Tzimorangas              Energy New England, MA
• Mark KellyMiddleton            Municipal Electric Dept., MA
• Calvin AmesMadison         Electric Works, ME
• Michael Cloutier                  Groveland Municipal Light Department, MA
• Duncan Hastings                Village of Johnson, VT
• Jonathan Elwell                   Village of Enosburg Falls, VT
• James Lavelle                      Holyoke Gas & Electric Dept., MA

NEPPA has additional changes scheduled over the next several months. As I wrote about last month, we have purchased a communications system for our Mutual Aid program. Scott Edwards, the Chair of NEPPA's mutual aid committee, and other coordinators will begin beta testing it shortly and it should be vetted and active prior to the first winter storm. If you have not been contacted for your utility’s primary and secondary contacts, please reach out to your regional coordinator as soon as possible.

NEPPA’s External Mutual Aid program has also been completed and is just undergoing legal review. It should be published for members by the end of the month, so keep an eye out for it. 

The remaining change that is scheduled for NEPPA relates to technology. In the next several weeks we will have cameras and specialized software installed, which will give us the flexibility of recording and editing training videos or live streaming. This will dramatically impact our ability to provide you the best training content in the most convenient manner for all of your staff.

Earlier this year we requested feedback on our website, so we could begin the development of a new site that is easier to use, provides better access to our robust content and helps us deliver content that we have previously been unable to deliver. Courtney Crouse in our office has been diligently working on this and it should be unveiled in early 2014. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please reach out to her at ccrouse@neppa.org.  Court also recently produced the first issue of our new newsletter called Lineworker’s Quarterly. If you were not in attendance at the General Foreman’s Roundtable, please keep an eye out for it as it will be mailed to our utilities sometime at the beginning of September.

None of these changes are possible without a great staff and volunteers, so allow me to say thank you for a moment to the folks responsible for two great events this past month:

First) the General Foremen’s Roundtable; thank you to Bob Henriksen and Steve Socoby for their work in creating and conducting this event. We will aim to make this a semi-annual event per the feedback received.

Second: NEPPA’s Annual Conference; we have reviewed the written evaluations and the word of response received has been phenomenal. There was not one aspect of the event that I have not heard great comments about. This event takes a great deal of effort from committee and staff. The committee works on finding the venue and putting together the speakers and program. So thanks to:

John Bilda, Chair

Ellen Burt

John Clark

Gary Babin

Jim Bakas

Mark Kelly

Kristin DiGirolamo, Staff

Courtney Miller, Staff

Thank you for the great location and program.

Besides Kristin and Courtney, Steve Socoby and Courtney Crouse all worked to ensure that attendees’ experiences were exceptional. Thank you all!