Lafayette Utilities System Wins National Safety Awards
Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) has earned the American Public Power Association’s Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2019. The utility earned 2nd place award in the category for utilities with 374,000 worker-hours of annual worker exposure.
“Strong safety programs are essential to ensuring that electric utility employees are informed and trained on safe work procedures,” said Brandon Wylie, Chair of the Association’s Safety Committee and Director of Training & Safety at Electric Cities of Georgia. “The utilities receiving this award have proven that protecting the safety of their employees is a top priority.”
More than 335 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 2019. 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 2019, as defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“LUS is proud of its safety record,” said Greg Labbe’, Electric Operations Manager at LUS. “This award represents all the hard work that goes into ensuring that our guys are safe on the job and can go home safe to their families every day.”
The Safety Awards have been held annually for the last 60 years. The American Public Power Association is the voice of not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide.
Also, Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) has earned a Diamond Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3)® designation from the American Public Power Association for providing reliable and safe electric service.
The RP3 designation, which lasts for three years, recognizes public power utilities that demonstrate proficiency in four key disciplines: reliability, safety, workforce development, and system improvement. Criteria include sound business practices and a utility-wide commitment to safe and reliable delivery of electricity. LUS joins more than 275 public power utilities nationwide that hold the RP3 designation.
“Receiving an Diamond RP3 designation is a great honor and demonstrates LUS’s commitment to implementing industry best practices in utility operations,” says Aaron Haderle, Chair of the Association’s RP3 Review Panel and Manager of Transmission and Distribution Operations at Kissimmee Utility Authority, Florida. “RP3 utilities are consistently looking to improve their workforce, system reliability, and safety to serve their communities better.”
“This is a great honor,” said Greg Labbe’, Electric Operations Manager at LUS. “We take a lot of pride in the work we do to keep Lafayette up-and-running. It’s nice to be recognized as among the ‘best of the best’ on a national level.”
(Press release information sent by Lafayette Utilities System to KPEL News)
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