The American Public Gas Association (APGA) has once again presented our Gas Department with the prestigious APGA System Operational Achievement Recognition (SOAR) for excellence in operations.

SOAR recognizes a utility’s demonstrated commitment to excellence in four areas required to safely deliver natural gas to its customers: system integrity, system improvement, employee safety, and workforce development. The Gas Department scored in the 90-96% of possible points for those areas and was selected for SOAR level Silver by its peers on the APGA Operations and Safety Committee.

“Greenville Utilities recognizes that enhancing our customer’s quality of life begins with skilled employees focused on safely providing reliable utility services,” said Anthony Miller, Director of Gas Systems. “We work very hard to help our employees improve while we maintain and improve our system.”

APGA President and CEO Bert Kalisch remarked, “Greenville Utilities was highly rated in all four areas that are required of SOAR. Greenville Utilities consistently demonstrates a commitment to providing natural gas safely and efficiently to all those in their community and as such, serves as a model for all other natural gas utilities in the country. APGA is proud to recognize Greenville Utilities and is confident in their continued success.”

Out of approximately 750 APGA members, Greenville Utilities was one of eighteen SOAR recipients recognized this year, joining the 26 previous SOAR recipients. The recognition is for three years. Our Gas Department originally received this award back in 2015.

APGA is the national association of municipally and publicly owned local distribution systems. There are about 1,000 public gas systems serving more than 5 million customers. These public gas utilities are not for profit retail distribution entities that are owned by, and accountable to, the citizens they serve.