Congratulations once again to our Gas Department employees. They earned the American Public Gas Association’s (APGA’s) highest recognition for operations - the prestigious System Operational Achievement Recognition (SOAR) Gold. 

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. Our Gas Department scored 156 out of a possible 158 points for those areas and was selected for Gold SOAR status by our peers on the APGA Operations and Safety Committee.  

“Greenville Utilities recognizes that enhancing our customers’ quality of life begins with skilled employees focused on safely providing reliable utility services,” said Anthony Miller, Director of Gas Systems. “This achievement is the result of hard work by our outstanding employees. It is truly a great honor to be recognized by the Association that plays a vital role in the natural gas industry as an effective advocate for all public natural gas utilities.” 

APGA President and CEO Dave Schryver remarked, “Greenville Utilities Commission was highly rated in all four areas that are required of SOAR. GUC 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 GUC and is confident in their continued success.”  

Out of approximately 750 APGA members, Greenville Utilities was one of 11 SOAR Gold Level recipients recognized this year. The recognition is for three years. Our Gas Department also received this award at the Silver level in 2015 and 2018 as well as the Gold level in 2021.  

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