Congratulations are in order to our Gas Department employees. They were once again presented with the prestigious System Operational Achievement Recognition (SOAR) for excellence in operations by the American Public Gas Association (APGA). This time, the Department reached the highest status of 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 in the 97-100% range of possible 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 fifteen SOAR recipients recognized this year, joining the 41 previous SOAR recipients. The recognition is for three years. Our Gas Department also received this award at the Silver level in 2015 and 2018. This is the first time the Department has reached Gold status.  

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.