(VANCOUVER, WA) -- The Excellence in Communication contest, which recognizes the top
communication efforts from Northwest Public Power Association member utilities and
associations, turned 26 years old this year and celebrated another record-breaking
year at the Northwest Communications & Energy Innovations Conference (NIC) awards
banquet at the Tulalip Resort in Tulalip, Wash., on Tuesday, September 17.
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| The 2019 Excellence in Communication winners at Tuesday evening's banquet |
“We asked members to crush last year’s score with a record number of entries, and they came through––in fact they topped the old record of 229 with 257 entries this year. That’s more than a 10% increase in entries,” said 2019 NIC Chair Jeff Marshall of Clearwater Power. “And the entries this year were top notch with 13 receiving perfect scores of 50 out of 50. Congratulations to everyone!”
Categories are broken up into four groups: Group A utilities
having the smallest number of customers and Group D having the largest. Eight local
marketing and communication professionals volunteered their time to judge the
entries. A complete list of the first-, second-, and third-place winners can be
found at the end of this release.
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| (L-R) Mason PUD 3’s Justin Holzgrove, Joel Myer, and Lynn Eaton celebrate their Tom Hougan Award win. |
In addition to the
Excellence in Communication awards, NWPPA presented the 2019 Tom Hougan Award for the best overall communication effort to
Mason PUD No. 3 of Shelton, Wash. With an average score of 45.8 out of 50
points, which included four first-place awards, three second-place awards, one
third-place award, and one perfect score, this is Mason 3’s first time winning
the contest. Public Information and Government Relations Manager Joel Myer was
on hand to accept the award along with coworkers Lynn Eaton and Justin
Holzgrove.
Winners of the People’s Choice Awards in photography were also
announced at the banquet. Attendees viewed all of the nearly 50 photography
submissions at Monday night’s opening reception and voted on their favorite
photo in each of three categories:
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| Roseville Electric Utility (Calif.) won Best Photo of a Child. |
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| Silicon Valley Power (Calif.) won Best Photo of an Employee. |
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| Ravalli Electric Cooperative (Mont.) won Best Photo in the Miscellaneous Category. |
The annual Excellence in Communication awards will next be presented in September 2020.
About NWPPA: NWPPA is an
international not-for-profit trade association representing and serving over
150 customer-owned, locally controlled utilities in the Western U.S. and
Canada. The Association also serves approximately 300 associate members across
the U.S. and Canada who are allied with the electric utility industry. Visit www.nwppa.org, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook for more information.
