APPA honors BPA with Safety Award of Excellence

The Bonneville Power Administration has earned the American Public Power Association's Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2024. The agency earned the Diamond Safety Award of Excellence, which is the highest designation of the award.

“This recognition belongs to the entire Bonneville workforce for elevating safety as our top core value," said John Hairston, BPA administrator and CEO. “For the last decade, they've worked as a team to change habits, adopt safe behaviors, support one another and speak up to keep each other safe – and fewer people have been injured as a result."

Each year, APPA conducts the Safety Awards of Excellence Program to recognize public power utilities that prioritize safety in their day-to-day operations. The award classification is based on incident rates and the effectiveness of a utility's safety programs. To receive the Diamond-level designation, BPA stood out in terms of its low-incident record and its safety program as a utility that had 7,637,786 hours of annual worker exposure.

“This achievement highlights teams making safe choices and watching out for each other," said Chief Safety Officer Brad Bea. “It puts a spotlight on our continuous improvement, our ability to accomplish the mission safely and our journey to become the safest utility in North America."

APPA, an organization that protects the interests of more than 55 million people that public power utilities serve across the United States, has conducted the Safety Awards of Excellence annually for more than 66 years, recognizing not-for-profit and community-owned utilities that put commitment to safety first in every aspect of their business.

“Harnessing electricity to keep our communities powered is vital work that can be dangerous, even deadly, if the proper attention isn't paid to tried-and-true safety practices," said Jon Beasley, chair of APPA's Safety Committee and vice president of Electric Cities of Georgia. “This award honors utilities that hold fast to these practices and – in doing so – put the safety of their personnel and their customers above all else."

Learn more about the APPA and the annual Safety Awards of Excellence.