Municipal Electric Systems of Oklahoma (MESO) announces that the City of Marlow, and Marlow Electric, which operates the city’s electric system, placed First in the association’s annual Electric Safety Competition in Oklahoma. The utility was recognized in the category for cities under 10,000 population with the Don Howland Electric Operations & Safety Award.
Marlow is being recognized for its perfect safety record for 2016. The utility’s personnel went the year without a reportable lost work time incident, either “days away from work,” “restricted light duty,” or “medical treatment” cases. Marlow participates in the MESO Job Training and Safety program as one resource for ensuring safe work practices.
MESO General Manager Tom Rider presented the award to Marlow.
“As important as electric system reliability is to citizens, knowing that each and every day, the work is being performed correctly and safely should be a source of pride for Marlow customers. The current operational standards and employee training standards of this utility are superior.” Rider said. “This training and development of staff and increased funding for reliability resulted in the continued excellent performance of the utility. Local control means local crews. That means fast response. And fast response means less outage time.”
MESO is an electric utility trade association representing cities in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. The association’s member utilities provide non-profit electric services and electric power generation to some 750,000 people in four states. The City of Marlow purchases its energy from the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority.
To insure fast response to emergencies, Marlow is also a signatory to Mutual Aid Agreements in the region. These agreements are recognized by FEMA for use in the event of emergency or natural disaster. Utilities in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma agree through the program on the conditions under which assistance may be received in an emergency ahead of the event so there are no delays in responding to the needs of another utility.
