Introducing a New Leader in Gardner

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Gonzalo Garcia

Gonzalo Garcia

We want to extend our hearty congratulations to Gonzalo Garcia on his recent appointment as Director of Utilities for the City of Gardner.  In this role, Gonzalo will lead the Utilities Department, which includes water, waste water, and electric divisions.Gonzalo joins Gardner with an impressive utility career that spans over 25 years, working in both the United States and abroad.  Gonzalo began his career at Florida Power and Light, rising through the ranks of electrical supervisor, power source specialist, operations manager and operations assistant superintendent.  Prior to taking the helm in Gardner, Gonzalo served in several leadership roles around the world with Duke Energy, the largest electric power holding company in the United States.  Gonzalo had worked for Duke Energy since 1997. In his most recent position, Gonzalo served as the Operations Regional Director in Lima, Peru.

This is a new position for the City of Gardner and Gonzalo is excited to bring his diverse range of utility experience and skills to the Gardner community.   In addition to Gonzalo’s utility industry experience, he holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis in control design and energy conservation from Clemson University, S.C.  He also has a master’s degree in business administration from Tulane University in New Orleans, La.

Please join us in congratulating and extending our best wishes to Gonzalo as he embarks on this next exciting chapter.

APPA Larry Hobart Seven Hats Award Winner

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gdCongratulations to former KMEA President Greg DuMars for receiving a Larry Hobart Seven Hats Award at the American Public Power Association National Conference in Minneapolis this week. Greg is one of eight people to win the award this year. This award is given to managers of small utilities which have fewer than 2500 electric meters. Managers of systems of this size must wear a number of hats which include not only managing but planning, designing, supervising, and the list goes on. All the while the other duties of a City Administrator need his attention as well.

Greg has served as the City Administrator for the City of Lindsborg for 17 years. He has demonstrated his exemplary leadership not only in his role as city manager but also while giving his time to serving as the President of KMEA as well as President of Kansas Municipal Utilities.

Thanks to Greg from everyone at KMEA and congratulations on receiving this award.

Meeting with the EMPs

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EMP Meetings May 2015

EMP3 meeting in Burlingame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In recent weeks all three EMPs conducted their monthly meetings. These meetings are always a great venue for sharing information and great conversation. Not to mention good food. Everyone appreciates the work that the cities do in preparation for hosting these meetings. Finding time to travel to another meeting is not always easy so thanks to everyone for your contribution.

 

 

 

Kim Everley – City Clerk of the Year!

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Kim Everley Plaque cropped

Kim Everley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are excited to congratulate Kim Everley, City Administrator and City Clerk for KMEA member, McLouth, Kansas. Kim was recently recognized and awarded City Clerk of the Year by the Kansas Rural Water Association at their Annual Conference. Kim was selected from hundreds of city candidates and if you are familiar with what Kim has accomplished, it is easy to see why she is such a worthy recipient.

Kim has long been a dedicated servant of her community. Before starting as City Clerk for McLouth in 2009, she served as a City Council Member.   Her record of service doesn’t stop there, however. Kim was also the President of the Jefferson County Area Chamber of Commerce as well as the Courtesy Chair for the KACM, Kansas Association of Court Management, court clerks association.

Kim embodies everything you would envision in a go-getter.   She quickly made her mark after becoming City Clerk, reconciling important records and an accounting system that was in need of rescue. She earned her designation of Certified Municipal Clerk within three short years on the job and quickly proved herself ready to handle the responsibilities of McLouth City Administrator when the position became open.

Please join us in congratulating Kim on receiving this distinguished award. Congratulations Kim! Well deserved!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KMGA Travels and City Visits

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City of Lyons

City of Lyons

 

 

On Tuesday, May 12th, KMGA staff departed Overland Park and headed to Little River, Kansas.  We met with City Clerk, Sue Peters, and visited about KMGA supplying and managing the natural gas needs for the city.  KMGA will provide a natural gas cost comparison to the City of Little River for their review.

 

City of Abbyville

City of Abbyville

Our journey continued as we visited KMGA member cites of Lyons, Sterling, Abbyville, and Sylvia.  We visited with city personnel about the services KMGA provides and answered questions they had regarding their natural gas system, calculating rates, reporting data to state & federal commissions as required and other items of interest.

 

City of Sterling

City of Sterling

Wednesday morning’s destination was Burrton.  At Burrton we met with Jon Roberts, City Superintendent. We discussed their natural gas system and provided information about KMGA providing natural gas to the city and Burrton becoming a KMGA member.  A cost comparison will be prepared by KMGA staff for Jon to review.

From Burrton we traveled to member cities Moundridge and Walton, where we reviewed with city employees the services KMGA provides.

 

City of Moundridge

City of Moundridge

Thanks to Rebecca Schechter, Brian Vagts, David Fankhauser, Ryan Ochs, Rick Sims, Randy Frazer, and Stephanie Ashby for taking time to meet with us.  We thoroughly enjoyed our on-site visit to member cities as well as prospective cities.

We Want to hear What is Happening in Your City!

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Through our weekly blogs, we have an opportunity to feature you and your city and keep everyone up to date on what’s going on within our member cities.  We sincerely appreciate those members who contribute and invite everyone to participate.  We want to continue to spotlight cities and city employees, whether it is city accolades or recognizing city employee promotions, awards, or retirements.

If you have news to share, capital improvements underway, exciting things going on in your city or information you believe can benefit the membership, please don’t keep it to yourself.  We want to hear from you!  Please email Patrick Ryan at ryan@kmea.com

Ed Truelove on the Move

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Ed Truelove Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We want to extend our congratulations to Ed Truelove on his recent appointment as City Administrator for the City of Neodesha.  Ed was selected from a pool of 23 candidates and appointed by the Neodesha City Commission by unanimous vote.

Ed began his new assignment earlier this month, after serving as City Administrator for the City of Greensburg for the past three years.  Ed brings a wealth of talent and experience with 17 years of public service with local governments in Kansas.  Before his time in Greensburg, he was a Wichita police officer.  He completed a mid-career master’s degree in public administration and then took over the position as Sterling’s Police Chief.

Among his more notable contributions while at Greensburg was the leadership he provided toward the community’s continuing recovery from a devastating 2007 tornado.  His contributions included recommending financing and overseeing construction of a new municipal swimming pool and water treatment plant, reestablishing a police department and working as part of a community team to recruit new industry.

Please join us in congratulating and extending our best wishes to Ed as he embarks on this next exciting chapter.

 

Thank you Dave Howard

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Left to right, KMEA Interim General Manager, Sam Mills, and KMEA President, Dave Howard.

Left to right, KMEA Interim General Manager, Sam Mills, and KMEA President, Dave Howard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the May 6th KMEA Board meeting, we were pleased to recognize KMEA President, Dave Howard, City Manager for the City of Pratt, for his leadership and many years of dedicated service on the KMEA Executive Committee.

Dave faithfully served on the Executive Committee from 2007 to 2015, completing eight years of consecutive service, the maximum term, cited by KMEA Bylaws.  He was first voted onto the Executive Committee in 2007 and then as an officer, beginning in 2009.  It was in 2009 that he was elected to Vice President.   Dave continued as Vice President until a vacancy earlier this year, when he became President of KMEA, navigating the agency through the past several months.  Dave joins a short and distinguished list of Executive Committee members who have served full term limits.

Please join us in recognizing and thanking Dave for his dedication and many years of service on the KMEA Executive Committee.

KMEA launches a new, mobile friendly website!

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KMEA BannerWe are proud to announce that we’ve launched the new KMEA website!  The last time we refreshed our website was about three years ago.  We wanted our site to be mobile friendly and we needed better control over the content.  We were able to accomplish all of this and more.

We’ve worked hard to make sure that it’s easier to find the content and resources that you’re looking for. Be sure to check out the various areas of the new site, including Services, Members, Projects, Resources, News and Events.

We are starting the process of blogging.  (This story is one of our first blog posts!)  Our goal is to keep you up to date on what is happening with KMEA as we continue to work with our electric and gas member cities to deliver reliable and cost effective energy to their communities.  We’ll be talking about city visits, energy management project meetings, staff and member profiles and more.

ShareFile

We’re also in the middle of a project to implement a secure, web based file storage system called ShareFile that allows us to share meeting minutes, project documents, agendas, billing and more.  Each city will have their own secure area in our system.

Our Web Development Company

We partnered with our friends Jason and Mic over at Blue Gurus to create our new site.  The primary reason that we chose Blue Gurus was because they did the work on site, side by side with our team.  They’re the only company in town that does web development this way.  We loved it because it made the process incredibly efficient.  We were able to adjust things on the fly as we created the new site instead of having to send emails or do conference calls.

We hope that you enjoy our new site!

Progress In Baldwin City

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Congratulations to Baldwin City on recently completing a large scale project at their power plant #2.

Both Universal Silencer and Fairbanks Morse Engine were on site last month replacing the exhaust stacks on units 7 & 8.

Baldwin City 2Severe vibration issues made the project necessary. The new silencers, once again, have built in catalyst with ground access, but with a more robust external shell and interior baffles to redirect the exhaust flow.

After the installation was complete, both units were started, and tested great; free of vibration. The catalyst bricks were reused from the original stacks, and pre-tested as well. Both units achieved 80% + carbon monoxide reduction.

Baldwin City plans to bring out Aeromet Engineering in early June to compliance test and recertify them. The good news is that Universal Silencer and FME covered the entire cost of the project under warranty!

Thanks to Chris Lowe, Rob Culley and the staff in Baldwin City for doing great things for public power.