Texas Pipeline Awareness Alliance (TPAA) representatives recently appeared on ABC 13 in Houston to disucss pipeline safety and damage prevention. Additionally, ABC 13 hosted a live web chat with a panel of natural gas experts from TPAA. Participants were able to send in questions about natural gas pipelines and receive immediate answers from the TPAA panelists. Click here to download a transcript from the live chat or click here to access an archive on ABC 13's website.

 
Screenshot from the live chat on ABC 13 in Houston.

SGA was in Atlana for the Customer Experience Section planning meeting at AGL last week. Before the meeting got started, Mike Grubb, President and CEO, SGA, and Randy Randolph, VP, SGA, stopped by the Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia offices. They were greeted by Arthur Corbin, President and CEO, Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia. Mr. Corbin is also the First Vice Chair of SGA.

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Cross bore safety continues to be an important topic for operators of distribution systems. The SGA Distribution Integrity Management Committee sponsored a webinar on the topic, “Solutions for Cross Bores – Legacy and New Construction, Today’s Effective Methods and Techniques” in March and the replay can be accessed by clicking here.  

Additional Resources:

The GMRC Pulsation and Vibration Guideline Sub-Committee met April 12 and 13 at the Gas Machinery Research Council office in Dallas. The purpose of the meeting was to support the development of a GMRC High-Speed Pipeline Compressor Packaging Spec. Click here to visit the GMRC website.

The SGA environmental committee has announced the recipients of the 2012 SGA Environmental Excellence Awards. The awards will be presented during the opening General Session of the Environmental, Safety & Health, and Training Conference June 27th at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans, LA.

Congratulations to the 2012 recipients!

Environmental Excellence Partnership Award

Spectra Energy Transmission, LLC

Environmental Excellence Stewardship Award

El Paso Corporation

Click here to read the News Release.

The Southern Gas Association is a member driven organization with over 50 interest groups each managed by a committee of member volunteers. Each interest group is aligned under one of eight sections. Each interest group has an activity plan and its committee is responsible for reporting progress on the activity plan to their section’s managing committee. 

Each of the eight sections is responsible to the SGA Board of Directors and provides annual updates through the Executive Council. The purpose of the Executive Council is to provide insight to SGA for use in development and evolution of its executive initiatives so that they are properly aligned with member company needs.

Kim Cocklin, President and CEO, Atmos Energy, is our 2012 SGA Chairman of the Board. Kim selected “Promoting Partnership, Innovation, Employee Excellence” as his theme. The 2012 Executive Council selected as their project to drill down on this theme.

The Council will focus on all three components through peer to peer discussions and examples of how each of the components is working in Council member’s organizations. The Council has two high-profile presenters lined up to help them shape the discussions around partnership and innovation. The SGA Network is helping the Council focus on employee excellence by capturing on video a number of thought leaders at all levels in an organization, sharing their perspective on leadership – which rolls up into employee excellence.

The council work product towards the end of 2012 will be a white paper featuring the key concepts discovered along their journey. This white paper will be provided to the section managing committees and then pushed further into the SGA organization as a resource for developing rich discussions within each Group.

And that’s how the SGA organization structure works – top down, bottom up, and multi-directional group think, each leveraging off each other to maximize subject expertise.  It is this governance and process that keeps SGA relevant to its members. Our members drive the dialogue with the support of their peers!

Plan to attend a live or virtual SGA or GMRC meeting in 2012 and join in the conversation.

Mike Grubb CAE
President & CEO
Southern Gas Association and Gas Machinery Research Council

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To round out a trip through eastern Florida, SGA Board member, Bruce Narzissenfeld, TECO Peoples Gas, invited Mike Grubb to a Dallas Maverick-Orlando Magic game. SGA is Dallas based and Bruce is an avid Magic fan, so there was some rivalry between the two while they were sitting next to each other. Great game.