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March 30, 2007 | AECI honors two Thomas Hill Energy Center employees with Excel Awards Contact : Nancy Southworth Photos available electronically. Contact ceoff@aeci.org. Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI) presented Paul E. McCloud and J. Michael McKenzie of Thomas Hill Energy Center with its prestigious Excel Awards at its 14th annual recognition awards ceremony at the plant March 29. The cooperative also recognized Manfred L. “Butch” Langsteiner, 2006 Safety Person of the Year; long-term employees celebrating service anniversaries; and others for professional achievements during 2006. AECI’s Excel program recognizes employees for their outstanding contributions to the cooperative and their communities. Nominated by their peers, Excel award recipients were recognized for their achievements in 2006 with the exception of the Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes sustained excellence and contributions.
McCloud continually excels at any job Paul McCloud, assistant control room operator, received the 2006 Excel Award for Employee of the Year in an Operational Field. He was honored, in particular, for his perseverance, flexibility and can-do attitude. Starting in 1984 as a temporary laborer, McCloud continues to learn and reinvent himself through the years. In 1994, when AECI converted its coal units to burn low-sulfur coal to reduce emissions, McCloud had to learn a new job. He worked in the coal yard 15 months, helping AECI with the conversion. He then became an auxiliary operator and in 2001 progressed to assistant control room operator. In each new position, according to his nominator, McCloud excelled. Writing about McCloud’s current responsibilities, his nominator wrote, “During every startup, shutdown and outage, Paul would write down the progress and keep his supervisors informed. … The job of an operator, any operator, is to check and monitor equipment under his responsibility continually during his shift and to report and record breakdowns and potential breakdowns that would risk the reliability of the units. … Here is a dedicated employee and an asset to AECI.” While McCloud has taken advantage of Associated’s excellent training program, taking classes at the local junior college and through online and onsite resources, he also tries to instill his own “can do” attitude in the new people he helps train. "You’re trying to get them to do as good a job as you would like to do yourself,” McCloud said. “It can be overwhelming when they come into a new job. But they can do this job. Everybody that comes into this department, if they set their mind to it and set goals to do this job, if they apply themselves, they can do it. … There are good people here to help, and everything you need to succeed.”
McKenzie honored for his technical skills Mike McKenzie, journeyman instrumentation technician specialist, received the 2006 Excel Award for the Employee of the Year in a Technical Field. In particular, McKenzie was recognized for helping install new state-of-the-art burners on the plant’s Unit 3 to reduce formation of nitrogen oxides and improve the unit’s environmental performance. McKenzie was commended for his technical problem-solving abilities and “institutional” knowledge of the plant, acquired over nearly 18 years of service. His instrumentation expertise has been applied to fire response and monitoring systems and coal flow controllers in the coal yard; to air compressor controls, chemical feed systems and monitors in the water and air building; and to a variety of monitors and analyzers – to name a few of the systems McKenzie works with. McKenzie joined AECI as a general utility first period in 1989 and progressed to journeyman instrumentation technician specialist in 2006. One of McKenzie’s nominators said, “Mike has an uncanny ability when he looks into a problem to find it very fast, which in this line of work is very important. The faster the problem is found, the faster it is repaired and back in service.” AECI is owned by and provides wholesale power to six regional and 51 local electric cooperative systems in Missouri, southeast Iowa and northeast Oklahoma that serve more than 850,000 customers. AECI’s mission is to provide an economical and reliable power supply and support services to its members. AECI is a Touchstone Energy Cooperative. An Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/D/V ### Released: 30 March 2007 |
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