NECA Convention 2009 Seattle: The Blog

Six outstanding members of the electrical construction industry were recognized as this year’s award winners at the NECA 2001 San Diego Closing General Session.

Association Executive Distinguished Services Award: Danal W. Neal
(Western Ohio Chapter, NECA)
This award recognizes a staff executive or chapter manager who has made significant contributions to the association and the industry. Neal is renowned as both an educator and a first-rate manager of NECA-IBEW labor relations. He has been the executive director of the Western Ohio Chapter, NECA since 2000 and an NTI faculty member since 1989. He was recently honored by the Dayton Building & Trades Council with its 2011 Labor Relations Award.

Wendt Award: Thomas F. Curran
(Red Top Electric, Livermore, CA)
The Foundation for the Electrical Construction award its highest annual honor on Curran this year.  The award is named for Albert G. Wendt, President, Cannon & Wendt Electric Company, Inc., in honor of his outstanding philosophical and financial commitments to the electrical industry. Mr. Wendt passed away at the age of 89 a few days before the ceremony, and Curran was touched to be recognized as “ELECTRI’s chief ambassador.”

Coggeshall Award: Wayne Brinkmeyer
(Britain Electric, Houston, Texas)
The Coggeshall Award recognizes NECA members who have made an outstanding contribution to the industry in technical or training activities. Its namesake, who worked for electrical contracting firm Hatzel & Buehler, Inc. in New York City, was integrally involved in the development of the National Electrical Code for many years. This year’s recipient, Wayne Brinkmeyer, has similarly contributed to refining the Code for a long-time; 2012 will be his 25th year on NECA’s National Codes & Standards Committee and on the National Fire Protection Associations NEC Code-Making Panels.

Comstock Award: John R. Colson
(Quanta Services, Houston, Texas)
The Comstock Award honors a NECA member who has made great contributions in the complex field of labor relations. Colson is noted for his role in developing new labor agreements focused on making NECA/IBEW line contractors the electrical utilities’ first choice — whether responding to disaster or tackling non-emergency transmission work.

James H. McGraw Award: Daniel Palmer
(Tri-City Electric, Davenport, Iowa)
The McGraw Award is NECA’s top annual honor for a member, given in recognition of important personal contribution to progress in the electrical industry.  This year’s recipient Daniel F. Palmer, CEO of Tri-City Electric in Davenport, Iowa, has a knack for acting locally while thinking globally. He has spearheaded several innovative labor relations initiatives with the Quad Cities Chapters that have been adopted nationally and makes a point to lead by example, going so far as to loan his company’s tools to his local training center.

Industry Partner Award: Robert M. Gasperow
(Construction Labor Research Council (CLRC))
The NECA Industry Partner Award recognizes those organizations or individuals that, though not members of the National Electrical Contractors Association, contribute to the electrical contracting industry’s success through their decisions, actions, or cooperation with NECA. Gasperow  earned this recognition on the basis of the benefits, both direct and indirect, that our association has gained due to his work as former Executive Director of the Construction Labor Research Council.

NECA recognized the contributions made to electrical contracting by the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) during yesterday’s Board of Governor’s meeting with the association’s 2009 Industry Partner Award.

NECA Industry Partner Award recognizes those organizations or individuals that, though not members of NECA, contribute to the electrical contracting industry’s success through their decisions, actions, or cooperation with NECA. Previous winners of the Industry Partner Award include the National Fire Protection Agency (1996), Graybar Electric Co. (2004), and University of Kansas professor and ELECTRI International researcher Thomas E. Glavinich (2007). The National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) and NECA have worked together for more than a century to the mutual benefit of their respective members.

Electrical distributors are essential link between companies who make electrical products and the electrical contractors who put those products to use in projects worldwide. Beyond warehousing and selling electrical products, distributors provide extensive product knowledge, technical assistance, on-time delivery to facilitate productivity, market knowledge, and extend credit to end-users.

NAED is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving and protecting the electrical distribution channel. Much of its work centers on helping electrical distributors develop effective working relationships with their best customers. electrical contractors.

NECA and NAED joined forces in 2009 to fight the growing number of counterfeit electrical products making their way to the market. Since its inception, the Anti-Counterfeit Products Initiative, www.counterfeitscankill.com, has educated thousands of electrical professionals and the public on the dangers and liabilities counterfeit electrical products present. “We’re proud of this initiative with the potential to save lives, and we’re proud of our ongoing partnership with NAED,” said NECA CEO John Grau.

Grau wrote in a recent editorial in Construction Today, “We’re all in this together, and we all share a common goal of keeping buildings, their owners and their occupants safe. When your electrical contractor comes to you with a concern about product quality, hear him out. You could be saving liability, property and lives.”