FMEA Announces Member of the Year and Associate Member of the Year Award Recipients

The Florida Municipal Electric Association (FMEA) last night announced the winners of the Member of the Year and Associate Member of the Year awards during its annual conference banquet in St. Petersburg. The awards recognize association members for their outstanding contributions to FMEA and Florida’s public power industry.

“FMEA has been so fortunate over the years to have countless dedicated members who care deeply about public power and who consistently go above and beyond to advance the value public power provides Florida’s communities,” said Amy Zubaly, FMEA Executive Director. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients who have demonstrated time and time again their commitment to supporting public power in their own communities and throughout Florida and for providing innumerable contributions to FMEA.”

The 2023 FMEA Member of the Year award was presented to Mike New, City Manager for the City of Newberry. The Member of the Year award is given to an individual or group within a FMEA member utility who exemplifies extraordinary service and dedication to FMEA and Florida public power.

In his role as city manager, which he has held since 2014, New is responsible for ensuring the delivery of reliable power to the city’s public power customers, orderly execution of emergency response measures and providing the city’s lineworkers with the training and resources they need to do their jobs. He served as FMEA’s past president from 2015 to 2016 and remains one of the longest serving executive committee members. In 2017, New was honored with the American Public Power Association’s Larry Hobart Seven Hats Award, which recognizes utility managers who serve in the nation’s smaller public power communities and whose variety of management responsibilities extends well beyond those of a manager at a larger utility with a larger staff.

The 2023 Associate Member of the Year was awarded to ENERCON, a multi-disciplinary engineering and environmental firm that partners with clients to support the safe and efficient production, delivery and use of energy. The FMEA Associate Member of the Year award recognizes an associate member or associate member company who exemplifies extraordinary service and dedication to FMEA and Florida’s public power community.

Having joined FMEA in 2020, ENERCON has become an extremely active associate member that has attended, sponsored and presented at each of FMEA’s signature events. They have taken an early and leading role in the association’s special initiatives by bringing topical speakers to its members. This year, they also sent a team of volunteers to aid the scoring team at FMEA’s annual Florida Lineman Competition.

For more information on FMEA and Florida’s public power communities, please visit www.flpublicpower.com.