The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities Electric Division has earned the American Public Power Association Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2025.

The utility earned the Diamond Level Award in the utilities category, with 157,936 worker-hours of annual worker exposure.

The Diamond Level Award is the highest safety award category.

“The Jamestown BPU is proud of our safety culture,” said BPU General Manager Kristofor G. Sellstrom. “This award is a testament to the hard work that has gone into building this culture and ensuring that our team members have a safe work environment. We congratulate our entire Electric Division for this award.”

This year is the fourth time the APPA has honored the BPU Electric Division with a safety award. The APPA presented a Diamond Level Safety Award to the Electric Division in 2024, the Gold Level Safety Award in 2023 and a First Place Safety Award in 2022.

More than 240 utilities entered the 2025 Safety Awards competition. The entrants are placed in accordance with their number of worker-hours and ranked by the number of incident-free records and the overall state of their safety programs and culture in 2025. The incidence rate is based on the number of work-related reportable injuries or illnesses and the number of worker-hours during 2025, as defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“In Public Power, safety excellence isn’t achieved by chance. It’s earned through unwavering discipline, strong leadership, and a culture where every team member looks out for one another,” said Jon Beasley, chair of APPA’s Safety Committee and Vice-President of Electric Cities of GA. “These Safety Award recipients stand as proof that commitment and consistency save lives, strengthen communities, and set the benchmark for our entire industry.”

The APPA has conducted the Safety Awards annually for more than 68 eight years. APPA is the voice of not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide.