KPUB earns national recognition for community service

The Kerrville Public Utility Board has long valued its work in the community, and on Tuesday, the utility earned recognition for that service by the American Public Power Association. 

During a conference in Seattle, KPUB received the APPA’s Sue Kelly Community Service Award, recognizing good neighbor activities demonstrating the utility’s and its employees’ commitment to the community. KPUB was one of five utilities of the 2,000 utilities APPA represents to earn the distinction. 

“KPUB is honored to be recognized as one of the nation’s top utilities for giving back to the community we serve,” KPUB General Manager and CEO Mike Wittler said. “Helping our neighbors is an integral and important part of our employee culture here. We are always looking for ways to improve and give back to our community.”

KPUB’s community work over the last decade included community solar, Change for Charity, employee volunteerism and scholarships. The service award accolades also highlighted KPUB’s ongoing support of its local nonprofits. The specifics of the programs include: 

• The Community Solar Program received national attention from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). After adding six community solar systems to its service area, KPUB was named a winner in the DOE’s Solar in Your Community Challenge in 2019. The systems benefit the nonprofits that host them and low and moderate-income households by providing competitively priced solar energy to these customers. The systems produce around 2% of KPUB’s overall annual energy needs.
• The Change for Charity bill round-up program in response to the difficulties many customers faced during the COVID-19 pandemic by raising more than $272,000 to help more than 1,400 families pay their electric bills since June 2020. 
• The utility also recently developed a new volunteer program for its workforce. In 2022, over two-thirds of KPUB’s workforce directly volunteered their time across 14 community events, including mobile food pantry distribution, an annual river cleanup, and Habitat for Humanity workdays.
• KPUB also established a new scholarship program over the last decade and awarded over $100,000 scholarships to local college-bound. 
• In 2022, the utility invested revenues into its service area by supporting over 45 community events, nonprofits and schools with financial and in-kind resources.

Since the establishment of the APPA Sue Kelly Community Service Award in 1990, just six other Texas utilities have been the recipient of this award.