Santee Cooper receives national awards for safety, line tech skills
April 2, 2026
Santee Cooper earned the American Public Power Association (APPA) Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2025 and placed among the top three in the separate national APPA Lineworkers Rodeo competition over the weekend.
The utility’s 2025 safety record earned the Diamond Certification in Outstanding Safety practices, the highest level of achievement awarded to utilities with significant worker-hours of exposure and a low incident rate. This is Santee Cooper’s 19th year in a row receiving the safety award.
“Out of all the critical jobs that Santee Cooper teammates do every day, nothing is more important than working safely and looking out for each other,” said Jimmy Staton, president and CEO. “This award is a testament to the hard work that has gone into building this culture and ensuring that our teams have a safe work environment.”
APPA has conducted its Safety Awards annually for more than 68 years. More than 240 utilities entered the annual Safety Awards for 2025. The incident 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 the national Lineworkers Rodeo over the weekend, Santee Cooper line technicians earned second place overall in the Journeyman competition and third overall in the Apprentice competition.
The Journeyman team includes Jamie Anderson, Hunter Melton and Noah Enzor, all Myrtle Beach-based line technicians for Santee Cooper’s distribution team. The Santee Cooper Journeyman team also placed in two single-skill categories: second in Storm Restoration and third in Underground Residential Distribution New Installation – 12KV.
Santee Cooper Line Technician A.J. Rikard, based in Garden City, took third place overall in the Apprentice competition. Santee Cooper line technicians took all three places in the single-skill Apprentice Arrestor Replacement Single Phase Two Wire competition: Rikard was first, Joe
Stachowicz (Myrtle Beach) placed second and Javier Diaz (Conway) was third. In other apprentice competitions, Rikard placed third in Single Phase Two Wire Tie-In/Untie and Lucas Jordan (Conway) took third place in Load Transfer.
“These specialized rodeos create a fun atmosphere for our line crews to showcase their line technician skills and how they perform them safely,” Staton continued. “We’re very proud of our team’s results this year. We’re also proud of the safety and skills all our line techs display in the work they do every day.”
APPA is the voice of not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide.
