The Okanogan County PUD commissioners recognized the combined 55 years of service of three employees at the Jan. 27 board meeting.

Travis Olson marked 10 years with the PUD, starting as an accounts payable clerk. He now also does a significant portion of work order accounting, with the title of accounting technician.

Debbie Dibble began 15 years ago as an information systems technician for the PUD when it was a new position. She still holds that position, using her tech-savvy expertise and attention to detail to aid her co-workers.

George Webster marked 30 years with the PUD, beginning as a temporary groundman and now holding the position of Brewster crew foreman. Webster is also known for conducting safety demonstrations at the Fair, school classrooms and other events. He is retiring May 1.

In other business, the board:

• Heard a year-end report from Engineering and Construction Manager Allen Allie. Crews finished 644 work orders for electric and 55 for telecom in 2019. A few larger projects are nearing completion: Chicken Creek new substation; Crazy Rapids new river crossing; Crumbacher Phase 2; and a new connection from Riverside to the Pine Creek substation.
• Heard Chief Engineer Dan Simpson provided annual reliability indices for the district. The district experienced 354 total outages last year, with about one-third being animal-related. Outages averaged a 125-minute duration, higher than the national average of 90 minutes due largely to the size of the territory and travel time associated with it. About 80 percent of customers experienced an outage last year, lower than the national average of 96 percent.