Recognized by the peers who understand the work best.
The work that keeps natural gas running safely and reliably rarely makes headlines. It happens in a control room during a storm, on a job site during a routine repair that becomes anything but routine, in a conference room where someone decides a process everyone accepted needs to change.
The SGA Awards put that work in front of the people who understand it best: your peers.
This year, more than 1,000 members voted, casting 4,533 votes across 67 nominations in eight categories. Every nomination started with someone who noticed exceptional work and decided it deserved recognition beyond their own team.
Winners were announced live at the SGA Awards Ceremony Luncheon on July 23 during the Operations and Safety & Training Conferences in Austin, Texas.
The winners below represent solutions to problems your own team may be working through right now: knowledge walking out the door with retirements, damage prevention that changes behavior instead of checking a box, new employees carrying the highest injury risk of anyone on the crew.
The 2026 SGA Awards Winners Book shares each winner, finalist and Meritorious Action honoree, from the problem they were facing to the solution their work produced.
Jacob oversees 17 underground natural gas storage facilities and three LNG plants. He founded SGA’s Peak Shaving Taskforce and has led gas storage regulatory initiatives that shape how the industry prepares for peak demand.
Girls ages 9 to 13 from an underserved St. Louis neighborhood spent a day at a Spire training center learning pipefitting and building meters, guided by female field professionals doing that work every day.
Excavation damage remains the leading cause of natural gas leaks, so Atmos taught children to remind the adults in their lives to call 811. More than 3,000 coloring books reached schools across 1,400 communities in eight states.
Glow, a firefly mascot developed in-house, earned an average 8.54% engagement rate across social platforms through organic reach alone. Employees adopted her as an honorary team member, displaying her on equipment and requesting her on branded apparel.
After an aircraft crash damaged gas infrastructure near airport property, LG&E isolated the system that same evening and chose full replacement over repair. Nearly 14,000 feet of main and 71 service lines were replaced, with service restored to all 94 customers and zero safety incidents across more than 17,000 work hours.
BHE GT&S converted existing operating procedures into step-by-step field guidance on a tablet, with annotated images and augmented reality overlays pointing to the exact equipment and action required. The result is faster readiness for newer employees and knowledge that stays after experienced people retire.
BGE turned a legacy industrial gas facility into a working model of habitat restoration, renewable energy and flood resilience while the site remains a critical gas operations hub.
New employees face disproportionate injury risk in their first year. Summit built a six-month mentorship program pairing new team members with experienced mentors through structured check-ins and ongoing safety conversations.
“I couldn’t believe what I witnessed. I knew I had to help, and I was frustrated that no one else would stop to do the same.”
— Charley Richardson, Spire
Meritorious Action recognizes people who acted first and considered the risk to themselves later. Twenty honorees were recognized in 2026.
Jason Alaniz | CPS Energy
Anselmo Borunda | Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline
Roy Chapman, Mitch Phillipus, Jackie Jones, William Vautrin and Curtis Noble | Atlanta Gas Light
Lucas Cypert and Damien Griffith | ONE Gas
Antwain Greene Jr., Don Harris Jr., Donavon Harris | Southeast Connections
Bubba Jackson and Chris Worrell | Spire
Johnathan Osborne | Miller Pipeline
Randall Pugh | Atmos Energy
Charley Richardson | Spire
Ram Rodriquez | Atmos Energy
Marco Solis | Atmos Energy
Will Watson | Atmos Energy
The stories on this page began long before an SGA Award nomination. They started with someone choosing to share what they knew, to grow the people around them or to advance work everyone else had accepted as finished.
Share, Grow, Advance is SGA’s mission. It is also a description of every honoree recognized this year.
SGA supports that kind of work year-round through expert-led virtual training, certification on SGA Campus, industry-recognized credentials through digital badging with Credly and hands-on skill-building in workshops teams attend together.
If your organization is already a member, thank you for the work you brought to these pages this year. If your organization is not yet a member, we invite you to join the community building what comes next for natural gas.
Nominations for the 2027 SGA Awards open in January. If someone on your team already comes to mind, we will remind you when the window opens.
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