John was hired by PPEC on Dec. 22, 1997 and started on the tree crew dragging brush. He learned to trim trees and moved to an apprentice lineman a few years later.

Q&A with John after receiving the award:
• What does the Rockstar Award mean to you?
"Receiving the award is honestly humbling. On one hand, it is a huge compliment, but on the other hand, I look around and see others who do more and make it look easy. This makes it hard to see. But I do very much appreciate it."
• What projects have you been working on? What’s had the most impact?
"For the last quarter, we have been working on new services, service upgrades, and the miscellaneous work that comes in. It has been a new experience seeing the planning and line side of the jobs."
• Why do you enjoy working at PPEC?
"My favorite part of the job is doing line work, seeing the guys learn, and looking at the trade craft they show in the work. After all our recent retirements, we have a relatively young group, which involves learning to take on challenges and working through them safely.
I enjoy the comradery, variety of work, and satisfaction of knowing we are providing a good service to members."
His co-workers who nominated him said:
- John has had to learn new roles while keeping up with his regular duties. He had done an outstanding job balancing the new responsibilities.
- First off, he is always willing to help when needed and if I ever need advice or a question answered, he is the guy. He never puts you down, no matter the question. Second, I know that he has been in a tough spot since we have hired a new operations manager with helping out operations and dealing with a lot more stress then ever before. He has stepped in and really done an amazing job. Being able to still go out and work as a lineman and on top of that tell all the other guys what to do and keep everything organized is awesome. Keep up the great work, John. It's greatly appreciated!