William "Jeff" Morris
Nomination Letter/Essay

The City of Denton has been providing safe, reliable electric service to its residence for more than 100 years. As a public power community, the City and its provider Denton Municipal Electric (DME) view its employees as its greatest asset. Our employees make up the backbone of our operation and without these dedicated men and women DME could not be a leader in public power. The strength of our organization is dependent upon having strong leadership in all areas. One of these leaders is William "Jeff" Morris, Electric Operations Division Manager. Jeff has spent more than 30 years in the electric utility industry in various capacities in Texas. He began his career with the City of Denton as a lineman shortly after graduating from high school in Sanger, Texas 1979. With the City, Jeff learned many of the skills that would prove useful for establishing himself in a growing industry. He learned to construct overhead and underground distribution lines, troubleshoot and restore power outages, and train apprentice lineman. He then moved on to Texas-New Mexico Power as a service lineman where he provided supervision for installation of underground services. He also expanded his areas of responsibility to include meter reading, engineering and drafting of underground and overhead lines. He also became adept at coordinating the communication and workflow between the service areas and line crews. Over the length of his career, he has been a valued employee at the aforementioned organizations as well as CoServ Electric Coop, Entergy, Bryan, Texas Utilities, and the City of Sanger before coming full circle back to the City of Denton and DME. As part of that journey, he expanded his areas of expertise by becoming a teacher and trainer developing and implementing curricula for the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service.

During his career, Jeff has taken a greater level of responsibility when it comes to leading the way for the future of electric service in the power community. In every position he has ever held, Jeff has been an advocate for his peers and employees. With DME in his position as Electric Operations Division Manager, Jeff has proven to not only be a leader, but also a teacher, mentor, coach, and friend to those he works with and supervises. He is the first one to step up to a challenge and model what it takes to the dangerous job of being a lineman.

One of the areas where Jeff really shines is in helping out other electric utilities in times of crisis. Under his leadership, DME has become known in the public power industry as one of the organizations that will be quick to respond in a pinch. Not only does Jeff empower employees to travel to other utilities to help restore power after tornados, hurricanes, floods and other disasters, many times Jeff is leading the caravan. He works the same 16 to 18 hour days as the rest of the line crews, rain, shine, or otherwise. He has also said that if you can't do the work with your crew, then you shouldn't be in charge. Over the past few years, DME crews have responded to Oklahoma ice storms, Hurricanes Dolly an Ike, and other severe weather systems that have taken down power in Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. He has led DME to receive commendations from not only the Texas Power Association, but also the honor of receiving a Reliable Public Provider designation from the American Public Power Association. During this time, Jeff has also created an apprenticeship program for lineman that is being reviewed for possible implementation by the American Public Power Association as a national training program and Best Management Practices module. His involvement and participation on the DME Lineman Rodeo Team has enabled the organization to consistently earn recognition at the state, regional, and national level.

To sum up what makes Jeff worthy of receiving the honor of being inducted to the Lineman Hall of Fame is difficult to put on paper. Put simply, Jeff is what a leader should be: smart, capable, tenacious, and worthy of respect and honor. HE has been of great service to the electric industry as a whole and to DME as an organization and for this we would like to nominate him for induction in the International Lineman Hall of Fame.