Retirement Announcement
Please join me in congratulating Joel Myer, who announced his retirement a couple of years ago but has recently stated his last day with the District will be July 17th. We wanted to take a few minutes to recognize Joel’s incredible career with PUD 3 and all of the contributions he has made over the years.
Joel was hired at the PUD in January of 2002 as the Public Affairs Manager and in 2009, government relations was added to his plate. Prior to coming to the PUD, he worked for nine years at the City of Shelton as Special Projects Coordinator and prior to that he was News Director at KMAS Radio in Shelton where he covered PUD news.
Joel's winsome personality, encyclopedic knowledge, talents as a communicator and commitment to the philosophy of Public Power have made him an asset to our District, our community, and the utility industry throughout Washington, and across the region. Because of his willingness to spend the extra effort to explain complex industry topics using his signature, Simplicity Language™, we are all better informed and able to serve our community well.
Joel is the face and the voice of our PUD. He is featured in many videos, is the contact for news media and government officials, provides tours for our building and service territory, and his voice has served us for years as our hold music. He is frequently requested to give presentations to local civic groups and to other utility groups and agencies. Not only is Joel exceptional at outage communication (spending tireless hours responding to customer questions and concerns), he also helped pioneer the use of social media at the PUD and has turned it into an extremely successful tool for customer communication.
He’s also been involved in many strategic initiatives over the years. He calmly navigated the rough waters of criticism of our new JPOC building in 2009- 2O12; successfully developed a communication plan for our grid modernization project and system capacity fee; several rate increases; and a handful of crises’ over the years. He was a key contributor to launching a new website, graphic design standards, a history book, and a new logo!
His community service is invaluable. He is a long-time board member of the Economic Development Council of Mason County and is a very active Chamber member. He has served on the United Way Board of Directors and was appointed to finish a term as a Mason County Commissioner. One of his passions was to call play-by-play for the High School basketball games on KMAS - which he did for many years.
Joel has published the Energy News Digest since 2007. This daily collection of news articles is of interest to electrical utilities, particularly the public power community, and has subscribers with an interest in the energy industry all over the Northwest and beyond. Joel’s passion for public power coupled with his government relations work will have lasting impacts on the utility industry for years. He has excellent relationships with legislators and staffers which allows our utility and region to benefit as he has a knack to eloquently communicate concerns or benefits of any issue.
Under Joel's leadership Mason PUD 3 has won many communication awards, including the most prestigious Tom Hougan Overall Excellence in Communications Award in 2019. Joel was also awarded the Lacy Peoples Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 for his leadership in his field.
We have been so proud to have Joel on our team and wish him all the best as he takes on new adventures in retirement. Rumor has it that he will be writing short stories from his collection of titles, playing his many ukuleles, hanging out with his cats in his beautiful yard, and traveling with his “charming wife” Bonnie, who is also retiring this year. Congratulations Joel!