COLUMBUS, OH: American Municipal Power, Inc. (AMP) has named seven members of the AMP staff as the honorees of the 2023 AMP Employee Innovator Award.

The 2023 recipients of the annual award are Ganesh Velummylum, vice president of transmission planning and development; Alex Lousos, director of transmission planning; Jeff Daniels, Frank Favela and Alex Henry, PE, senior transmission planning engineers; Noah LaPolt, developer analyst; and Wes Elliott, transmission intern. Velummylum, Lousos, Daniels, Favela, Henry and Elliott are members of the AMP Transmission Planning team, while LaPolt is a member of the AMP IT team.

Velummylum nominated this group for their collaborative work in automating the review process for transmission line and transformer impedances and ratings for summer, winter and light load cases. The team’s development of transmission planning modeling optimization scripts has created a solution that results in greater efficiency, better results and improved value for AMP’s Members.

The AMP Employee Innovator Award was established in 2021 to promote and support “a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the organization.” Given annually, the award recognizes an employee or team of employees for demonstrating innovation through creative thinking, solutions, or programs and/or cost-cutting mechanisms that benefit AMP and/or AMP members.

Nominations for the award are submitted by staff in recognition of their colleagues and include a description of the nominee’s innovative thinking and how it makes a difference to AMP and/or its Members. The nominees then make presentations to the executive team about their innovative projects. The winner is selected based on three main criteria: how their solution or program connects to AMP’s mission, vision and values; originality and uniqueness; and results, significance or relevance.

More information about the organization’s mission, vision and values can be found here.