It turns out the way to make people care about gas pipelines and road construction is to just… tell them about it well.
The Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative, known as ELEC825, has picked up dozens of honors this year across three major industry competitions — the Telly Awards, the Questar Awards and the Hermes Creative Awards — for its television and video programming aimed at explaining New Jersey’s infrastructure systems to the public.
“We always knew there was an opportunity to better educate the public about our critical infrastructure systems, the workers who build them and how they impact our daily lives,” ELEC825 Executive Director Mark Longo said. “We never imagined how the program would take off or the amount of recognition it would receive this quickly.”
The biggest win came at the International Questar Awards, where ELEC825’s “Our Infrastructure Matters” program took the Grand Award for best in category among non-profit organizations — the top score in its division. The program also picked up three gold, one silver and one bronze Questar.
At the 47th annual Telly Awards, ELEC825 won two gold Tellys, for “Understanding New Jersey’s Natural Gas Infrastructure” and “Method to the Madness: NJ Roads Are Anything But Boring,” along with a run of silver, bronze and People’s Telly honors spanning television, public awareness, history and energy categories.
The organization also picked up two gold Hermes Creative Awards, both for “Understanding New Jersey’s Natural Gas Infrastructure,” in the educational video and informational video categories.
Mike Makarski, ELEC825’s external affairs director, who also serves as executive producer on the programs, obviously was thrilled.
“To be recognized by the Telly Awards, Questar Awards, and Hermes Creative Awards in the same year is incredibly exciting and speaks to the dedication and creativity of everyone involved in these projects,” he said. “Our team works hard to turn complex infrastructure, energy, and economic development topics into compelling stories that people can understand and connect with.”
ELEC825 represents more than 8,000 members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825 and roughly 1,000 union contractors across New Jersey and five New York counties in the Hudson Valley.
Its video programming — including “Our Infrastructure Matters,” “Understanding New Jersey’s Natural Gas Infrastructure,” “Method to the Madness” and “The Power Behind the Switch” — is aimed at policymakers, business leaders, regulators and the public.
