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Good ol' Rocky Top
Rocky Top, Tennessee
Rocky Top, Tennessee

After our briefing in Cookeville, Tenn., it was a relatively short (100 miles) drive to Knoxville, the Tennessee State Capitol and home of the University of Tennessee. We met Brooke Sinclair, Manager of Gas Systems Engineering at the Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) and President of the Tennessee Gas Association, for dinner on Wednesday night at Calhoun’s on the River. Soon after the original Calhoun’s opened, they won their first grand championship at the National Rib Cook-Off in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio (who say’s nothing good comes out of Cleveland!). The food was outstanding and given the number of Tennessee orange shirts I saw at the restaurant I could see that people are getting excited for the Volunteers opening their football season this weekend with a game on Saturday against #17 West Virginia.

The briefing on Thursday was held at the KUB Fleming Operations Center. In addition to several employees from KUB, there were also representatives from several other neighboring public gas systems. After our update on APGA activities and issues, there was a roundtable discussion regarding a number of issues including the impact that tariffs are having on natural gas equipment. It was then off to Atlanta where I learned to never complain about D.C., traffic again (yeah, that’s probably not going to happen but Atlanta traffic was pretty bad…) We will spend the night here and then it’s a short drive to Buford for our last briefing of the trip. It’s then back to D.C., where I will avoid stepping on a scale for some time…