A long time ago, in another life far, far away, I used to work at a bookstore. (You’re shocked, I can tell.) And that bookstore was seriously smart.

I don’t mean that the staff all had PhD’s or that there was an artificial intelligence hidden in the back room. But everything in that store made it a great place to be a reader. The huge range of books, magazines and newspapers in a small space. The workers who, between them, could cover every genre and track down a title at high speed with nothing more than memory and microfiche. The scents of coconut-oiled popcorn and carefully-packed pipe tobacco that enticed almost everyone to peek in and check it out.

Any business can just do its job. This one did it so well that it made the community a better place to be. That’s pretty smart.

That’s the kind of smart we work hard to be.

The American Public Power Association seems to agree.

Recently, the APPA named Longmont Power & Communications as one of the country’s first Smart Energy Providers. This is a brand-new designation given to electric utilities that excel at energy efficiency, sustainability, customer experience, and smart energy programs. In short, electric utilities that are really good at being electric utilities.

We’re proud to be in that company. (Only 67 utilities received that honor in the country, and only one other in Colorado!) It’s a great reflection on our offerings like Efficiency Works, or our income-qualified energy efficiency offerings, or the high reliability and low rates that we provide every day. And there’s more to come in the years ahead, such as advanced electric meters that will allow customers to easily track their own energy use and make it more efficient.

Ultimately, honors like this don’t just reflect a smart utility. They reflect a smart community.

And you can put that one in the books.