Community For Home

With home-field advantage, TECO goes deep for the community

When it comes to serving the community with safe, reliable, affordable power and natural gas, we're on the ball.
When it comes to serving the community with safe, reliable, affordable power and natural gas, we’re on the ball.

At TECO, our running game includes keeping the community humming with safe, reliable, affordable power and natural gas. And with Tampa hosting its first NCAA College Football Championship Jan. 9, our team members have no trouble choosing sides: they’re on yours.

“Tampa is the big winner with the championship – and when TECO Emera gets an opportunity like this to stand with our partners across the spectrum of community, civic and business leadership to show the world who we are, it’s a moment we’re ready to showcase,” said Bruce Narzissenfeld, vice president of Florida Development with Emera Energy, incoming chair of Visit Tampa Bay and board member with the Tampa Bay Sports Commission.

Bruce Narzissenfeld
Bruce Narzissenfeld

Narzissenfeld delivered remarks to a packed house at the Countdown to the Championship Luncheon at the Hilton Tampa Downtown in September, an early kickoff to the excitement about Monday’s game and a spotlight for things like Extra Yard for Teachers Week, which uses the power and resources of college football to bring new and improved teaching tools to classrooms across the community.

“The great benefits for students from Extra Yard for Teachers Week shows that the College Football Championship is about more than just bringing visitors and their dollars to Tampa from out of town, as important as that is to this community,” he said. “It shows that an event like this can have a long-lasting positive impact on people who might never think about football.”

The best defense is good planning

Solar Panels
An aerial view of the LEGOLAND Florida solar installation that we installed.

For fans and non-fans alike, well away from the gridiron, we have a “passing game” of our own at TECO – as in passing along things that make the Tampa Bay area an outstanding place to live, work and visit. But while we pass along guidance and programs to help our customers save energy and support green energy (like the College Football Championship!), along with programs of our own to help students and much more, we know a global spotlight requires our never-ending commitment to safe, secure and reliable power to ensure a successful experience – and extra TECO team members suited up and ready.

To that end, TECO team members have been working – and will continue to work – with city and stadium officials, as well as law enforcement, in the days leading up to, during and after the game.

“It goes beyond the fact that we’ve honed our processes in recent years with events like Gasparilla, the 2012 Republican National Convention and several Super Bowls,” said Angie Leslie, project manager with Emergency Management & Business Continuity. “A centerpiece of our responsibility to customers includes planning, training, hardening our system and being ready for virtually anything that could happen all year ’round – something that really comes into focus each hurricane season.”

Playing the long game

Safety measures added to TECO trucks in recent years make them much harder to miss as they work to maintain our 99% reliability.
Safety measures added to TECO trucks in recent years make them much harder to miss as they work to maintain our 99% reliability.

While forecasts call for nothing resembling a hurricane (mainly just weather that Tampa residents might call “cold”), the massive mobilization for the game includes a wide range of activities; the Tampa Bay Times has a good rundown of concerts and more here. Well after the game clock winds down, they’ll be blazing brilliant with lights and thumping with the sounds of celebration – with power we generate there for every moment. With Tampa’s first College Football Championship, in other words, TECO has a lot more than (pig)skin in the game.

“We’ve helped power this city’s growth for nearly 120 years, and each time an event of this scale comes along, it raises the profile of the community and shows the world that Tampa is one of America’s best places to live, visit and do business,” Narzissenfeld said. “We’re proud to bring our power to the College Football Championship, and prouder still to keep providing power and natural gas to the community long after the game is over. Whether you’re in town for the game or you live here, it’s an exciting time to be in Tampa.”

Check out our great Gameday Grub recipes that are perfect for your natural gas grill!

What’s in a game? Let’s count some of the ways the College Football Championship means good things for the community:

  • It’s estimated that the more than 70,000 people expected to attend the College Football Championship will generate $11 million in overnight spending directly connected with the game – and that doesn’t include the massive influx of media and others in town for the game and related events.
  • By extension, recent economic impact studies show that overnight guests spent $1.8 billion in Hillsborough County in 2015 – about $158 per person.
  • One in 19 jobs in Hillsborough County is directly related to tourism – or about 33,000 jobs that earn an average of $44,000 per year; these are jobs that can’t be outsourced.
  • Indirectly, tourism supports another 15,000 workers in a range of industrial, real estate and other types of jobs – creating more than $5.6 billion in economic benefits for the community.
  • About 23 percent of state sales tax revenue in Florida comes from out-of-town visitors.

Source: Visit Tampa Bay

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