Page 6 - Tennessee 811 Magazine 2022 Issue 1

4 • Tennessee811
2022, Issue 1
John Burpo, Area Manager, Texas Gas Transmission
Damage
Prevention MVP: John Burpo
By Jason Fryer,
Damage Prevention Liaison
Tennessee811If you have ever attended a damage prevention, natural gas,
or utility association meeting
in northwest Tennessee, there’s a good chance you’ve met our next Damage Prevention MVP. John Burpo is the area manager for Texas Gas Transmission, a subsidiary of Boardwalk Pipeline. Both John
and Texas Gas are very active in
the damage prevention community. The local Texas Gas office is at
their compressor station in Kenton, Tennessee. For John’s territory they have transmission pipelines in four counties: Dyer, Gibson, Obion, and Weakley.
I first met John back in 2014,
during our Partners In Protecting Everyone (PIPE) season. Since then, John and I have partnered up with other stakeholders to put on two simulated line strikes in Trenton
and Springfield. John has been with Texas Gas since 2008 and has been in his current role for six and a
half years. Before Texas Gas, John worked for Gibson County Utility District for 22 years, starting with them straight out of high school.
All told, John has 36 years in the natural gas industry. In his many roles with both companies, John has always been involved with Tennessee 811, dealing with locate requests, damage prevention events, and of course the PIPE program. John also has Texas Gas actively involved on both the local and national level with different associations. Some of those groups on the local level are the West Tennessee Gas Association (WTGA) and Gibson County’s
utility association. The groups on
the national level are Southern Gas Association (SGA) and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA).
The number one objective for