ATHENS, Tenn. - Wayne Scarbrough has been named communications director at Athens Utilities Board (AUB).

Scarbrough is the first communications director for the municipal utility, located in McMinn County. The utility’s board of directors and general manager Eric Newberry created the position and began a candidate search in late summer 2000.

“Athens really is a progressive community in terms of economic development,” Scarbrough said. “The city leaders and the residents at large have a lot of positive foresight concerning continual, planned growth. Owing to a growing customer base, technology trends and the evolving utilities industry, AUB’s board saw the need for a stronger in-house communications role,” he said.

At AUB, Scarbrough will head up web-site development, marketing, governmental affairs and customer service. He said that through designed marketing and personal communications with customers he wants to spotlight the full function of the utility. Further, he believes that the historical position of utilities such as AUB can lend itself to “communications complacency,” wherein the organization avails itself to healthy critiquing of its role with customers.

“AUB has a lot of talented people who do much that goes unnoticed by customers. That's the nature of our business. We can make that better realized through marketing and so forth, and we will,” he vowed. “But certain perceptional issues simply warrant old-fashioned ‘don't-tell-me, show-me’ action. We're an established outfit with some very good practices relative to our customers; and there are notable opportunities for improvement, too. What’s encouraging is seeing that our organization as a whole, from field crewmembers to office personnel, embraces the need to grow and change if we are to have a satisfied and loyal customer base. We’re listening with more fervor than ever to what our customers have to say about us, what they desire in products and services, and how they view us as people working with people,” he said.

Before joining AUB, Scarbrough worked in the technology-driven community of Oak Ridge, Tenn. He was senior science writer and media relations manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory then led community and governmental affairs programs for Bechtel Engineering at environmental cleanup sites throughout the northeast and mid-Atlantic region. Most recently, he was a manufacturing department head for the Johns Manville Corporation. He lives in Athens with his wife, Paula.

AUB is a municipally owned utility offering power, natural gas, water, and wastewater services to the City of Athens and greater McMinn County.