Reflecting on the 20th anniversary celebration of the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) this month, many industry members will recall how the council’s various safety, consumer education, and research and development programs have developed over the past two decades. Just to mention one example, the propane industry offered only one or two converted agricultural irrigation engines 20 years ago. Now, in part because of PERC’s efforts, nearly 30 of the engines are offered and supported by the engine manufacturers and produce millions of gallons of demand in the propane industry’s non-heating season. But when PERC president and CEO Roy Willis reflects on the council’s first 20 years, he thinks of all the people who donated their time and energy to enact all those programs…

By Natalie Peal, BPN publisher … Twenty years ago, on October 11, 1996, with the swipe of a pen President Bill Clinton signed into law legislation authorizing the national Propane Education and Research Council (PERC). This capped an impressive, three-year bipartisan grass-roots effort that made many members of Congress aware of the propane industry for the first time. However, PERC was nothing new to the staff of BPN . Going back another five years to 1991, my dad, Bill Clark, was discussing the possibility of this check-off program in BPN’s Beyond the Mains editorial column. Working with his good friends Milford Therrell and Glenn Miller, he used his pen (typewriter) to extoll the benefits of the program to BPN readers and the propane industry. Milford,…