The Northern California Chapter, NECA Membership Services Committee established a Project Excellence Awards program that takes place annually and is awarded at the Fall General Member Meeting. The program was developed to recognize excellence in electrical/technology installations from our contractor members responsible for their outstanding achievements. The award competition identifies examples of quality project management and acknowledges innovative projects to help motivate our contractors identify and optimize the use of their strengths.

2026 Project Excellence Award Program Rules

Entries for the 2026 Program must be submitted by 2:00 PM on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Awards will be presented at our Fall General Membership Meeting on Thursday, September 24, 2026.

Projects completed between January 1 and December 31, 2025, preferably in Alameda, Calaveras, Mariposa, Merced, Napa, San Joaquin, Solano, Stanislaus and Tuolumne Counties are eligible. Projects outside of the Chapter’s jurisdiction will be considered and judged depending on location and complexity.

The competition will consider ten categories based on the type of project and its dollar value:

An award will be presented in each project category based on whether the electrical/technology portion of the project is valued under or over $1,000,000. Select the category that is most appropriate for the project that you are submitting. In the event that a project may qualify for more than one category, or its category seems unclear, the awards committee will make the final determination as to the category it falls under.

Each entry must be submitted with project photos, using the following guidelines: (1) Your image should be a JPG / JPEG; (2) Your image should be no smaller than 1,200 pixels (px) by 1,200 pixels (px); (3) high resolution images are highly recommended to avoid pixelation or distortion; and (4) know that large file sizes will take longer to upload into the form.  You may also submit a video of this project.

Incomplete forms or forms submitted without a high resolution project photo (as outlined above) will not be considered.

Members may submit one entry per category. Previous winning projects are not eligible.

A panel of industry professionals will make the award selections based on criteria including (1) originality in construction techniques and scope of work, (2) quality of workmanship, (3) difficulty of installation, (4) application of technology to aid construction, and (5) use of pre-construction or pre-fabrication.

Awards may be presented to multiple recipients in a single category, or not issued for a category based on the judges’ ratings. Awards for the winning projects in each category will be presented at the Fall General Member Meeting in September. If you have a project that you wish to submit for consideration, please click the below link to complete the entry form. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the chapter.