DONNELLAN Memorial Award

Tuesday, May 9 | 9:00 am | Room 312, Awards Ceremony

W.T. Bigbee to receive the Donnellan Memorial Award

W.T. Bigbee, vice president of operations at Encore Wire Corporation, is the 2023 Donnellan Memorial Award winner. The award recognizes a WAI member for his or her contributions to the Association.

Bigbee, a Past WAI President, was lauded by one nominator for the degree to which he served while having a very busy work schedule. “I was fortunate to be on the WAI executive committee and as part of that role, I was asked to see if W.T. would take a leadership role with the association. Not only did W.T. agree to be a more active part of the organization, he helped grow the membership in WAI at Encore Wire.

“The support of W.T. and Daniel Jones, CEO of Encore, has been tremendous for the organization, and W.T. was instrumental in raising the WAI profile at Encore. W.T. rose through the executive committee, serving as WAI President in 2019 with a successful year and an excellent Interwire. W.T. has always been engaged, and despite his senior and demanding role at Encore, he’s always been available to support the WAI in any manner it needed.”

W.T., who has helped WJI with advice and participation in articles, oversees Encore Wire’s technical and production operations and the development of new products and services.

During his 25-year tenure at Encore, W.T. has served as director of technical operations and product engineering, plant manager and quality control, and process engineering manager. Before joining Encore in 1997, W.T. worked at Capital Wire/General Cable for 10 years, where he started his career in the industry and worked his way into a process engineering position. He is also named on dozens of Encore patents. 