Education and Involvement are Key

As I assume responsibility for the leadership and nurturing of our cooperative and its membership, I feel it is necessary to take a moment to thank our Board of Directors for providing me the opportunity to serve you in the coming years. I also feel I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to recognize the contributions of my predecessor, Ken Ritchey.

Many of you know Ken and know the caliber of person and leader he is. For those that did not have the pleasure of knowing him, let me just say that in my 21 years in this industry I have not met a leader that possessed more broad knowledge of or displayed more commitment to any organization than Ken did. I have huge shoes to fill and know I will stumble at times trying to live up to the legacy he has left. However, having the privilege of his guidance over the last two years (and his pledge to remain in close proximity to his phone in the initial stages of my tenure) I feel confident that we will all make it through this transition and move on to position our cooperative to meet the many challenges that lie in our future.     

 

That being said, I would like to immediately begin a dialog with you about some of the challenges we face. I can assure you that in the first twelve months of my new role many of you will meet me and begin to tell people I sound like a broken record. We have a huge issue facing us all and it is the shaping of the legislation that will deal with carbon emissions in this country. This single piece of legislation has the potential to raise our electric bills by an astronomical amount. My goals will be to continue to educate myself and all of you as members to the impact this could have on us and on how we can mobilize to make sure our voices are heard before the final vote is cast. Make no mistake about this, our leaders in Washington are going to enact some form of tax on carbon emissions be it a “Cap and Trade” or a “Carbon Tax” approach. Whatever the final legislation says, the avenue for collection that is being eyed is your electric bill!

 

So what can we do to minimize the impact of this? First, your cooperative employees have recently included post card size inserts in your electric bills that promote a campaign called “Our Energy, Our Future.” If you haven’t taken a few brief moments to read the post card, fill it out, and return it to the office then I implore you to do so. If you need a card please contact your customer service department. These responses are recorded by your customer service representatives and sent directly to our legislators. Although we have received and sent on nearly 2,000 member responses, this is less than ten percent of our membership! We need to make sure our legislators understand the importance of this issue and hear your demand to fashion legislation that keeps the impact on your pocket book to a minimum.

 

Second, I encourage you to be proactive and read about this issue. It isn’t hard to find information on the topic. It is currently one of the most discussed and debated issues pending. Understanding the issue will help us all to understand its far reaching impacts. Once you feel up to speed, take the initiative to personally contact your legislator and let them know you are concerned. Ask them what they intend to do to minimize the impact on you. These people are there to represent you so let them know what you want!

 

Beyond this, I will be discussing this issue with you at every opportunity and I will encourage you to be involved. In June, we held the very first “CEO Luncheon.” This will be an ongoing effort to make contact with you, the member. Every few months we will randomly select a number of members to participate. I will personally call each member and extend an invitation to attend the luncheon. At this session discussions will be held on current issues facing the electric industry, our cooperative, and you! We will allow time to answer any questions you may have and we will ask you to go forward as an extension of our small staff to make sure the message spreads across our membership.

 

I look forward to meeting with our members and working to raise our level of service and reliability for each of you. In future articles I will discuss our system improvement plans, impacts on future utility rates, environmental issues, and any other relevant subjects. To make these articles more valuable to you I ask that you provide feedback on topics you may want to hear about. My email address is available on our web site. I may not be able to answer every email I receive (remember, there are 24,000 of you and only 1 of me!) but I will certainly strive to review them all for your suggestions!

 

Until next time, 

Tim McCarthy, CEO