Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

Bloom Spatial
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Real stories of co-op electric utility operators overcoming challenges and serving their communities. Co-hosted by James Tanneberger (CEO of SCI-REMC) and Pablo Fuentes (CEO of Bloom Spatial).

  1. 6d ago

    038: Passing the Torch: Mentorship, Hiring for Character, and Succession Planning at the Co-op (with Chris Scott)

    In this episode, Pablo Fuentes talks about succession planning with Chris Scott, Superintendent of Operations at Monroe County Electric Cooperative, recorded live at the co-op's headquarters in Waterloo, Illinois. Chris brings more than three decades of utility experience, including time with a line contractor, 18 years at an investor-owned utility, and 16 years at Monroe County Electric. He describes walking into his role with no handoff after his predecessor left unexpectedly, and estimates that about 75% of the pain of that transition could have been avoided with documented processes and real mentorship. He contrasts it with his start at Central Illinois Public Service Company, where he spent two years job shadowing seasoned engineers before taking over a retiring engineer's territory, and a summer working alongside linemen during a work stoppage that taught him lessons he couldn't have learned any other way. The conversation turns to how Chris is preparing the co-op for his own retirement, about five years away. He explains why he puts new hires like a staking engineer on a line crew from day one, why he hires for character and work ethic over skills, and how he brings potential successors into difficult decisions, including the political ones, so they know exactly what the job involves. Chris also shares how Monroe County stacks its talent pipeline, hiring summer brush crews, moving promising workers through a two-year forestry program and into line apprenticeships, and preparing replacements for its longtime forestry lead well before he retires. Featured topics: Necessary versus unnecessary pain when stepping into a new leadership role Why every engineer should spend time working on a line crew Hiring for character, work ethic, and initiative, and using personality profiling to spot bad fits Mentoring a successor by stretching them with projects slightly above their ability Being honest about the politics and gray areas of co-op leadership Building a pipeline from summer brush crews to forestry to line apprenticeships Why you can't wait until someone leaves to find their replacement Separating good process from lucky outcomes The role technology can play in turning oral tradition into institutional knowledge Pablo and Chris close by discussing the opportunity to use technology to stop reinventing the wheel with every generation, and Chris reflects on the mentors who invested in him and his responsibility to do the same. As his father taught him, the goal is to leave things in better shape than you found them, so the next person in the role can be even better. This is a conversation about mentorship, foresight, and planting trees you'll never sit under, so co-ops and their members are ready for the next generation of leaders.

  2. Oct 13

    037: Lineman to Lineman: From the Hoosiers' Trenches to the Power Lines (with Carter Smith and Kevin Bay)

    In this episode Pablo Fuentes and co-host James Tanneberger of South Central Indiana REMC sit down with two very different kinds of linemen for a special lineman to lineman conversation. Carter Smith, a starting offensive lineman for the national champion Indiana Hoosiers, joins Kevin Bay, a lineman at Johnson County REMC, to explore what playing on the line in football and working on the line at an electric cooperative have in common. Carter shares his path from Columbus, Ohio, to Bloomington, his decision to stay through the coaching change, and how Coach Cignetti's culture helped turn one of college football's most overlooked programs into a champion. Kevin describes his work with Project Indiana, the Indiana Electric Cooperatives initiative that sends co-op linemen to Guatemala to bring power to homes that have never had it. The conversation turns to the shared values that define both jobs, including what Carter calls "the dirty hard work in the dark," the camaraderie that comes from looking out for each other, and the planning, repetition, and training it takes to get the job done right. Kevin reflects on the life-changing experience of electrifying rural Guatemala, the gratitude of the families who receive power, and the cooperative principle of helping one another that sends linemen across state lines after storms and hurricanes. Featured topics: Project Indiana and how Indiana co-op linemen are bringing electricity to rural Guatemala Carter's journey from the Tom Allen era to a national championship under Coach Cignetti Building camaraderie in roles that rarely get the spotlight Planning, safety, and repetition as the foundation of doing the job right The years of training behind becoming a lineman, and why it never stops Long nights, hard storms, and the co-op principle of cooperation among cooperatives Blocking out expectations and staying focused on the next season Pablo, James, Carter, and Kevin close by reflecting on the hope the Hoosiers' championship run has given fans across the country, and on the unheralded work that keeps offenses moving and the lights on in rural communities. This is a conversation about teamwork, sacrifice, and the people who put their bodies on the line so others can succeed, whether on the field or in the middle of a storm.

  3. Sep 29

    036: Lighting Up Main Street: A Family Legacy in Rural Electrification (with Don Bowman)

    In this episode, recorded live at the NRECA Regional Meeting in Columbus, Ohio, Pablo sits down with Don Bowman, Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager at Wake Electric, to trace a family legacy that runs back to the very beginnings of rural electrification. Don shares the remarkable story of his grandfather, who left home at 14 with a fourth-grade education to wire federal buildings in Washington, D.C., and at 17 brought electricity to a small West Virginia town where the postmaster was sorting mail by candlelight. That path led to Vermont, a friendship with future governor George Aiken, and a $40 sale of his entire system to the board of the newly formed Vermont Electric Cooperative, where he became its founding superintendent. Don also traces how that legacy carried through his father and uncle, both co-op general managers, and how he found his own way back to the industry after studying aerospace engineering "just to get out." The conversation turns to technology adoption at cooperatives, including why co-ops invest in innovation for survival rather than rate base, how AMI created new career paths instead of eliminating jobs, and Don's approach of pitching new technology to his board as a small pilot with a clear exit ramp. He also shares how his long-running podcast evolved into a new short-form video series built to connect more directly with Wake Electric's members. Featured topics: Don's grandfather's journey from teenage apprentice electrician to founding general manager of Vermont Electric Cooperative Three generations of co-op leadership across Vermont, Virginia, and North Carolina Leaving aerospace engineering to help a meter shop transition to digital meters Eleven years at NRTC matching co-ops with new technologies Leading through rapid growth as Wake Electric doubles to nearly 60,000 meters Moving technology from "nice to have" to "mission critical" The shift from the Changing Energy podcast to The Co-op Current Don and Pablo close by reflecting on the next generation, including a nephew now exploring a career in co-op fleet management, and why the cooperative story is one worth telling to every new member who walks through the door. This is a conversation about family legacy, the courage it took to light up rural America, and the spirit of service that still drives electric cooperatives today. Thanks for listening to The Co-op Heroes Podcast. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to hear more stories from leaders across the electric cooperative industry.

  4. Sep 15

    035: First in the Seat, First Through the Storm: Leadership and Vulnerability (with Rachel Johnson)

    In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with Rachel Johnson, CEO of Cherryland Electric Cooperative. Rachel speaks candidly about her unusual path to the corner office, starting as a grassroots advocate at Cherryland in 2012, moving into member services and communications, and eventually earning an MBA in finance to prepare herself for the CEO seat. She reflects on the value of intellectual curiosity, self awareness, and building a leadership team that complements her own blind spots. Six months into her tenure as Cherryland's first female CEO, Rachel was diagnosed with breast cancer. She opens up about navigating that diagnosis while leading a cooperative, choosing to be public about her treatment, and how her board and team rallied around her in ways that strengthened trust across the organization. She also shares how leaning on her own intellectual curiosity, researching her diagnosis and eventually sharing what she learned with online breast cancer communities, helped her cope during treatment. The conversation turns to what makes cooperatives different, including the mutual aid Cherryland provided to neighboring Michigan co-ops during a devastating ice storm, and closes with Rachel's advice for women considering a path to co-op leadership. Featured topics: Rachel's path from grassroots advocate to Cherryland's first female CEO Getting an MBA in finance to prepare for the CEO role Being diagnosed with breast cancer six months after taking the job How her board and team responded and what it did for trust Cherryland's mutual aid support during the northern Michigan ice storm Advice for women pursuing leadership roles in the cooperative space Rachel and Pablo close by reflecting on what sets the cooperative model apart: a culture built on service, trust, and people who show up for each other, not shareholders or competition. This is a conversation about vulnerability in leadership, resilience through crisis, and why the people who make up electric cooperatives are the reason so many, including Rachel, never want to work anywhere else. Thanks for listening to The Co-op Heroes Podcast. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to hear more stories from leaders across the electric cooperative industry.

  5. Sep 1

    034: Beyond the Balance Sheet: Cooperation, Trust, and the Business Case for Generosity (with James Tanneberger)

    In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about one of the more unexpected questions in the cooperative world: can the co-op model work anywhere else? James speaks candidly about what it actually felt like to walk into an electric cooperative after years at investor-owned and municipal utilities, and how handing margins back to members changes something deeper than the balance sheet. He walks through what he calls "thinking long," the idea that real relationships in business come from generosity rather than squeezing every dollar out of every deal, and how that mindset built trust that outlasted any single transaction. To make the principle concrete, James shares how his co-op built a debt-free middle-mile fiber network through an equity-based deal with its members, then gave away the entire playbook, legal work, consulting, and processes included, to other states rather than guarding it. That decision has since grown into a shared model across 15 states, built entirely on trust rather than competition. Featured topics: Why "thinking long" and radical generosity build trust that competition can't buy The debt-free fiber network built through member equity, and why it was given away for free What happens when private companies try to sectionalize off a piece of their business for the greater good Lessons from the EV charging and nuclear industries on when competitors must agree on standards Why data interoperability, not proprietary advantage, will define the next generation of vendors How the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) model points toward shared standards across the industry James and Pablo close with a challenge to private companies everywhere: the businesses willing to open up, share data, and build trust will outlast the ones trying to protect a proprietary edge. This is a conversation about what happens when a nonprofit mindset meets a for-profit world, and why the co-ops that gave the most may end up gaining the most in return.

  6. Aug 18

    033: Bridging the Gap: Succession, AI, and the Future of Co-op Leadership (with James Tanneberger)

    In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about one of the most pressing challenges facing electric cooperatives today: the coming wave of retirements and how to manage the knowledge transfer that comes with it. James speaks candidly about the generational gap co-ops are facing, roughly 9 million fewer people in Generation X than in the Baby Boomer generation, and what that means for building a bench deep enough to replace 30-plus years of institutional expertise. He walks through the real risk of a "transition mismanaged," drawing on an experience at one of the country's largest utilities where an entire engineering discipline rested on a single expert with no one behind him. To bridge that gap, James's co-op is bringing retiring staff back on contract to capture their knowledge before it's gone for good, and building a private AI tool the team affectionately calls "Shirley," trained on the co-op's own board minutes, business documents, and communications so institutional memory doesn't walk out the door with the people who hold it. He's candid about what it actually takes to get that kind of system to work: not just the technology, but the discipline of getting good data in, and giving people a real sense of mission around capturing it. Featured topics: Why succession planning starts with leaders figuring out how to replace themselves, sooner rather than later The generational math behind the co-op workforce gap, and why AI is becoming the bridge Building "Shirley," a private AI trained on institutional knowledge, business records, and email What a mismanaged transition looks like, and how a short bench can cripple even the largest utilities How cooperatives lean on trust and shared learning across the industry instead of competing on it Why interoperability and a "listen first" approach from vendors will define the next generation of co-op technology James closes with a look toward The Great Progression, a coming book on AI, clean power, and bioengineering, and the case that the next 25 years could be the most productive in cooperative history, if co-ops are willing to think ahead now. This is a conversation about turning a demographic challenge into a technological opportunity, and making sure decades of hard-won expertise outlast the people who built it.

  7. Aug 4

    032: Slow Down to Speed Up: Leading Through Crisis and Change (with Jennifer Brogdon)

    In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with Jennifer Brogdon, CEO and General Manager of Upper Cumberland EMC, recorded live at the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association meeting in Florence, Alabama. Jennifer's story is one of family roots, hard-won trust, and learning to lead through a crisis before she'd even settled into the job. Jennifer grew up watching her uncle become an electrical engineer and her grandfather work as a lineman, and she followed a similar path into TVA, where she spent 28 years moving through engineering, marketing, and eventually regulatory oversight of local power companies. That last role taught her how to be both a help and a hard conversation, and it built the relationships that would later pull her into a co-op CEO seat. Six weeks into the job, one of the worst ice storms in the co-op's history knocked out power to a third of its members. Jennifer walked through what it took to lead a team through repeated freeze and collapse cycles, why communicating constantly with members mattered as much as restoring the lines, and how that storm exposed a system still run on paper lists and yellow post-its. What followed was a lesson in change management that took nearly a year to get right, not because the solution was wrong, but because the people who had to live with it weren't part of choosing it. Jennifer talks about stalling a rollout, rebuilding trust with her district managers, and the moment a visit to a neighboring co-op turned resistance into buy-in. Featured topics: Coming up through TVA and the pull toward co-op leadership Leading a team through a week-long ice storm crisis six weeks into the role Why the "perfect" solution failed and what got the outage management system finally adopted The role of story and peer relationships in change management Where AI, distributed generation, and standardization are taking the grid over the next decade Jennifer's outlook on where cooperatives are headed treats today's supply chain pressure and rising demand as an opening rather than a threat, one where co-ops build new expertise instead of waiting for someone else to solve it for them. This is a conversation about what it looks like to lead through the moment nobody trained you for, and come out the other side with a better system and a stronger team.

  8. Jul 21

    031: Why This CEO Thinks Every Co-op Should Steal Each Other's Best Ideas (with James Tanneberger)

    In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about the programs that turn a utility into a neighbor. He makes the case that the smallest gestures, a rounded up bill, a hat off a Christmas tree, a hand on a truck door, are what set a cooperative apart from anywhere else he has worked.  James came to co-ops after years at municipal and investor owned electric companies, including the largest electric company in the country. South Central Indiana REMC is his first cooperative, and after eight and a half years there he says the culture is different in a way that shows up everywhere, especially in how close the company stays to the community it serves. He walks through Operation Roundup, where members' bills are rounded up to the next dollar and a volunteer committee decides which nonprofits get the funds, right down to a heated debate over whether to fund a stray cat rescue. He talks about the employee auction that raises money for Christmas baskets, the tag tree in the lobby where staff pick a child's name and gift, and the coats and gloves left out all winter for anyone who needs them, no questions asked. Featured topics: How Operation Roundup works, and what actually happens in the room when members decide where the money goes The Christmas auction and basket program, and how linemen end up bidding on $1,000 ladders for a good cause The hat and glove tree in the lobby, and why the co-op never asks who takes one Touch a truck events and live line demos, and what it means to teach kids and first responders real electrical safety  Where James finds new ideas, from IEC's monthly roundup of co-op news to conversations between neighboring co-ops Why he thinks the industry needs a shared library of these community programs, so no one has to reinvent them alone James is not describing a marketing strategy. He is describing a company where showing up for the community is just what people do, whether that means running a chainsaw, chairing a committee, or handing a stranger a pair of gloves. This is a conversation about what it looks like when a cooperative decides its job includes more than keeping the lights on.

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Real stories of co-op electric utility operators overcoming challenges and serving their communities. Co-hosted by James Tanneberger (CEO of SCI-REMC) and Pablo Fuentes (CEO of Bloom Spatial).

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