Oregon Co-op Leaders Convened for the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association Annual Meeting, Focusing on Challenges Facing Utilities That Set the Pace for the Industry.
By Ted Case
Nearly 200 electric co-op leaders met in Salem on November 30 for ORECA’s 81st annual meeting. The event was preceded by an energy issues workshop on November 29 featuring expert speakers on a wide range of topics, including workforce development, artificial intelligence, and regional transmission organizations.
Salem Electric Director Joe Van Meter was elected board president after serving 2 years as vice president. Also elected to the ORECA Executive Committee were Ron Holmes (Wasco Electric), vice president; Shirley Cairns (Douglas Electric), secretary-treasurer; and Russ Sapp (Consumers Power Inc.) and Pete Radabaugh (Coos-Curry Electric), at large. Fred Flippence serves as the immediate past president.
The first session of the meeting, “The Oregon Way,” focused on Oregon media, demographic trends, and a fast-paced legislative update from 2 representatives in the Oregon Legislature: House Majority Leader Julie Fahey and House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich.
hallmark of any ORECA annual meeting is the inspirational keynote, which showcases Americans who have demonstrated feats of heroism. Richard Picciotto, a chief of the Fire Department of the city of New York, captivated the audience with his story of being the highest-ranking firefighter to survive the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
The second session, “The State of our Industry,” featured speakers on some of the greatest challenges facing electric utilities. Stanford Professor Michael Wara shared a presentation titled, “Wildfire: Where Do We Go from Lahaina?”
The annual meeting ended with awards presented to outgoing ORECA President Flippence and Douglas Electric Director Cairns, a longtime chair of ORECA’s budget committee.
