CEO July Message - 2021

Isn’t it great to be in summer! As you know, we were unable to hold an annual meeting this year as a result of not finding a location that could hold the number of attendees and allow for social distancing. You should have received the annual update on the cooperative and if you have read it, you know that we continue to have a fiscally strong cooperative.

We did hold our Trustee election this year by mail for District 4 (Southern) and District 5 (At-Large). From the board and I, we want to thank all our members who took the time to fill out and mail-in their ballots.

What a turn out for votes this year. Almost 500 (499) members voted. The board and I also want to thank all of those who ran for the Trustee positions this year. This proves that many great people want to be involved in our excellent cooperative.

On May 21st our legal counsel counted the ballots and notified us that Gerald Rutledge was re-elected to District 4 and Nick Siebrasse will represent District 5, taking the position created by the passing of Clarence “Fritz” Keller. Congratulations Gerald and Nick! We would also like to thank Merle Belcourt for stepping in to be the 5th District Trustee until the election was held.

Here are the official results of the election:

District 4
Gerald Rutledge 371

District 5
Nick Siebrasse 183
Michael Ladenburg 106
Ryan Houtzel 87
Curtis Monteau Jr. 65
Jerome Hould 40
*18 Ballots excluded for no or incorrect member signature or for too many votes for a Trustee in a district.

During the pandemic, your cooperative team provided you with great customer service. We accomplished this while working in the office and remotely from home. We have been excited to welcome all of our employees back into the office. As of June 1, we also opened our lobby to the public. We will continue to take measures to keep you and our employees safe, but if you need to stop in and see us, please do.

Montana has another great announcement from the electric cooperative world. Chris Christensen, a Trustee from Norval Electric Cooperative in Glasgow, MT, has been selected to serve as the next President of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). He is the first Montanan to hold the President position at NRECA. It is a great honor to have a Montanan as President of the Board of NRECA and someone who will be very influential in Washington for cooperative issues.

Have a safe and Happy 4th of July!