The mission remains the same

Louie Ward Manager of Tallapoosa River Electric

Tallapoosa River Electric Cooperative, Inc., your electricity provider, has been in business since 1939. You, the membership, own one of the oldest and most important economic engines in east central Alabama. The employees, board members, and I affectionately refer to your company as TREC. Though the cooperative has been in business 84 years, we remain committed to the same mission as in the beginning. The mission is to provide you with safe, reliable, and affordable electric energy. It is a very short, simple statement that requires great effort and teamwork to achieve. Behind that statement is a very dedicated group of people working to achieve that ever elusive goal.

The cooperative employs 75 people with total assets of over $165 million dollars, which in east central Alabama is a fair size company. Yet, in the electric utility business, TREC is minuscule. So small no one could even find us on a radar screen. In the 1940s our predecessors had the foresight for TREC to join with other entities much like itself. They formed an organization that allowed small companies like your cooperative to gain economies of scale. This allowed them to increase their political strength, make their own electricity, and through a cooperative effort unlike any other business in the world, help a small business in Alabama become a company that could help shape an entire industry.

TREC joins with other companies like itself throughout Alabama, the Southeastern U.S., and the entire country to leverage each one’s expertise to be safe, efficient, reliable, knowledgeable, trend-setting, and I can go on-and-on. Why? Why does a small company in East Central Alabama focus on all these things? We do all these things because we recognize that we are a small company. We recognize that there are industry experts working for us, for our neighbors and for other electric cooperatives around the country that are willing to work together for their communities, just like TREC works for you. Can those things possibly help keep your lights on reliably, the employees and members safe, and keep the rates reliable? Absolutely. We share lessons learned, we assist each other when natural disasters cripple our electric systems, and we train each other. We use our talents cumulatively rather than selfishly, bringing expertise to small communities that would otherwise be unaffordable.

I just wanted you, the members and owners of Tallapoosa River Electric Cooperative, to know that we still work every day, all day, and when necessary all night to provide excellent service for you. AND, every time, I mean every time, a storm comes, the lights blink, a pole is broken, wildlife interferes, or there is a need, we plan to continue responding and working and improving.