Town Hall Brings Questions, Valuable Feedback
by Preston Knight, Communication Manager
What’s on SVEC members’ minds? To find out, the co-op opened the floor for questions during a telephone town hall in late April.
More than 2,400 members listened to the question-and-answer portion of the event, which SVEC holds at least once a year. The forum gives members a direct line to ask a question to President and CEO Greg Rogers.
Members are discouraged from asking account-specific questions, encouraging a discussion that covers general co-op programs and practices. Nineteen questions or comments were addressed within the time frame, and several dozen more were followed up on after the town hall. Rogers kicked off the event with a broad message about equity allocation notices, director elections and the importance
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of members keeping their contact information updated.
On the latter topic, having an updated phone number ensures a member is on the call list for events such as the telephone town hall.
“I’m very grateful that you appreciate the co-op members sufficiently to have this type of meeting,” member Jean Brydge said in a message after the meeting, “because we deal with businesses all day long, and some of them act like customers are in the way. You all are acting like customers are important. For that, I am grateful.”
The next opportunity to go live with SVEC will be during the annual meeting on Thursday, Aug. 7. The meeting will also be held over the phone. However, unlike the telephone town hall, registration is required. See page 16 for more information. •
Tele-town Hall Recap
During April’s telephone town hall, the following topics, among others, were covered:
• Capital credits
• Vegetation management
• Solar
• Demand for power
• Meter upgrades
• Broadband coverage
To listen to a recording, visit svec.coop/townhall.
DIRECTOR ELECTION TIMELINE
Visit svec.coop/election to learn more about the director election process. Visit svec.coop/registration to register for the 2025 annual meeting.
JUNE 23 WEEK OF AUG. 4
Election materials mailed and emailed to members.
Election closes. Last day for mail-in ballots and online voting.
AUG. 5
Registration for annual meeting closes at 4:30 p.m.
AUG. 7
Election results will be announced at the annual meeting, held by phone at 7 p.m. Aug. 7.
Candidate Profiles for 2025 Director Elections
SVEC is governed by a nine-member board of directors, voted onto the panel by co-op members. Three seats are on the ballot each year, serving three-year terms. This year, no challengers came forward to the three incumbent directors seeking reelection from Augusta, Frederick and Page counties. Voting begins by mail and online balloting later in June.
Augusta County
LARRY C. HOWDYSHELL
Larry C. Howdyshell has served as a director from Augusta County since 1992 and explains his reason for seeking another term with one word: passion.
“I have a passion for serving our members, training our employees and being part of the greater community,” he says. “There is a great team here at SVEC and I am glad to be part of it.”
Howdyshell has held every office on the board, and among his industry certifications are Credentialed Cooperative Director and Director Gold, the highest level to attain from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. He’s a former chairman of the board for the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives, where he currently serves on the finance and governmental affairs committees.
A farmer, Howdyshell previously served on the Augusta County Board of Supervisors and the board of directors of Rockingham Cooperative Farm Bureau.
After graduating from Buffalo Gap High School, Howdyshell joined the U.S. Army, serving in Vietnam and achieving the rank of sergeant.
He looks forward to continued service and personal education with SVEC.
“Electric service is more than just poles, wires and transformers,” he says. “There is so much growing technology that keeps driving this business to be more efficient.”
Page County
BRIAN K. PLUM
Brian K. Plum has served as director from Page County since June 2018, a role he accepts as a “great honor.”
“We have made tremendous strides in continuing to move SVEC forward during my time on the board,” he says, “and I want to continue doing what I can to improve our cooperative for future generations of members.”
A lifelong county resident, Plum is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Virginia and has been named a Super CPA by Virginia Business and the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants. He has over two decades of business experience as a public accountant, community bank executive, investor and civic leader in the Valley.
Plum holds a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Mennonite University, a master’s degree from James Madison University and a master’s from the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia.
In his time with SVEC, Plum says he’s learned about the “incredible amount of complexity” involved in its operations.
“Every day the team at SVEC is managing everything from specific, local member concerns to working in the capital markets to ensure the best balance sheet structure for today’s and tomorrow’s SVEC members,” he says. “I have developed a great appreciation for the tenacious commitment the SVEC team has to our members and our communities.”
Frederick County
TODD VAN HORN Board Vice Chair
Todd Van Horn has been the director representing Frederick County since 2018, a position he enjoys for the chance to explore a diversity of topics and innovative solutions.
“I find that the co-op provides countless opportunities to delve into new business planning and management approaches, enriching my understanding and engagement in meaningful ways,” he says.
Van Horn is a Certified Cooperative Director and has completed the Director Gold program, the highest level of achievement through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
He is senior ISP/OSP Manager at B&D Communications, where he applies his extensive expertise in the industry. Van Horn worked previously as a skilled copper fiber splicer and served as the compliance officer for Frontier Communications.
An alumnus of Berkeley Springs High School in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., he furthered his education at Fairmont State University in Fairmont, W.Va.
Reminder: All members can vote for all offices.
Brian K. Plum
Larry C. Howdyshell
Todd Van Horn
Set Up for Success
Pole
setting is a job linemen must master — now more than ever
by Preston Knight, Communication Manager
The next time a utility pole is in your line of sight, remember — It didn’t set itself.
The infrastructure that holds transformers, arrestors, insulators and spans of wire can blend into its surroundings, at times rendering them seemingly unnoticed. The effort it takes to erect them should not be overlooked.
SVEC linemen must master many aspects of their craft, pole setting one of the first among them. This component of the job has increased in frequency recently as co-op crews take to the fields and streets on a near daily basis to replace more poles than ever for construction of the cooperative’s fiber utility network.
Several hundred wooden poles, many of them taller to carry highercapacity fiber cables, will be set this year where current ones do not meet safety requirements for increased weight loads. This is in addition to poles that are removed as part of general maintenance and after storms.
It might not be top of mind for the
rest of the world, but safely putting a pole in the ground is a necessary part of keeping the lights on. Whether the reason is a fiber network or storm restoration, nobody is more affected than those doing the work.
“I like changing poles that we’re going to have to climb one day. When you go back, most of the time it should be a good, sturdy pole for you,” says Cole Shaffer, a first-class lineman in Mt. Jackson. “It’s crucial to the system, especially in the backwood territory where you’re climbing all the time. You don’t want to be climbing a pole that’s been there for 80 years.”
PULLING DOUBLE DUTY
During a two-pole setting assignment in late April, a crew that included Shaffer found the best- and worst-case scenarios in Shenandoah County. No two jobs are
similar, linemen say, which can be both rewarding for the challenge they present and a nuisance for, well, the challenge they present.
On this day, the first pole was in the middle of a farm field, where the biggest safety obstacles were tripping hazards, such as groundhog holes and mud clumps. Given the extent of the work for the day, power to the local area was de-energized, enabling crews to work safely without the use of high-voltage protection.
First-class lineman Cole Shaffer works from a bucket to complete a recent pole replacement in Shenandoah County.
Second-class lineman Justin Scheulen steadies a pole before it is lifted for setting. This component of the job has increased as a fiber utility network is under construction.
As often as the co-op can, crews will replace poles while electricity still flows, to limit member outages. In some cases, however, it’s unavoidable, and power might be out for a few hours. Members are notified days in advance with a phone call to the number on file with SVEC.
Crews can set a pole in less than an hour when conditions are favorable. That was largely the case with the first pole in Shenandoah County.
“In a field where you can put a bucket truck at any angle, that’s what you want,” Shaffer says. “You get into town, you’re maneuvering around eight phone wires, there’s cars all around. You can’t always get in an ideal position. There are a lot of different circumstances you get into.”
Minutes later and about 50 yards away, he was proved right. The second pole setting of the day was in an overgrown, wooded area, requiring more attention to safely access the scene.
Tripping hazards were joined by additional dangers familiar to similar scenes, such as the possibility of chigger bites. A mix of experienced and newer linemen worked alongside one another to set the pole, which they may never see again but are proud of what they leave behind.
“Not so much here at this location, but taking out an old raggedy pole that’s been up for 60 years, and now you got a nice new pole to ride by it and see it,” Shaffer says, “Man, it looks so much
better, and it’s making it more reliable for our members.”
‘NOTHING LIKE IT’
To start any pole-setting process, crews load up at their district office and then develop a game plan once at a job site. They know well in advance whether a job will be performed while energized. When it’s not, some of the complexity is removed.
They’ll dig a spot for the new pole and hope to not hit much, if any, rock. Specialized hydraulic equipment or an excavator could be brought in where the ground won’t budge. The goal is to dig two feet deeper than the first number in the size of the pole: if it’s 40 feet tall, they want to bury it six feet.
Crews seek to set a new pole as close to within the route of existing lines as possible, to not throw off the angle of the pole.
One benefit of working a de-energized site, they say, is the proximity afforded from old to new pole.
precision, an operator at the bucket truck’s boom will delicately guide the pole over its destination. A lineman on the ground brings it down, while another uses a weighted tool called a plumb bob to measure if it’s straight. They’ll fill the hole and tamp down dirt to ensure the pole will not shift. A lineman above in the bucket puts finishing touches on wires and equipment atop the pole.
It’s a time-tested process, if not time consuming because of the chance for the unknown. Linemen might prefer to be as invisible as the work that goes into
“If power is off, you’ve still got to be careful, but you can get the pole a lot closer to the original pole, which helps a lot trying to rig the wire back,” Shaffer says.
Most of the pole arrives at SVEC pre-drilled to meet electric co-op design standards. Crews drill any other needed holes at the job site. With a surgeon’s
pole setting, but credit is deserved where it’s due.
“Being up in that bucket,” one of Shaffer’s co-workers says, “ain’t nothing like it.” •
Crews measure a pole’s vertical position to complete any pole-setting. They also fill in dirt (above).
Some situations put crews in challenging spots.
SVEC Selects Scholarship Recipients
Through SVEC’s Operation Round Up Committee, 10 high school seniors whose parents or guardians are co-op members were selected to receive scholarships this year. Each scholarship is valued at $1,000. Congratulations to this year’s students!
Ryan
Barker
High School: John Handley College: Old Dominion University Field of Study: Mechanical and aerospace engineering
“This love of building, along with my curiosity and creativity, has led me to be interested in engineering. A postsecondary education will allow me to [hone] my skills to put them to use creating new innovations for the betterment of society.”
Abigail Connell
High School: Wilson Memorial College: RandolphMacon College Field of Study: Nursing
“With both post-secondary education and this scholarship, I will be able to pursue a career in nursing, which will enable me to give back to my community in a critical and meaningful way. I’m excited to embark on my newfound path and grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.”
Julia Egnot
High School: James Wood College: James Madison University Field of Study: Media Arts & Design; English
“My goal is to inspire others through film the same way I was inspired. I want to create media that encourages empathy and gives a voice to unique and diverse perspectives. Through film, I strive to foster a community of people that inspire change and promote compassion and acceptance.”
Lydia Good
High School: Broadway College: Blue Ridge Community College Field of Study: Human Services
“My aspiration for nursing is a calling rooted in a deep passion for helping others. My desire to make a difference in people’s lives has only grown stronger as I have observed nurses work. I have witnessed their unwavering commitment to compassionate care, and this has inspired me to follow a similar path.”
Ayla Janney
High School: Broadway
College: Virginia Tech
Field of Study: Dairy Science
“I see the need in our community, in our country and around the world to end hunger and I will use my education to help find solutions. By having the opportunity to assist dairy farmers in becoming more productive and profitable, the extra product that they would produce can go back to the community and be an asset in feeding those less fortunate.”
Addyson Mooney
High School: Fort Defiance
College: University of Virginia
Field of Study: Civil Engineering
“I want to contribute my ideas and creativity to help protect the environment, just as I was inspired to do as a young girl who simply found joy in nature. Whether designing sustainable infrastructure, improving waste management systems or developing renewable energy sources, I want my work to make a tangible difference in the lives of those around me.”
Avery Jewell
High School: Luray
Madyson Mason
High School: Stuarts Draft
College: Laurel Ridge Community College
Field of Study: Business Administration
“Service strengthens the identity of an individual by dimming the darkness that surrounds us and provides hope for the future. It also gives us the opportunity to advocate for generations to come, and to create a better tomorrow. I am very fortunate to have found my source of strength, which is undoubtedly serving others.”
College: James Madison University
Field of Study: Kinesiology; Physical Education
“Over the summers, I volunteered at four to five different sports camps, and I found immense joy in working with kids and helping them grow. This career will allow me to combine my love for sports and my dedication to helping children thrive.”
Leah Stout
High School: Sherando
College: Garrett College Field of Study: Dental Hygiene
“Since the age of nine, I have always had one dream: becoming a dental hygienist. The importance of a smile has always been captivating to me because it’s the first thing someone looks at when meeting someone. It shows confidence, kindness and encouragement, and can even tell things about the person by the set of their mouth.”
Kate Taglauer
High School: Luray
College: James Madison University Field of Study: Media & Design; Communications
“By attending a four-year university, I will gain the skills, knowledge and connections that are necessary to thrive in sports media. This education will allow me to use my talents and passion in writing and photography to bring awareness to important causes, share inspiring stories and contribute to the spirit of my community.”
Summer Grilling 101
Sear-iously good tips from ‘Biller the Griller’
by Lydia Weaver, Community Relations Specialist
Since summer is peak grilling season, there’s no better time to gather a few pointers to up your flame game from SVEC’s own expert, mechanic Don Biller.
One could say Biller is a seasoned grill master. Not only is he asked to grill by local community members for events and charities, but he has also led his team to second-place finishes on more than one occasion at the Gaff-n-Grill competitions, which are part of the Gaffn-Go Rodeo for lineworkers.
LICENSE TO GRILL
When it comes to mastering the grill or smoker, there are some basics to abide by for food and fire safety precautions. There are several obvious suggestions, like washing your hands before handling food, not letting your meat sit out too long before grilling and keeping a fire extinguisher nearby. But the grill itself should be looked over too, especially if you haven’t used it in a few months. Check that the power cord and
are still in good shape, not frayed, chewed or damaged.
“Keep your grill a few feet away from your house. Make sure everything is steady on it, sturdy,” Biller says. “You don’t want to be getting ready to do something and the grill falls over.”
GRILL THRILLS
THE HEAT IS ON
One essential tool is a meat thermometer. Since meat temperatures are important to prevent foodborne illnesses, this is a device you don’t want to do without, Biller says. With endless options for monitoring internal temperatures, you’re sure to find one that fits your needs, even if that need is a thermometer that syncs to your phone, so you’re not glued to the grill.
Making sure your grill is already hot before placing the meat, just like preheating your oven, is a big help in getting your food cooked properly.
“Get your meat thawed out. Some people tend to put frozen stuff on a grill,” Biller says. “That don’t work. Thawed and seasoned before starting.”
Some of Biller’s favorite foods to grill are salmon, ribs, pork butt, brisket and asparagus. But for a quick meal, burgers with Montreal steak seasoning are his go-to. He does sometimes use recipes but not without tweaking.
Along with that, Biller also uses multiple cutting boards, making sure to designate boards for raw meat, cooked meat or poultry to avoid cross contamination. His other favorite tool is a wide spatula that he calls a pizza flipper, used for turning over large pieces of meat like briskets or pork
Biller says, “I call it research and development.” •
Biller grills chicken wings during the 2023 Gaff-n-Go Rodeo.