Steve Rhodes lives for challenges. As the CEO of the Choctawhatchee Electric Cooperative (CHELCO), he leads an organization of 140 employees and serves more than 48,000 members in four counties in the Florida panhandle. He is also responsible for a utility services subsidiary with another 50 employees and is the immediate past president of the Touchstone Energy® Cooperatives board of directors.
Blazing hot days in August, bone-chilling cold days in February — what do those weather extremes have to do with the cost of electricity? More than the bottom line on your electric bill.
Explaining the connection is a big part of the workday for Kara Snyder, marketing and key accounts manager at Butler Rural Electric Cooperative in Oxford, about 40 miles north of Cincinnati.
At the center of Snyder’s conversations are little boxes containing radio-controlled switches that can be installed on certain kinds of water heaters and many air-conditioning systems.
War must be waged against these formidable enemies — the sooner, the better, considering that one mating female can potentially produce about 20,000 more fleas in just sixty days. These tiny tormentors can attack your pampered pet just as readily as a rescue at a crowded shelter. Fleas can’t be ignored, because they won’t go away on their own and, left uncontrolled, can seriously jeopardize your pet’s well-being.
As an Ohio resident, you know from experience that the Midwest region of the United States undergoes a wide variety of severe storms year-round. What is less commonly known is how much havoc this weather wrecks on the region — more than $3 billion on average is lost each year to storms in the Midwest with over $2.4 billion of that in property damages, according to the Illinois State Water Survey Report.
It’s during these storms, especially when power outages occur, that electric cooperatives must unite to keep members safe.
We hear about independence all the time in our daily lives — independent voters are a hot topic this year, and energy independence has been an important subject of late. Last month’s issue of Country Living featured autonomy and independence as pillars of the seven principles on which electric cooperatives were founded. Independence is a powerful idea that has fueled our country’s growth; that was born of great intellect; and that has been paid for with blood, sweat, and tears.
