economic development

Overhead view of rural Ohio

Co-ops power economy in communities across the U.S.

The 900 or so electric cooperatives in this country deliver electricity to 42 million Americans in 48 states across 56 percent of the nation’s landmass. In Ohio, the state’s co-ops serve more than 1 million people in 77 of the state’s 88 counties.

According to a report commissioned by the national co-op organization, local electric cooperatives supported about 623,000 American jobs and contributed $111 billion annually to gross domestic product from 2018 through 2022. Their activities have far-reaching impacts across the country — even in areas where co-ops do not serve consumers directly.

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It’s important that developers and companies looking to establish operations understand all the benefits cooperatives have to offer.

Our core mission

Affordable and reliable electricity strengthens cooperative communities and enhances the lives of members wherever they are — on farms, in homes or schools, at their small businesses or large retail establishments, or even in industrial and manufacturing facilities. While it’s essential to meet our obligations to current cooperative members, we must also work to support economic development activities that help attract new people and enterprises to cooperative territories, with the aim of further benefiting these communities.

Up Front
An overhead view of Church & Dwight in Ohio

If you build it...

Church & Dwight, a multibillion-dollar manufacturing company, has expanded its Seneca County facility twice in the past five years, adding more than $90 million in machinery and new capacity and creating 140 new jobs in the process.

The Tiffin-Seneca Economic Partnership (TSEP) and the Fostoria Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) have been active in finding ways to help the area beat some tilted economic odds — and Attica-based North Central Electric Cooperative has been working to be an important partner in those efforts. 

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Jason Duff

Renewal and restoration

Jason Duff stood in the middle of the crumbling, mostly abandoned downtown area of his hometown, Bellefontaine, and saw what everyone else saw.
 

Unlike many others, though, he was able to look past the despair and see potential. Instead of heading to the brighter lights of bigger, more prosperous Midwestern cities, Duff decided to make a difference. He enlisted friends who shared his vision and his can-do attitude — along with plenty of talents and skills — and built a team to rebuild and revive their hometown. 

Features
Suburban Columbus

Rural-to-suburban shift

Since electric co-ops were first established during the 1930s, they have served mainly rural areas of the United States.

“We continually beat the drum among our members about what the co-op is,” says Phil Caskey, president and CEO of Consolidated Cooperative, which serves eight counties in north-central Ohio. Caskey says that many residents of suburban areas, as well as former suburbanites who move into rural areas, are unaware of the differences between electric co-ops and large, privately owned electric utilities. In addition, rural co-op members tend to have a better understanding of the co-op’s place in the community, he says.

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