Jan 1, 2025
As we move into a new year, I am reminded of two core personal values that I have lived by my entire life: hard work and achievement.
Those two values are also reflected in the dedicated men and women that I work alongside each day as your president and CEO. I am confident in every member of our team and the talent that each of them brings to the table. Their hard work has afforded us much success.
To our members, thank you for your enrollment in our high impact SmartHub
features like paperless billing, AutoPay, bank draft and text alerts. These are some of the most beneficial tools that the cooperative has to offer and not only help you stay informed, but they give you the power to conveniently take control of your bill. We ask that you continue to encourage your friends and neighbors to take advantage of the latest features in the SmartHub app.
We also thank you for helping us forge a path forward with the co-op’s wholly owned fiber subsidiary, RURALBAND. Even with RURALBAND’s recent milestone and expansion into additional zones, the service is still available to 6,000 additional members. We’re asking members to please complete an application online or call our office to take advantage of this life-changing service. Be sure to encourage friends and families to join the RURALBAND membership as well.
I want to take this time to reflect on my first full year serving as President and CEO and give you a preview of our top priorities for 2025.
Reflection on Achievements:
After five years, we were able to welcome our membership back and opened our headquarter’s office doors to render exceptional service.
Maintained a healthy financial state that strategically positions us to continue to improve reliability, resiliency and long-term growth initiatives.
· Members also received cooperative capital credits totaling $694,424.89 in 2023.
We have added more than 120 new members to the counties we serve and are seeing growth of about 5 MW in our commercial load. This will continue to help keep members’ rates affordable.
Undertaken several strategic projects to convert older equipment to modern electronic equipment. This will improve outage restoration response times.
Beechland substation in Surry County has been converted into 3-phase circuits to improve system reliability and load balancing.
As we all know, keeping the Right of Way clear is a critical component of maintaining system reliability. In 2024, almost 200 miles of our rights-of-way were cleared.
RURALBAND continues to deploy and make fiber-to-the-home services available. We celebrated RURALBAND’s 5,000th installation milestone in September of last year. This effort continues to improve and transform the lives of our communities in various aspects like education, farming, medicine and entertainment.
Our member services team worked with membership to maintain accurate contact information, enroll in paperless billing, AutoPay and SmartHub. On average, members were able to complete more than 5,000 quarterly transactions using SmartHub’s mobile and web platforms. Members also saved time by completing an average of 2,000 quarterly transactions via AutoPay.
What You Can Expect from Us:
As we reflect on these accomplishments, we are excited to unveil various initiatives that will improve the quality of life and service in our communities. Like we have done throughout our history, we work to advance products and services that matter to our communities. We will continue to strategically invest in 3-phase conversion and other projects to support future load growth.
Through collaboration and strategic planning, my priority as CEO will stay focused on our membership, the reliability and resiliency of our system, and the long-term initiatives that will sustain PGEC’s growth.
To our new members who recently joined the cooperative membership – welcome to the family! To our existing members, thank you for the continued and valued support. We understand the importance of truly valuing each one of our members and remain resolute in our commitment to improving the quality of life in the communities we serve.