Directors re-elected at Tri-County annual meeting

MANSFIELD, PA (July 8, 2006) - Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative members re-elected three incumbent board directors during the utility’s 2006 Annual Meeting, Saturday, July 8, at Williamson High School near Lawrenceville.

Tri-County members re-elected Gerald A. Kite of Keating Summit, James R. Davis of Elkland and Alston A. Teeter of Milan to represent Districts 1, 4 and 7, respectively.

Three of Tri-County’s nine board seats were up for election this year. Directors are elected to three-year terms.

Guest speaker at the co-op’s annual meeting was Dave Rowe, manager of member services for Randolph (N.C.) Electric Membership Corporation and a former professional football player.

Rowe provided colorful anecdotes about his playing days at Penn State University under coach Joe Paterno, as well as his 13-year career in the National Football League. A defensive tackle on the Oakland Raiders’ 1977 Super Bowl XI championship team, Rowe circulated his Super Bowl ring through the auditorium for cooperative members to view.

He also spoke of his post-NFL career as a 20-year employee of a rural electric cooperative in central North Carolina.

About 460 members and guests attended the meeting, during which election results and business reports from the cooperative’s management team and directors were presented.

Craig Eccher, Tri-County president and chief executive officer, updated members about the cooperative’s activities and achievements of the past year. He also told those on hand for the gathering that they can expect to see relatively stable generation prices, despite the double-digit generation-rate increases being implemented at electric utilities in Pennsylvania and surrounding states.

“Although only 10 percent of generation in our region is produced by natural gas, the market price of electricity is based on natural gas,” he said. “With utility rate caps expiring, consumers of many investor-owned utilities will see large rate increases, which will reflect market pricing. This is not the case for cooperative members.”

Eccher explained that Tri-County’s wholesale power supplier, Allegheny Electric Cooperative, owns a generation mix of low-cost hydroelectric and nuclear power and has only limited exposure to open market pricing.

“I foresee our generation prices remaining fairly stable, with only slight increases in the future,” he said.

Eccher said the cooperative’s biggest challenge will be controlling the rising cost of materials, which can affect distribution rate. Distribution rates cover costs associated with owning and maintaining wires and equipment used to deliver electricity to members.

Over the past two years, Eccher noted, the cost of utility poles has gone up by 19 percent; conductor, 47 percent; transformers, 35 percent; and copper ground wire, 130 percent.

“Your co-op has continued to manage past cost increases by leveraging our partnership with our sister co-op, Claverack Rural Electric, by sharing personnel, material and equipment,” he said.

During a reorganizational meeting that immediately followed the annual meeting, Dr. James Davis was re-elected board chairman. Gerald Kite was re-elected as board vice-chairman, and Alston Teeter was re-elected secretary-treasurer.

Unlike investor-owned utilities, Tri-County is a non-profit organization, owned by its consumer-members. A democratic organization by nature, the cooperative conducts an annual meeting each July to update consumer-members on the progress made during the year and to conduct director elections.

Annual meetings also provide consumer-members with the opportunity to offer input and voice concerns before the board of directors and management staff.

With headquarters in Mansfield, Pa., Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative has served the residents of northcentral Pennsylvania since 1937. Today the cooperative provides electricity to approximately 18,000 members in Tioga, Potter, Bradford, Lycoming, Clinton, McKean and Cameron counties.

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