Episode 7 – Annual Meeting Preview: Board Election, Ballots & More
In this episode of Power Factor, Jim Anderson, Midstate’s CEO, sits down with Board President Ron Cass to preview Midstate’s May 16th Annual Meeting of the membership. Together, they walk through what members can expect—from meeting details and the return of the resource fair and barbecue to reminders about bringing your Quick Check postcard and watching for your board election ballot in the mail. Jim and Ron also discuss proposed bylaw changes that would allow greater flexibility in future Annual Meeting dates and enable a shift to electronic voting. They break down what board service really requires, how growth and new electrical loads don’t necessarily mean higher rates, and what continued expansion means for Midstate’s service territory. Members are encouraged to attend, bring their questions, and get direct answers—because the Annual Meeting is about participation, transparency, and staying connected to your cooperative.
Episode 7 Transcript
Jim Anderson
Welcome to Power Factor, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes at Midstate Electric Cooperative. I’m Jim Anderson, the CEO and General Manager, and I’ll be your host as we dive into topics about our industry and the challenges we face and the members that we proudly serve. Today we have a special guest in the studio. We’re talking to Ron Cass, who is the President of the Board of Directors of the Midstate Electric Board. Welcome, Ron. We have an annual meeting coming up on May 16th of this year on a Saturday. Give us a little idea of what we can expect at the annual meeting from your point of view.
Ron Cass
Little update for the cooperative. We have a couple of additional bylaw changes that we’d like to make. One is to be able to change the day of the meeting. Sometimes we have conflicts and it’s close to Mother’s Day or something like that. It makes it so it we could have a little more leeway as far as picking a date. Well, the second thing that we’d like to change is the ability to have electronic voting. Right now it’s all with a ballot, and we don’t have a very high percentage of people that actually turn in ballots compared to our membership, and we’re looking for ways to get people more involved.
Jim Anderson
So on average, we end up with about 2,000 people that actually vote by mail. It seems like that’s what’s been the pattern over the last couple of years. So as demographic of the co-op has changed, we have newer members coming in that do a lot of stuff on their computers and would probably be more probably more motivated to vote if they could actually vote online. So I believe that was the purpose behind that.
Ron Cass
Yes. I think it would also make more people knowledgeable about what’s going on in the co-op if they’re able to vote electronically.
Jim Anderson
Oh, very good. Anything else that you want to note?
Ron Cass
Other than we’re dealing with a lot of subjects that surprise me, or there’s a lot of people that come to Midstate and with various kinds of ideas on businesses, and Midstate is actually growing at a much faster pace than I ever thought it was.
Jim Anderson
And that’s very true with what you’re seeing on the board right now. So I guess let’s talk a little bit about the board of directors. This year you have districts five, seven, and nine that are actually up for election. We have two positions, district five and district seven, that will maintain their current leadership. But district nine this year, our incumbent is not running. So we actually have two new candidates running for that position. So the dynamic of the board is actually changing a little bit as we bring on the new people. So, how is that affecting the board? Is there anything that the members should be aware of?
Ron Cass
It’s complicating issues because when you have a lot of new members, new board members, there’s a learning curve. They have to be trained really to become good board members. So when you have a high turnover rate, it’s very challenging for them to understand some of the issues and things because those of us that have been here for a few years or know the company have a better understanding of what’s going on and the learning curve to get these directors to be part of the co-op. It’s more intense.
Jim Anderson
You know, so I I’ve tried to cover it my back pages here in the past, but there’s a lot more to serving on the board of directors here than just showing up at the meeting. You guys go through schooling, there’s a lot of education that’s involved. What do you see as the biggest challenge for a new director when they get on board?
Ron Cass
I think it’s the biggest challenge for a new director is especially when they don’t have any kind of electrical background, is just coming up to speed with what’s going on. We’re making all of our rate classifications where they carry their own weight. People shouldn’t be afraid of a load or a business coming onto our system thinking it’s gonna raise the rates to our customers because it’s not, they pay their own way from the start, any kind of a big load, a data center, anything like that. And I think there’s a misconception out there on those things that as people come on or businesses come onto our system that it’s gonna raise our rates. In actuality, it gives us more of a profit margin, so to speak. It’s even though we are nonprofit, it makes our margins better so that hopefully we can last longer without raising the rates. I see that as the biggest challenge for new directors, just to come up to speed to see these things. And it takes quite a bit of education, it takes quite a bit of reading. To become a certified director, you have to have so many hours of training. And we strongly encourage anybody that wants to be a director that we give them this training and they go and take it because if they do, they become a much more knowledgeable director.
Jim Anderson
At the annual meeting this year, I know that you address the membership as well as I do. So they can expect to hear some of this from both you and I at the meeting, and all the staff is available. We have the attorney on site, acting as parliamentarian for the meeting. We have our auditor that will give a financial report on the condition of the co-op financially. And then basically, you’ll be giving a briefing to the membership from the board’s point of view as the president, as I give the same briefing from operations side as the CEO on the happenings at Midstate in our future. So, what else do you think they could expect? So, what else do you think they could expect?
Ron Cass
I think in the future you’re going to see Midstate grow a lot faster than they ever anticipated, possible geothermal sites and large loads that are being discussed. I think you’re going to see more change faster in the next couple of years than ever. Plus, you know, since I’ve been here for four years, I’m going on five. Seven of the nine board members have changed out. That’s how many new people, new board members we have. And that alone is challenging.
Jim Anderson
Yeah, I know it does bring some issues as we try to get everybody up to speed. And, you know, like Ron said, there’s a lot that goes on to being on the board. But we’d encourage the membership to take an interest in the board, take an interest in Midstate by showing up at the annual meeting, asking questions with all the staff on site. There’s question cards that are throughout the event and tables that a member can actually fill out, put please put your name and phone number on it, but fill out and we can ask actually take those questions at the meeting and answer them with the people that are there that have expertise in the in the areas that they want to talk about. The same goes. There’s questions you have of the board at the time, you can ask those questions of the board too on issues that we’re having that you believe the board has an input or needs to know about.
Ron Cass
Yes. Some of the what it means to be a board member, part of the talk I’m going to give is on that. There’s a lot of self-satisfaction of doing a good job, being involved, having some input about the direction of the co-op, and just making sure that it stays as a competitive, reasonable co-op that’s to do the best of our ability. And I think every board member wants to see that.
Jim Anderson
And that’s good to know. Definitely this year. I would encourage the membership. Pretty soon there’ll be a quick check-in postcard that’s going to be mailed out to all the members. That’ll be headed out in mid-April. Please bring that quick check registration card in with you at the meeting. You’ll be entered in to win a $100 bill credit. Also, the raffles that we have. So we have a lot of vendors and we have other businesses that actually donate some very good raffle prizes to Midstate to hand out to the membership. And it will help keep the registration line moving. The ballot materials this year are going out and be looking for that coming through. There’s an official ballot meeting notice. It comes with an agenda. It has the candidate bios for the districts that we talked about in five, seven, and nine. And there’s also a summary of the revisions to the bylaws that we’re moving forward with this year. And as Ron alluded to before, you know, originally we did the articles of incorporation last year, but there were enough changes between the articles and the bylaws that we didn’t want to overwhelm the membership with a large amount of changes at one time. So that was the reason for actually splitting this up into two sections, I believe.
Ron Cass
Exactly. Yes, it was confusing to have all of it at once. So we tried to do it two parts just to make it a little simpler.
Jim Anderson
And when we hold this annual meeting, we know we’ve been back here now. This will be our fifth annual meeting holding it at the co-op. It’s our 74th, which is just absolutely amazing to know that News Day’s been around for 74 years, but it’ll be in the truck bays. We’ll have parking available uh on site. We’ll have golf carts available that can ferry people back and forth to the cars. We can help people move about. There’ll be a lot of staff here that also help people uh get situated and actually move you back and forth to your cars, help you park as well. This year, kind of an interesting thing. Last year, when we first moved into the truck base, we did not hold our resource, community resource fair. So this year, the community resource fair is back. What’s your feeling on the community resource fair and bringing them back into the mix this year?
Ron Cass
I think it’s what the people would like to see. There’s several services that are offered there, and I think it’s wonderful.
Jim Anderson
So today’s events at 8 a.m. That Saturday, we’re going to open the doors and we’ll start registration. Our business meeting has moved now. Last year it started at 9 a.m. And by popular vote of the members that were in attendance, we will maintain the business meeting starting at 9 a.m. We hope to conclude the business meeting around 10. At that point, we will open up the resource fair and we will also have our barbecue lunch and refreshments that we have had every year. I believe the same cook is coming back to barbecue this year. I know people thoroughly enjoy getting a good piece of beef and the rest that comes with it. So looking forward to myself included. Yourself included. I know most people really like that. So I would just encourage the membership to make sure you circle that date on the calendar and attend. Uh come prepared to ask questions after the meeting is over. You can talk to directors, you can talk to staff. We’ll have most all of our folks are going to be on site to talk to. It’s informative, not only for staff and directors, I believe, but for the membership as well. So anything you think about that you want to come and ask us, come ask us. And if you’re interested in getting involved with the co-op, talk to the directors and we’ll see how things can move. Because I know one of our directors actually attended a board meeting and there was an open seat, and he ended up actually in that seat by applying when he came to the meeting. So from your perspective on that side, you’re always willing to talk to somebody and help them out getting involved with.
Ron Cass
Yes, I mean, if you have any aspirations to ever want to become a director, I can fill you in with a lot of what to expect. It was a surprise for me, just the amount of things that we deal with and the knowledge. And we have a very diversified board, and I think we work well together, and over time we know it’s going to change, but we want to keep this atmosphere of working together and being knowledgeable and being trained and to do our very best. Then that’s what I hope to see continue.
Jim Anderson
And that’s probably a good place where we need to probably wrap up today and let let the rest of the day move on. But is there anything else that you’d like to say to the membership before we sign off?
Ron Cass
Nope. See you at the annual meeting.
Jim Anderson
Thanks, Ron, for coming in today and thanks for tuning in to this episode of Power Factor. Be sure to subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast application to stay informed on the latest from Midstate Electric Cooperative. We appreciate you for listening. And as always, stay safe, stay informed, stay empowered.