The Cooperative Advantage Is Connection
by Tom Walch, Chief Executive Officer
GRAND JUNCTION, COLO. - (Nov. 8, 2023)
November on the Western Slope. By now, fall has fully shed its colorful layer, college football teams are battling for bowl position, and I am looking forward to the first of what I anticipate to be several slices of pumpkin pie.
No matter what your position on fall, football, or how many is too many slices of pie, this is the time of year to reflect on that for which we are grateful and to give abundant thanks for our members, friends, and family. At Grand Valley Power, we are thankful to be part of a business that focuses on connecting with our members.
How do we connect? Last fall we held an Empower Hour to talk more with our members about Time-of-Use Rates and ways to save on energy costs. We hosted appreciation events such as our GLOW safe Halloween event for kids. In the summer, we ask members to join us for dinner at our annual business meeting. In the pages of this magazine, we share personal vignettes, stories about our members, and cooperative news. Everything we do is intended to keep you apprised of what is happening with the business in which you — as a member — have a significant stake.
These connections are important to the success of GVP: through them we come to understand whether our purposeful decisions are empowering your lives, and if not, how we should adjust to best serve the people who created our co-op. Every step we take is intended to move our members forward. We must get the input and feedback to confirm we are headed in a momentum-gathering direction.
Being a member-owned organization really doesn’t matter if our members don’t speak to us. And it matters even less if we don’t listen to them.
That’s why we are so grateful for the input and feedback we receive from members. Reflecting on events of the recent past, some comments have confirmed that our employees provide exceptional hometown service. Others have offered feedback on events such as our annual meeting. And still other interactions have yielded creative suggestions that we anticipate implementing as part of our business.
Specifically, we have received questions about Time-of-Use rates, and the board promised to conduct a comprehensive review of the new cost structure. That review solidified that GVP’s rates are more equitable under the new structure, and those consumers who use electricity during periods of peak demand from 4–9 p.m. — when power costs are higher — pay for those higher costs under Time-of-Use. One of our members who’s retired expressed in a handwritten letter how important it is for her to be able to shift her energy usage to off-peak times when she can access cheaper power and keep her electric bill within her fixed, limited budget.
Other members provided feedback on our annual meeting — asking for brief stand up breaks during the business portion — and another member has offered input on a viable way that we could incentivise members to change their habits and take advantage of paperless billing.
We’ve also been given validation that our employees fulfill our promise of exceptional hometown service. In the month of July, when summer storms rolled across the Grand Valley, lighting up the evening sky and knocking out power to thousands of our consumers, we received a half dozen phone calls from grateful members praising the work of our linecrews that safely restored power as quickly as possible.
What it all boils down to is this: Our members speak up and we listen. We understand our community because we were built by it. We are a part of it. Like our members, we see the colors change every fall and root for Colorado football teams (no matter how hopeless that can seem). And like our members, we might even consume too much pumpkin pie.
This is how we connect with our members. This is the cooperative advantage.