CEO’s Message – November 2026

Thankful to pass along a legacy

This Thanksgiving season feels a little different for Julie and me. Nearly a year ago, our first grandchild was born. As proud grandparents, we think he’s absolutely perfect. But I suppose I may be a little biased!

Watching him grow has me thinking more about the future and the kind of world he’ll inherit. I don’t know exactly what his life will look like, but I do know we’ll do everything we can to help him grow up to be happy and successful. I’d bet that most of us want to leave things a little better than we found them for the next generation.

Making a lasting positive impact can seem daunting these days. Technology is difficult to keep up with. Our local communities continue to grow and change, constant news streams bombard us, and there’s no shortage of uncertainty about what comes next.

Then again, uncertainty isn’t exactly new.

Ninety years ago, the people who started URE faced plenty of unknowns themselves. They couldn’t have predicted what the world would look like in 2026. They simply knew rural homes, farms, and businesses needed electricity, and no one else was willing to provide it. So, neighbors just like you and me worked together to solve the problem themselves.

What they built was about much more than infrastructure. They created a lasting cooperative business owned by the people it serves, guided by local leadership, and committed to improving life in our community for generations to come.

URE’s founders couldn’t have anticipated smartphones, AI, electric vehicles, or data centers. Honestly, some days I’m not sure the rest of us can imagine where all that is headed either. But those early members understood something that’s still true today. They understood that communities grow stronger when people work together and invest in the future.

Because of their vision and hard work, generations of members have benefited from reliable service, local decision-making, and a cooperative that puts members first. We inherited something so valuable from people most of us never had the chance to meet. And during URE’s 90th year, I’m reminded just how much we owe not only to our founders, but to generations of members and employees who helped build and strengthen our cooperative along the way.

And here’s the catch. Gratitude is about more than appreciating what we’ve been given. It also means taking responsibility for what we leave behind.

Our responsibility is to keep building, improving, and preparing so the people who follow us have even more opportunities than we’ve enjoyed. For me and the fine people at URE, this means maintaining a safe and reliable system, planning carefully for continued growth, keeping service as affordable as possible, and making decisions with the long-term interests of our members and communities in mind.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the people who built URE, for our employees and trustees carrying its mission forward today, and for our members who continue to place their trust in us. We don’t take that responsibility lightly.

The future will bring challenges we can’t quite predict. But if we work to continually make things better than we found them, it will also bring opportunities we can’t even imagine.

Someday, my grandson’s generation will inherit what we leave behind. My hope is that they will look back with gratitude that our generation planned ahead, worked together, and left their cooperative and their communities stronger than they found them.

From my family to yours, have a safe, happy, and blessed Thanksgiving.