A strategic perspective for the future.

• Author: Lowery, Martin
• Position: Strategic priorities of National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

At the base of the new lineman statue in the lobby of NRECA's headquarters in Ballston, Virginia, there is a plaque with the following dedication, taken from rural electrification's 50th anniversary commemorative book, The Next Greatest Thing:

To the founders and pioneers of rural electrification, who - with grit, sweat and vision - transformed rural America from the depths of despair and darkness to the splendor of hope and light, and who serve as our reminder that no job is too tough if the cause is just and the people are determined.

The founders and pioneers of rural electrification certainly had vision. They also had a plan, carefully thought through and strategic. Yet in many ways, they probably were less focused on a strategic plan than they were on the formidable job ahead of them.

Today we talk often of the need for strategic planning, but it all still boils down to the question: What is it that we need to do?

The strategic planning efforts of NRECA - determining what it is that we need to do - will be successful only in so far as they reflect the needs and interests of the NRECA membership. As the factors for success change for distribution systems, for their generation and transmission power suppliers and for the service members of NRECA, so must the goals and priorities of the association change.

To meet this challenge, NRECA's board has established within itself a strategic planning committee. The committee's charter is to identify the changes occurring in the electric utility industry, their potential impact on NRECA's members and a sense of NRECA's role in addressing that impact.

After careful and lengthy deliberation by the board strategic planning committee, a theme has emerged, commonly referred to as the "3-Cs":

Competitiveness Community Competence

This theme captures in a nutshell the basis of a strong working relationship between NRECA and its members as individual members work to ensure their continuing value to consumers. Scratch the surface of the theme and you are at the heart of the real difference between electric cooperatives and other service providers.

Competitiveness

Electric cooperatives were created to address a need not being met by the investor-owned utilities - to provide electric service to the rural areas of the country. We achieved our goal, and the accounting and engineering standards that made it possible to cost-effectively do this are now a foundation for solid service reliability at reasonable...