Sept 2017_CEO newsletter

CEO’s
Corner
GRAND VALLEY POWER ú EMPOWERING LIVES WITH HOMETOWN SERVICE SEPTEMBER 2017
Annual Meeting Recap: A success with 450 in attendance
by Christmas Wharton | Communications Specialist
As the newest employee of Grand Valley Power,
I had the grand experience of attending the annual
meeting on August 3rd, and also the task of planning
the meeting for our membership. The room was full of
over 200 members and their families at the Colorado
Mesa University Ballroom to enjoy a dinner, meet new
people and see old friends.
Being my first annual meeting, I was surprised
to see all the people gather together in a forum such as
this, to not only listen to our board of directors’ present
on company highlights, but also engage in conversation
about our service, efforts and reliability. Not all
companies do this, and really, it’s the cooperative way.
I think our Chief Executive Officer, Tom Walch says it
best stating, “More than anything else, our annual
meeting gives us all a chance to wrap ourselves in the
hometown, local fabric of our organization. This is a
thread that is woven through everything that we do!”.
The meeting started with John Gormley, our
president of the board of directors, who welcomed
members, introduced Kirk Yamaguchi from Canyonview
Church for the invocation and introduced our
special guests for the evening. The meeting began with
Bill Rooks, Secretary/Treasurer of the board of directors,
light-heartedly saying, “Let’s flip the switch and
light it up!”
Gormley started with the presentation of certificates
to the nine young-adults that will be going into
higher education this fall. It’s incredible to see these
students and hear about their endeavors for their future.
It’s even more incredible that our cooperative is
able to support these students with financial support
that is needed. Grand Valley Power has given over
$156,000 since its inception of the scholarship program,
in 1996.
Gormley then introduced the Executive Director
of Colorado Rural Electric Association, Kent Singer.
For those of you that don’t know what CREA is, it’s a
statewide trade association that represents the interests
of Colorado’s electric cooperatives in legislative
matters in Colorado and Washington, D.C. CREA also
provides regulatory compliance assistance, education
and safety training programs, and communication’s
services to Colorado’s 22 electric cooperatives. Who
knew we had support like this? Just another wonderful
thing I discovered about electric cooperatives! Singer
recapped that CREA has our back when it comes to
year-round advocacy for legislation that directly affects
electric cooperatives. In addition, CREA supports education
efforts across the state like the Washington D.C
Youth Tour, and even internal training to our board of
directors, cooperative employees and safety courses.

CREA even supports communication departments to
reach each and every member.
Gormley moved on to the business report of
the meeting, where this year, the CEO and President
combined their report which was a hit! Walch first ensured
that every member understood that GVP employees
– from directors, to front-line employees –
were asked and evaluated “what is it that we do?”
From this review, it led us to our mission statement,
Empowering Lives with Hometown Service, and our
guiding principles that will lead us to achieve this mission.
Those four principles are: We are committed to
the safety of our workforce and the general public; We
strive to do the right thing, holding true to our values
and principles; We seek to find new and better ways to
serve our members and communities; We are dedicated
to delivering value to all we serve.
Each principle was broken down to how we are
adopting each into our service we provide to you- our
members and the ones that rely on us each day. The
first principle, and by no coincidence, is safety to our
workforce and general public. This is no easy task and
Singer acknowledged this by presenting Grand Valley
Power with an award for No-Lost Time Accidents in
2016. As a team, we’ve adopted a Culture of Safety
(which you may have read about in the May 2017
Colorado Country Life issue.) Internally, we train on a
variety of topics from CPR to phishing and malware
attacks. As an organization, we also provide the general
public with safety demonstrations about electric
hazards.
The second principle, striving to do the right
thing and holding true to our values was demonstrated
by the cooperatives commitment to retiring capital
credits, to the amount of $1.6 million, which is the
greatest amount of capital credits repayments to date!
The third principle, seeking new and better ways to
serve our communities, included highlights of supporting
education such as expanding the scholarship program,
playing a leading role in economic development
with the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce and
the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, and fundraising
for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. Rounding out
the evening, Walch discussed the final principle of delivering
value to all we serve, with a financial recap of
2016. Some of the highlights included:
• Our finances are strong. Margins exceeded budget
projections, coming in just under $2.3 million.
• Equity continues to grow, closing the year at a
healthy 35.60 percent.
• Our service reliability, measured by average outage
minutes and service availability, ranked second best
among Colorado cooperatives.
• Our renewable energy portfolio continues to expand,
as more than 30 percent of the energy provided to
Grand Valley Power consumers in 2016 came from renewable
resources. This is one of the best marks in the
state.
• In 2016, 39 out of 41 of respondents – more than 95
percent – gave us five stars for customer service.
Concluding the report, Gormley talked about
our challenges that lie ahead, with ever-changing targets
and expectations that we’ll navigate. I can assure
you the 42 talented employees of GVP work diligently
and proudly with our members in mind.
To round out the evening, Gregg Kampf, our
general counsel, read aloud the candidates for the
board of directors starting first with Janie VanWinkle,
and then Bob Saunders, Don McClaskey and John
Gormley. You can view our results online, and in this
issue of the CCL! Walch then recognized our employee
service awards. The end of the evening concluded with
our giveaways with a variety of gift cards, Whitewater
Hill Vineyard gift certificates, bill credits and a $500
value of ten solar panels for 12 months of production!
Each guest received our door prize, which was a set of
wine glasses frosted with our new logo!
I must say I enjoyed meeting our members,
seeing our event come full circle, and watching as
each person in the room see the hard-work that our
cooperative does - we empower lives with hometown
service 365 days a year. I’m proud of our team’s accomplishments
and look forward to a bright future with
Grand Valley Power.

The Colorado Mountain
Winefest was recently
voted the BEST festival
in the Nation!
Take in all that Colorado
Winefest has to offer
from food and wine pairings,
chocolate and
wine tastings, educational
seminars and
more.
The “Festival in the Park”
takes place on Saturday,
September 16, 2017 and is the state’s
largest and oldest wine festival featuring dozens of
Colorado wineries, live music, a grape stomp, chef demonstrations
& seminars.
Check out the full schedule online and tickets sales at the coloradowinefest.com/
Find videos, tips and more on our facebook and twitter feeds
all month long

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