2018 Youth to Washington Tour - Coles-Moultrie ...
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
2018 Youth to Washington Tour
What do you get when 71 students from 27 Illinois elec-
tric and telephone cooperatives join more than 1,800 of
their peers across the United States? You get the National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) Youth to
Washington Tour.
Two local students were selected from a diverse group of
applicants to represent Coles-Moultrie Electric Cooperative
(CMEC) to enjoy an all-expense paid trip to Washington,
D.C. from June 8-15 as part of the annual Youth Tour.
The 2018 Youth Tour delegates from CMEC included
Aly Easton of Neoga and Emma Harris of Atwood. Sam
Adair, Manager of Marketing and Member Services, also
attended as a chaperone.
The students toured Capitol Hill and met with U.S. Senator Pictured from left – Aly Easton, Congressman John
Dick Durbin, Congressman John Shimkus and Congressman Shimkus and Emma Harris.
Rodney Davis. They also visited historical and cultural sites
including Arlington National Cemetery, the Supreme Court,
Newseum, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, a variety of representatives and learning firsthand how our government
memorials and the U.S. Capitol. Among fun activities the works, they return home with valuable knowledge and memo-
students enjoyed were the Marine Corps Sunset Parade, the ries that will last a lifetime.”
Smithsonian Museums and an assembly of Youth Tour par- Since 1964, the nation’s cooperative electric and
ticipants from across the nation. telephone utilities have sponsored more than 60,000
“Youth Tour is a great opportunity that changes these stu- high school students to visit Washington, D.C. To
dents’ lives,” says Kim Leftwich, President/CEO, CMEC. learn more about the Youth to Washington Tour, go to
“This experience helps prepare them for their futures. www.youthtour.coop.
After touring our nation’s capital, meeting congressional
Power Outages
Our mission is to provide you with safe, reliable
electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Unfortunately, forces outside our control occasionally
damage equipment and cause outages. We are proud of
what we do and work hard to mitigate any effects that
weather and other damages have on our electric grid.
Should you ever experience an outage, trust that we
understand how big of an inconvenience it is and we are
working as quickly as possible to restore service.
ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING | AUGUST 2018 20a
President & CEO Report – May 2018
Safety ■ Rivian is refurbishing the former
A publication of Coles-Moultrie Electric Cooperative
■ CMEC Safety Committee Mitsubishi Motors plant to
is sponsoring its first ever produce all-electric pick-ups,
CMEC Safety Day; the day will SUVs and “adventure” vehicles.
include training and exercises of ■ CMEC has offered Rivian
P.O. Box 709 (104 Dewitt Ave., East) Emergency Action Plan elements testing opportunities of systems
Mattoon, Illinois 61938 to insure all employees are fully that could be evaluated through
aware of actions to be taken the Center for American Rural
Phone: 217/235-0341 or – includes fire, tornado, active
Toll-Free: 1-888-661-CMEC (2632) Energy (CARE).
shooter and mayday training. Sharing Success Contribution
Office hours:
Monday-Friday ■ AIEC safety training focused ■ May 10, CMEC was joined by
7:30a.m. - 4:30p.m. on use/inspection of fall arrest CoBank through its “Sharing
and load securement equipment Success” program to contribute
Chairperson (outside department). to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health
Debbie Albin.........................Mattoon Key Accounts Conference Services for support of the current
Vice Chairperson ■ CMEC held its 3rd annual Cath Lab building program.
John Bowers........................ Lovington Key Accounts Conference ■ CoBank matches our
for commercial and industrial contribution, doubling the
Secretary
members at Lake Land College member benefit.
Natalie Parkerson...................Mattoon on May 3. Electric Cooperative Lobby Day
Treasurer ■ The conference included ■ Director Debbie Albin and CEO
Steve Shrader........................Westfield presentations from national Kim Leftwich attended the 1st
Director level cooperative organizations Annual Cooperative Lobby Day
Jeff Hudson........................ Charleston including CFC and Touchstone at the State Capital, Springfield.
Kent Metzger...............................Gays Energy, USDA, and our G&T, ■ Fashioned after the NRECA
District #1.................................Vacant Prairie Power Inc. Legislative Conference conducted
■ Featured as part of the conference in Washington, D.C. each year,
President/CEO were all-electric and hybrid- 75 cooperative directors and
Kim Leftwich electric vehicles (EVs), part of an managers participated in the
advocacy program by CMEC; event.
To report an outage
EV experts had the opportunity ■ Participants were able to meet
• First check your fuses or circuit to meet and teach Lake Land with many of our state legislators
breakers and see if your neighbors College students about EVs. and address cooperative concerns
have power. ■ Attendance has continued to affecting members now and in the
• If the problem appears to be with grow; participants feedback was future.
the cooperative's lines, call the office very positive. Lake Land College Foundation Golf
at the toll free number Center for American Rural Energy Outing
(888-661-2632), give the name the (CARE) ■ CMEC, as a sponsor, had staff
service is listed under, and report ■ Following the Key Accounts and members participate in the
any hazardous conditions. Conference, CFC’s Peter Muhoro golf fundraising event.
and Touchstone Energy’s Alan ■ The foundation provides
Shedd visited CARE on the scholarship opportunities to many
Send your current email Eastern Illinois University Lake Land College students.
to info@cmec.coop campus for a presentation on the
energy innovation projects CARE ■ CMEC sponsors two
is researching and developing. scholarships each semester,
again with matching funds from
Rivian Automotive CoBank, for students entering
■ May 4, CMEC CEO and staff technological fields.
hosted Muhoro, Shedd and EIU ILEPA Public Hearing – Beneficial
faculty/students for a visit to Mitigation Plan (BMP)
Rivian Automotive, an all-electric ■ CEO Kim Leftwich attended
vehicle manufacturer located in
for a chance to win a Normal, IL.
a public hearing of the Illinois
$25 bill credit. Environmental Protection
20b ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING | WWW.ICL.COOP
Agency regarding the mitigation significant decrease in downtime. optimal; we now have three
plan evolving from the VW ■ Lake Land Tower had been loading complete construction crews
Mitigation Settlement. up and members were having less and three servicemen giving
■ Attendance was to propose than satisfactory service; Staff us flexibility and capability;
inclusion of rural Illinois in upgraded to new Biacell technology improved capacity to complete
application of settlement funds as and found a switch gone bad as Construction Work Plan provisions
the draft plan ignored all rural areas well; Connect customers should see and maintaining operations/
of the state. much improved service. maintenance for the members.
■ State Senators Righter and Rose Marketing/Member Services ■ The H4 mile Construction Work
have been briefed as well and may ■ HomeServe began a secondary Plan project is nearing completion;
have opportunity to participate in campaign in April to add a water with the completion last winter of
a State Senate Working Group on heater warranty service; thus far, H1, H2, and H3, the full project
the matter. some 230 members subscribe to will complete once we take feeders
Director Election programs; CMEC continues to under the railroad and highway to
■ Ballot materials began arriving at receive calls from across the country Mattoon substation; the project
members’ homes/businesses on from other cooperatives that upgraded poles and conductors for
May 24. want to consider the HomeServe better service and reliability to the
Program. Coles open point.
■ Voting continues until June 12.
■ Carla Bradbury covered for Shelby ■ April was not a good month for
■ Voting may be completed poles: total 24 (7-bad; 4-lightning;
electronically (new) or by regular Electric Cooperative at Taylorville
Schools Conservation Day; over 6-high winds; 3- farm equipment; 2
mail. O&M, 1 service upgrade and 1 new
150 students participated in the day.
Northern Manager’s Meeting service.)
■ CEO Kim Leftwich met with ■ Drew Haumesser spoke with
Cumberland grade school students Fleet
fellow cooperative managers from ■ New On-Call service truck has
across the northern part of Illinois regarding summer electrical safety;
over 80 children were present. been purchased and came in
at EnerStar May 30 to address well under budget; presently,
common concerns. ■ Marketing and Member Services
Manager Sam Adair has been being outfitted with storage and
Accounting/HR/Billing equipment; likely under budget,
■ IVR Call Capture Payment asked to accompany the Youth
to Washington trip this year as a once all complete, by $8,000.
Processing deployed 5/18/18; in less IT/SCADA
than a week, the system took 185 chaperone.
Engineering ■ Continuing software updates to
in-bound calls/payments, freeing office computers to reduce system
CSRs to do other tasks. ■ Staff met with Milsoft, provider of
our engineering platform, to discuss vulnerabilities; under surveillance
■ Performed training for CSRs routinely to preclude any issues.
regarding the director election CMEC’s GIS platform; discussed
interoperability of Milsoft staking ■ Interoperability of our Automated
process. Metering Infrastructure (AMI)
program with our GIS.
■ Kim Brodack joined CMEC as a with our NISC platform has been
new CSR. ■ JULIE locates and Report-on-
Calls have increased as expected; problematic in the past; Staff
■ Jef White bid and was awarded a Reps busily handling member understanding of MultiSpeak has
Field Engineer position. requests. benefitted us as our personnel
■ Working with AIEC’s Nancy may take a larger role in the
■ Solar inquiries have exploded development of the solutions.
McDonald, Corn Belt’s Justin because of the Future Energy
Stuva and EnerStar’s Angela Jobs Act (FEJA); inclusion of ■ Developing integration of GIS with
Griffin to develop a statewide CSR cooperatives in the program is still AMI provider, Trilliant.
program under review, but AIEC and a GIS
CMEC Connect manager’s team is discussing with ■ Continuing build-out of GIS by
■ CMEC Connect Staff and Irby the Illinois Power Agency. now adding CMEC Connect
personnel installed new switches Operations towers and spur sites.
and troubleshooting equipment ■ Met with PPI Operations to ■ Developing with NRECA a white
during the week of May 14; consider any issues or concerns with paper on our unique GIS system;
the improvements will permit transmission operations; excellent working a GIS build with NRECA
evaluation and reset to systems relationship with PPI. that will integrate with other
from the office before rolling trucks; cooperatives.
the measures add reliability with ■ Staffing for line crews is becoming
ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING | AUGUST 2018 20c79th Annual Meeting at Peterson Park
Members braved the heat to
attend the annual meeting of
the cooperative held June 15 at
Peterson Park. They enjoyed a
catered lunch, ice cream, a variety of
vendors and had the opportunity to
see an electric vehicle on display.
CMEC President/CEO Kim
Leftwich addressed the crowd and
explained the changes that are
occurring in electric vehicles (EV)
including increased range, lower
cost and more model choices.
“CMEC is beginning its EV advo-
cacy program as we believe range,
cost and availability offer oppor-
tunities for EV use in rural areas,”
said Leftwich. “Soon there will be
more complete information on the
CMEC website.” time updates on outages. Leftwich Shrader, Westfield, was re-elected
Leftwich went on to highlight the also explained system improvements to a three-year term. Newly-elected
work employees have done over the as part of the co-op’s four-year con- directors are Kent Metzger, District 3,
past year to meet the service needs of struction work plan. Gays, and Natalie Parkerson, District
all members. “By putting personnel “Your cooperative is making the 6, Mattoon.
in the right place at the right time, improvements and planning for
we are able to execute our work more the future to ensure continued safe,
efficiently and with improved results,” secure, reliable and affordable electric
he said. One example of the efficien- service,” Leftwich concluded.
cies is the capability of members Board President Jeff Hudson pre-
to pay bills over the phone system sented six high school students with
and enhancing the GIS (geographic $500 scholarships from the cooperative.
information system) to be live on the Director election results were
iPads and other devices permitting announced at the conclusion of the
inside staff and linemen to have real meeting. District 5 Director Steve Natalie Parkerson Kent Metzger
SMART HOME TECH APPS
Smart home technologies are continuously improving, but their companion mobile apps are taking convenience to a
whole new level. Let’s take a look at some of the latest app functionalities.
1 Smart Thermostat Apps: Geofencing is great enhancement for smart thermostat apps. Set a boundary with
1 your smartphone and when you leave the boundary, the thermostat switches to away or return mode.
2 2 Smart Security Apps: Video doorbells are becoming increasingly popular, allowing consumers to keep a
watchful eye from anywhere. Smart security apps send alerts to signal activity outside your home, giving you
3 peace of mind.
4
3 Smart Smoke and CO Sensor Apps: These apps have the ability to send alerts, conduct status checks and
5
silence alarms – even when you’re away.
4 Smart Appliance Apps: App functionality depends on the appliance. Refrigerator cameras allow you to see
what needs to be stocked (while grocery shopping!), and smart dryers can sense when electric use is high and
turn off.
5 Smart Lighting Apps: Control lighting options for individual rooms, adjust brightness and color, create lighting
scenes based on mood – all from the convenience of your smartphone.
20d ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING | WWW.ICL.COOPYou can also read
