September 21, 2018

Co-Op is Country

We’ve been attending a number of conferences lately, and it got us thinking about how united the Co-Op movement that was built before us really is. After attending some of NRECA’s regional meetings earlier this month, our Business Development Manager, David Shaw, said something that hit home and sparked the idea behind this blog post. “[Co-Ops] All have something very American about them. We attend these conferences and are constantly reminded that Futura is part of a huge community of doers that have supported each other from the beginning.”

It’s the overall mentality of the industry that got us thinking about WHY Co-Op is country.

It’s national.

In a literal sense, more than 900 cooperatives in 47 states provide electric service to almost three-quarters of the nation’s landmass. Let’s think about that for a second. 75% of the US of A is powered by Co-Ops. As late as the mid-1930s, nine out of 10 rural homes were without electric service. Now, we expect power and connectivity everywhere. It’s second nature, and most of us don’t know and will never know a life without it. This is all due to the America’s electric cooperative movement that began during Roosevelt’s presidency. We came together as a country to better our farmlands and small-town communities, and through those changes we’ve changed the United States as a whole. The start of a new, progressive era began and with that we’ve weathered as a country through the good, bad, and ugly.

It’s regional.

This is where our recent experiences come into play. Futura’s September and October conference schedule is stacked with regional NRECA meetings and opportunities for us to share our products with Co-Op leaders. Most people would find these frequent get togethers within their industry exhausting, but ours is different. From a regional standpoint, it’s the sense of togetherness and mission to better your community that’s the focal point behind the ‘why’. Whether that means rounding up your team to go help with power outages from a hurricane a state or two away, or meeting up to listen to NRECA speakers talk broadband and cybersecurity, the world of Co-Op thrives from region to region.

It’s personal.

There’s something to be said about the support and reinforcement you receive from a one-on-one conversation in the Co-Op world. People are ready to listen and share feedback on how to be better as a unit, and that’s incredibly valuable for any industry. But let’s face it, Co-Op’s attract some of the smartest, most innovative, and caring people out there. We get to know our customers, GM’s and other Co-Op leaders on a more connected level, because the shared feeling of ‘let’s become greater together’ within Co-Op is STRONG. And if that’s not country to the core, we don’t know what is.

Sources:

America’s Cooperative Electric: https://www.electric.coop/electric-cooperative-fact-sheet/

NRECA: https://www.cooperative.com/conferences-education/meetings/Pages/default.aspx

About: Futura Systems originally started 60 years ago as the mapping division of Patterson & Dewar Engineering. Established as a national leader in innovative mapping technologies, Futura joined with SEDC in 2007 to offer utilities the best Mapping, Staking, Outage Management, and Mobile Workforce technology.

As an Esri Gold Business Partner, Futura provides configurable web-service integration that utilizes mobile internet to broaden utility reach. Combined with SEDC’s utility software, Futura’s robust maintenance program contains benefits and data-integrity standards found in more expensive systems, and is intentionally designed to be cost-effective for customers.