The Enlightener

August 2002

Alleghany Moves to New District Office

Beginning Monday, July 29, Alleghany district office will have a new home located at 1889 Highway 21 South in Sparta. The move comes after more than 40 years at the Main Street site.

“Our Alleghany operations had outgrown its Main Street facilities,” said Doug Johnson, chief executive officer of the cooperative. “We were having concerns about our linemen and vendors moving materials such as large poles and heavy equipment vehicles in and out of the downtown site,” he explained. “The new location is a much safer and customer friendly site.”

The new district office is located at the formerly vacant Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse, which has been renovated to meet cooperative customer service and operations needs. While the address has changed, the focus on customer service remains the same. Members will see familiar faces serving them, from the linemen and other operational staff to the customer service team. The cooperative’s telephone number also remains unchanged.

“I think members will enjoy the access to the new office, convenient parking, and customer-friendly layout of the building, including our drive-through window,” said Mary Marmie, customer service manager.

“With safety a primary consideration in everything we do, we’re excited about the move because the new facility gives us the necessary space to maneuver more easily and safely,” said Joe Ward, operations manager. “Our vehicles will now be parked inside allowing us to respond quicker since we will avoid the time incurred with warming up vehicles and cleaning off ice and snow in winter. The new location is also very accessible for members.”

The new office was part of an innovative property exchange that benefited members in many ways as the cooperative partnered with the county and town.

After Lowe’s sold the building to Alleghany County, the county then transferred the building to Blue Ridge Electric in exchange for the cooperative’s “Cash and Carry” building on Main Street, which provided local educational opportunities as a satellite campus of Wilkes Community College. And, when the town of Sparta purchased Blue Ridge Electric’s former office on Main Street, Blue Ridge Electric was able to minimize the funds needed for a new office.

“The ability to renovate an existing building to meet the needs of utility operations was much less than it would be to purchase land and begin from the ground up,” said Johnson. “And this site was already designed with the customer in mind.”

“Cost savings were achieved by all as a result of the innovative property exchange,” said Don Adams, Alleghany County Manager. Sparta’s Town Manger Tom Douglas agreed, saying, “Blue Ridge Electric has always been an excellent community partner and this is just another example of that partnership. And their new office building creates a positive image at the entrance to Sparta.”

Members Only News
-For Members of Blue Ridge Electric

NC GreenPower Coming to Blue Ridge

Blue Ridge Electric is joining with other utilities across North Carolina to bring a renewable energy alternative called NC GreenPower to utility customers. The cooperative, along with other utilities, filed its intent to participate in late May.
“Blue Ridge Electric is supporting this initiative because of interest expressed by some of our members and because we believe it could also lead to long-term environmental benefits,” said Doug Johnson, chief executive officer.

“Participation in the program is voluntary for utility customers,” Johnson added, “yet it will give our cooperative and our members a way to show tangible support for renewable energy and the impact it could have for our mountains and foothills.”
Advanced Energy, the nonprofit corporation assigned by the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) to develop a state green power program, filed a set of proposals on May 31 seeking approval to give electric customers the option to pay a small monthly premium to ensure that part of their electric power is generated from resources that are renewable and cleaner than traditional ones.

NC GreenPower would be designed to boost the production of “green power” - electric power generated from renewable sources of electricity, such as wind, solar energy, water and biomass - by creating a market and an incentive for companies to develop and sell it. Current market conditions make it too expensive for companies to profitably develop and sell such alternative sources of electricity.

Under Advanced Energy’s NC GreenPower plan, electric customers could elect to pay an extra $4 a month for blocks of electricity produced from renewable resources. The voluntary premiums collected from NC GreenPower consumers would be used to offset the higher costs of developing and producing such power.

The Utilities Commission is receiving public comments on the plan and tariffs before deciding whether to approve them. The NC GreenPower program could launch within six months of approval. If NC GreenPower is approved, North Carolina will become the first state in the nation to offer a statewide green pricing program, available to all electric consumers with participation from all of the state’s electric utilities - Carolina Power & Light (CP&L), Duke Power, and Dominion North Carolina Power, as well as some ElectriCities and North Carolina electric cooperatives such as Blue Ridge Electric.

Photo_CEO Johnson The Perspective

An Editorial by Chief Executive Officer Doug Johnson
Listening to You

One of the top priorities at Blue Ridge Electric is making sure that we are constantly listening to you, our member-owners. As a cooperative organization we understand what’s good for those we serve is good for us. This helps us to be accountable and responsive to our member-owners.

Listening to member input is a planned, deliberate effort at Blue Ridge Electric. For example, our Member Advisory Committees (MACs) have been in existence for over 25 years. A group of approximately 25 members in each of the cooperative’s four districts comprise the MACs, which serve as a pulse point for the membership at large, giving us insight to your views and opinions.

Our Community Leaders Council (CLC) is also made up of individual district committees. These key leaders provide critical input regarding beneficial ways we can partner with the communities we serve.

To ensure we provide responsive customer service on a daily basis, we conduct customer satisfaction surveys that invite members with which we’ve had recent contact to rate our service. To thoroughly evaluate customer satisfaction, we contract for semiannual member opinion surveys that provide statistically valid information regarding how customers view our performance and ability to meet their needs.

And because customer service is a daily, minute-by-minute activity, we continuously keep track of daily member input, which is provided to senior managers in the form of a weekly briefing from our customer service staff.

We work to keep the doors of communication open by providing a variety of ways members can contact us: by telephone, letter, fax, or e-mail. Our standard is to respond to all member inquiries within 24 business hours.

In maintaining nearly 7,000 miles of distribution and transmission lines and serving nearly 64,000 consumers, we occasionally receive a member complaint. However, you can be assured that our desire and intent is to serve members to their satisfaction and to provide avenues for two-way communication.

For Blue Ridge Electric, being responsive involves more than just making sure your electric service is reliable. We understand that paying attention to our members is important. That’s why we work hard to provide you with avenues of communication and that’s why we’ll continue to keep in close touch– and continue listening – to you, our member-owners.

Holiday Closing

Blue Ridge Electric will be closed
Monday, September 2, in observance of Labor Day.

Published monthly by Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation for its 51,656 members.