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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, FEB. 16, 2009 – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association today honors the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives (AMEC) with a Paul Revere Award for the association’s exemplary campaign to engage consumer members in a dialogue with elected officials on our energy future.
At the 2008 Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., the NRECA launched the Our Energy, Our Future™ campaign to begin a dialogue between electric consumers and their elected officials. AMEC heard the call and within two days of the meeting began preparing materials for its own campaign to encourage consumer members to communicate with elected officials.
Jack Wolfe, president of the NRECA Board of Directors, presented the award to Barry Hart, executive vice-president ant CEO of AMEC on the opening day of NRECA’s 2009 Annual Meeting.
“Barry Hart understood immediately that this campaign is critical to the viability of the cooperative program as we head into very challenging times,” said Wolfe. “Barry has shown both foresight and leadership: more consumer members from Missouri have sent messages to Congress than from any other state. As of February 9, 2009, the total number of messages sent to Congress from Missouri is 459,090 – nearly half a million.”
From the start, Hart made building participation in the campaign a top priority for AMEC. A combination of vision, pragmatism and a lot of hard work characterizes the campaign in Missouri.
Missouri’s electric cooperatives co-sponsored the Tour of Missouri, a professional cycling race held in September. AMEC and Associated Electric Cooperative had Our Energy booths in every start and finish city, and local cooperatives joined in signing up consumers at the events. This single project netted 30,000 communications.
At its heart, Our Energy is a communications campaign – a dialogue not only between consumers and elected officials but also between cooperatives and their consumer-members. Each month, Hart devoted his column in Rural Missouri to an aspect of the campaign. The association also mobilized local cooperatives, speaking at many annual meetings throughout the spring and summer, spreading the message that cooperatives are speaking up for consumers in the critical debates that will be shaping our energy future.
The campaign in Missouri has had an outsized impact on Capitol Hill: Senator Claire McCaskill, a pivotal member of the Senate Democratic Caucus, signed a letter to the leadership urging that any climate change legislation include consumer protection. With nearly half a million communications to Missouri’s delegation, the voice of Missouri’s electric consumers is resounding in the halls of Congress.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 private, not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 42 million people in 47 states.
Nearly 9,000 representatives from cooperative electric utilities across the nation are attending the NRECA Annual Meeting, February 15-18, at the New Orleans Convention Center, during which they will set NRECA’s legislative and organizational agenda for 2009. In addition to considering and acting upon policy resolutions, delegates receive reports from NRECA officials, hear addresses by key public figures and business experts, and attend panel sessions on major issues affecting electric cooperatives and their consumer owners.
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