Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative

My favorite part of watching fellow team members give the safety presentation? Seeing kids jump back a bit when they see the arcs and hear the crackles of a very realistic electrical contact demonstration. It makes an impression.

It was fun watching some of our key contacts take an e-bike for a spin for the first time!

MVEC held a breakfast briefing for its commercial and industrial accounts Thursday at Mystic Lake Center. Board President Deb Erickson welcomed the group and CEO Marvin Denzer, showed slides and a video highlighting the Guatemalan mission trip that journeyman Wiley participated in with 13 fellow linemen from Minnesota and Iowa. Key account and energy services staff Ryan Fedie. Joe Green and Jeff Langeberg made introductions and had energy conversations with valued key account contacts. At the conclusion, participants had the chance to check out the co-op's Tesla, Ford Lightning, and eBikes with program and product specialist Michael Hinde. Thank you Jeff Haase, member services director at Great River Energy, for giving an update on electrification trends and products.

Just a couple weeks ago, before Minnesota River flooding turned towns into islands, MVEC Team Members Jeff Langeberg and Owen Havrilla, took the co-op's PowerTown safety demonstration to the City of Le Sueur kids safety camp. The display shows scenarios of electric contact with trees and school buses and warns kids to stay away from substations and green electrical boxes. PowerTown is a very realistic simulation of electric contact, which caused one young participant to exclaim "The heck!" when visible electric arcing and crackling sounds first occurred.

Great teamwork Joe Green, Sabrina Doege, Jeff Langeberg.

We had a great time hosting colleagues from Great River Energy on Thursday. The goal of the morning was to show the differences and similarities between a distribution cooperative (MVEC) with a generation and transmission cooperative (GRE) to 24 of their newest staff members. After touring MVEC's pole yard, dispatch center, member services department, and engineering, staff from both entities sat down for lunch and further discussions. GRE was grateful for the hospitality and information sharing, and we were glad to demonstrate the cooperative principle of Cooperation among Cooperatives! Thanks to MVEC Team Members Mike, Bryce, Susan, Jeff, Joe, Sabrina, Chris, Spencer, Michelle, Jodi, Megan, Mary Kaye, and Michael for taking the time to share your knowledge. Thanks, Rodney D. and Kate Bartlett for bringing your crew!

In case you missed it, MVEC's Key Accounts team paid a visit to our favorite radio station today KCHK. The Energy Services team of Weather Warrior Jeff Langeberg and Joe Green joined VP Ryan Fedie to talk about their backgrounds and roles with the co-op, as well as what key accounts are and how they work with them. https://lnkd.in/g3xm3HYt

Join us in wishing our journeyman lineman Wiley Harris health and safety as he travels early morning Thursday to the village of La Pena in Guatemala for a National Rural Electric Association international electrification mission trip. Wiley has been an MVEC lineman since 2020, and before that, he worked for Highline Construction, traveling across the U.S. on mutual aid assignments. A 2016 graduate of Minnesota State Community College in Wadena, Wiley hails from Big Lake where his parents, siblings, and girlfriend will be cheering him on during his adventure. "I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to help and having a new experience," he said. MVEC hosted a sendoff for Wiley at the May All-Team meeting, serving Central American candy and having previous Haiti electrification participants give Wiley some sound advice. You can follow the work of the 14-man team from Minnesota and Iowa here: https://lnkd.in/d7ewzx-Y

Exciting News on World Bicycle Day! MVEC recently acquired two new e-bikes, allowing Team Members to try them out and use this new technology throughout the summer months. This will familiarize the MVEC team with e-bikes as we strive to be the subject matter experts for all things electrification. Our new eco-friendly rides travel nearly 30 MPH and average 35 miles on a single charge. So watch for our team riding around Jordan on our slick new e-bikes. Thanks to Erik's Bike Shop, Inc. for delivering the bikes and educating our team!

It's officially intern week here at MVEC! We're thrilled to welcome four new interns - Reagan, Bailey, Emily and Zac - and our seasonal engineer Nathan, to the team this summer. We're excited to collaborate with, and spotlight, our interns and their department contributions throughout the summer.