In this episode of The Co-Op Heroes podcast, we sit down with David Formella, utility forester at Southside Electric Cooperative in Virginia, to explore what happens when trees, power lines, and people intersect in unexpected ways.

David brings a unique background to utility forestry: a degree in natural resource conservation from Virginia Tech, military service as a Marine, and experience as an EMT. When he arrived at Southside Electric, he discovered that being a utility forester means wearing countless hats, from vegetation management and storm restoration to emergency response and member education.

The stories David shares reveal the human side of keeping the lights on. One day, he went to address a member's complaint about tree removal and ended up calling 911 when the member had a medical emergency. During a helicopter aerial trimming operation, a horse broke loose and went running down the road. Beyond the dramatic moments lie the daily challenges of balancing member concerns about beloved trees with the critical need to maintain safe, reliable power delivery.

What emerges is a portrait of cooperative work that goes far beyond job descriptions. It's about being present in your community, caring about members as people, and being ready to help however needed, whether that's preventing outages, bird-dogging for mutual aid crews during storms, or simply being there when someone needs help.

Featured topics:

• The unexpected emergencies utility foresters encounter in the field
• How cooperatives respond during major storms and restoration efforts
• Bird-dogging: supporting mutual aid crews during major outages
• Aerial trimming operations with helicopters and their unique challenges
• Balancing member relationships with vegetation management requirements
• Why the cooperative model demands caring about people above all else

David's experience shows that working at an electric cooperative isn't just about technical expertise. It's about embodying the cooperative principle that caring about people comes first, even when that means stepping outside your role to help a member in crisis. The same mindset that drives vegetation management to keep communities safe extends to every interaction, creating the foundation of trust that makes the cooperative model work.

When you work for a utility where neighbors are members, you can't just be a forester managing trees. You have to be ready for anything, from medical emergencies to livestock on the loose. David's stories remind us that the cooperative difference isn't found in policies or procedures, but in the willingness to show up, care deeply, and do whatever it takes to serve the community.

The Co-Op Heroes podcast brings you real stories from electric utility operators: the people who work around the clock to keep our communities powered and served.

In this episode of The Co-Op Heroes podcast, we sit down with Nate Melby, VP and Chief Information Officer at Dairyland Power Cooperative, to explore how an electric cooperative became an unlikely pioneer in artificial intelligence, and how that innovation is now spreading across the cooperative movement.

When Nate arrived at Dairyland Power, a Generation and Transmission cooperative, he brought an unexpected background: a PhD in Information Systems and experience with deep learning research in academic laboratories. In 2018, while most industries were still experimenting with AI, Dairyland began building machine learning models to optimize load management and system efficiency. The journey evolved into something bigger.

What started as internal experimentation became VoltWrite, Dairyland's proprietary AI solution. But the real innovation was to not keep the technology to themselves. Following the core cooperative principle of collaboration, Dairyland began sharing VoltWrite with other cooperatives. Today, it's a nationwide service helping electric co-ops across the country work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

Nate shares the real challenges of bringing AI to an industry skeptical of new technology. The technical barriers proved manageable. The human factor (overcoming doubt, building trust with early adopters, helping skeptics become believers) required patience, board-level support, and demonstrable results.

Featured topics:

• The early days of machine learning adoption at Dairyland
• Why cooperatives were positioned to innovate before the mainstream
• Real-world use cases: semantic summarization, anomaly detection, document analysis
• The big dollar decision: replacing a software project with AI agents built in-house
• Overcoming the human factor in technology adoption
• How board support and demonstrable wins build organizational buy-in
• The cooperative principle of collaboration that turned VoltWrite into a national service
• "Pulling on the thread" problem-solving and agentic AI
• Building agents for compliance automation and complex workflows

Nate explains how cooperatives, constrained by limited resources, are uniquely positioned to benefit from AI. When you work for a utility where every efficiency gain directly serves members, the incentive to innovate becomes clear. And when cooperatives collaborate rather than compete, those innovations ripple across the entire network.

This is a story about leadership, courage in the face of uncertainty, and how the cooperative principle of working together for greater good extends into the age of artificial intelligence.

The Co-Op Heroes podcast brings you real stories from electric utility operators, the people who work around the clock to keep our communities powered and served.

In this episode of The Co-Op Heroes podcast, we sit down with Doug Gilmore, Power Resources Manager at Flathead Electric Cooperative in Kalispell, Montana, to explore how one cooperative turned a complex challenge into an innovative opportunity.

Flathead Electric serves one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. Kalispell was recently voted the fastest-growing micropolitan city in the United States. In just five years, the cooperative added 8,300 meters while facing another challenge: members were asking to install their own solar systems and feed power back to the grid. The easy answer would have been "no."

Instead, Doug and his team asked three questions: What do our members want? How can we enable that? What guardrails do we need?

The result was a thoughtfully-designed net metering policy that balances member autonomy with system reliability. Rather than simply reacting, Flathead Electric created six key policy components that serve the cooperative's needs while giving members what they want. Flathead is proving that innovation and safety can coexist, and they now manage nearly 300 (and growing) net metering applications annually.

Featured topics:

• How to say "yes" to complexity instead of defaulting to "no"
• Net metering policy design: six components that work
• Managing the "duck curve" and the challenges of solar generation
• Time-of-use rate design and how to align incentives with system needs
• Cost-of-service analysis to ensure no rate class subsidizes another
• Economic development through smart rate structures
• The power of the cooperative network: sharing ideas across regions and states
• Working in a cooperative where membership ownership changes everything
• The challenge of rapid growth and how planning prevents problems

Doug shares how the cooperative principles of member ownership, democratic governance, and the willingness to collaborate create space for thoughtful innovation.

When you work for a utility where neighbors are members, decisions take on deeper meaning. When you're part of a network of co-ops across the country willing to share best practices, everyone gets smarter.

This is a story about embracing complexity, serving members well, and how cooperatives thrive by thinking outside the box while staying true to their core values.

The Co-Op Heroes podcast brings you real stories from electric utility operators: the people who work around the clock to keep our communities powered and served.