Company Profile
Texas Electric Cooperatives
Company Overview
Our Mission: Represent, support, unify and contribute to the success of our member/customers. For over 60 years this mission has been accomplished by providing a diverse portfolio of services and products.
Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC) advocates its members’s interests before the Texas Legislature, United States Congress and various regulatory agencies.
TEC also repairs and remanufactures electric system equipment and provides laboratory services and, hazardous waste disposal and environmental consulting services from its state-of-the-art facility 160,000 square foot facility in Georgetown, Texas. The association procures new utility equipment and provides supply chain management services from numerous locations throughout Texas.
TEC operates the only cooperatively-owned utility pole production facility of its type in the nation. The fifty-acre facility located in Jasper, Texas makes over 145,000 poles annually and manages over 4,000 acres of timberland.
TEC publishes sixty local versions of the award-winning Texas Co-op Power magazine which has a monthly circulation of over one million and operates a full-service advertising agency.
The organization provides 800 critical safety briefings to over 3,000 utility workers each year and presents management and organizational development training training each week.
With headquarters in Austin, Texas, TEC has annual revenues of $100 million and employs approximately 200 dedicated men and women across Texas.
Company History
The History of the Association:
Texas Electric Cooperatives
Electric cooperatives began organizing in rural Texas in the late ’30s—a time when cities had been enjoying electricity for decades—thanks to low-interest federal loans made available by the federal government’s new Rural Electrification Administration.
Power lines were going up and electricity was at last available to Texas farmers and ranchers. But wholesale power providers were charging exorbitant prices to the cooperatives. So the state’s rural electric leaders figured they could aggregate their purchasing power to get better rates, and after many months of intermittent meetings with the Secretary of State, Texas Power Reserve Electric Cooperative (TPREC) was chartered December 30, 1940.
On February 25, 1941, seven Texas rural electric leaders came together as the first Board of Directors of Texas Power Reserve Electric Cooperative, now Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc.
The aggregation tactic worked: Texas Power and Light lowered its wholesale power price by 50 percent—from a whopping 12 cents per kilowatt-hour to 6 cents per kWh! “In unity—strength” became a proven adage of the state’s electric co-ops; the collective voice of Texas’ rural electric cooperatives packed a formidable punch.
From Generation to Advocacy
The cooperatives decided that gaining control of generation and wholesale power was a very good idea, so they built their own generation and transmission cooperative; Brazos River Transmission Electric Cooperative was born in 1941. By July 2, the statewide board had secured an REA loan to purchase the first of four mobile generating units for its member-systems’ emergency use (the next three were purchased in 1942). These units were loaned out to member cooperatives when needed.
The organization evolved from a power-purchasing entity to an association dedicated to advocating for and supporting the interests of the member cooperatives. Today, 64 distribution cooperatives and 11 generation and transmission cooperatives operating in Texas are members of TEC.
TEC Leaders
The board continued to perform the functions of the organization until May 15, 1944, when George W. Haggard was employed as executive secretary, making him the first of only four CEOs of the statewide organization. Haggard was followed by James R. Cobb in 1948 and Jim Morriss in 1977. Mike Williams, the present CEO, took over the reins in 1995.
TEC Headquarters Building
After hiring Haggard in 1944, the board rented a two-office suite in the Scarbrough Building in downtown Austin. In 1949, the office was moved to 515 West Fifth Street where the board rented seven offices.
In 1956, TEC constructed its own building at 8140 Burnet Road, the same site as the Transformer Division. The new headquarters building, complete with an atrium in its center, was featured in several architectural magazines at the time. In late 1976, a second floor was built and the atrium became a stairwell, elevator, meeting room and employee lounge. In 2002, TEC sold the Burnet Road property and purchased a building located at 2550 South IH-35. In 2008, TEC purchased office space in the Westgate building at 1122 Colorado St., adjacent to the Capitol. This location affords easy access to legislators, state agencies and regulatory bodies that influence the operations of electric cooperatives in Texas.
Texas Co-op Power, Communications Department
Just two months after moving into the Scarbrough Building, the first issue of a monthly newspaper tabloid for cooperative members was published with an initial circulation of 15,000. Today, Texas Co-op Power, under the auspices of the TEC Communications Department, is an award-winning, full-color magazine with a paid circulation of more than 1 million—more than any other Texas periodical. The Communications Department also publishes the TEC Directory (updated yearly), the TEC Report and other promotional materials in a variety of formats benefitting the organization.
Government Relations
Since its inception, TEC has recognized the need for strong relationships with elected and appointed officials at all levels of government. The TEC Government Relations department represents the association and its member cooperatives at the Texas Legislature and the various regulatory agencies in Austin. The department also works directly with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association on issues before the U.S. Congress. Department staff provide guidance to member cooperatives on how best to comply with the various laws and regulations.
Treating Division
Cooperatives, growing steadily, had more hurdles to jump. World War II caused many shortages of materials for the rural electric co-ops. Even though the construction of rural power lines was declared essential, it was still difficult to obtain enough poles to extend lines across the countryside. Again, the statewide organization came to the rescue. The board took a bold step and borrowed $342,000 on January 10, 1945, from a reluctant REA to buy an existing creosote pole-treating facility near Lufkin. A fleet of trucks to deliver the poles was added in 1948. Even with the additional investment in plant and equipment, the association was able to pay off its debt to REA only three years later.
By 1964, the Lufkin plant had become inadequate to meet the cooperatives’ needs and a new plant was built on a 52-acre site in Jasper. Today the TEC Treating Division produces more than 100,000 poles annually, and is a complete tree-to-pole operation with a fleet of 15 trucks. In addition to creosote-treated poles, the plant now also produces poles treated with copper chromium arsenate (CCA) and hybrid poles treated with CCA and creosote.
Utility Supply & Service
In 1951, the association purchased property on Burnet Road in Austin, where in 1953, the Transformer Division was established to offer transformer repair, remanufacture and testing services for member cooperatives. The division expanded to include a PCB Elimination Program in 1991. In 1997, the facility moved its operations to a 160,000-square-foot facility Georgetown, and expanded its services to the sale of utility equipment and supplies. In 2000, the division was renamed Utility Supply & Service, commonly known as US&S. Today, US&S is a model of aggregated buying power with $250 million in cooperative resources.
Loss Control
Prior to 2001, safety education and training for cooperative employees who work with electric distribution equipment and lines was done by the Electric Power Training and Safety Division of the Engineering Extension Service at Texas A&M University. In 2001, TEC established the Loss Control Department to take over these duties. In late 2001, TEC Loss Control partnered with South Plains College in Levelland to offer electrical utility courses and an associate degree program to augment the department’s hands-on and classroom training programs.
Member Services
Throughout the years, TEC has provided a variety of special services to meet the needs of its member cooperatives. These include training programs for co-op employees, audio-visual support and video services, consumer information materials, area development support, involvement with youth and young adult organizations, and conference coordination. Since 1964, TEC has coordinated the Government-in-Action Youth Tour to Washington, D.C.
In unity—strength
Through its wide range of services, training/education and political involvement, Texas Electric Cooperatives continues the tradition begun nearly 66 years ago by adhering to the same principle as its founders: “In unity—strength.”