News

Limon Office
1655 5th Street
Limon, CO 80828-1600
(719) 775-2861
(800)-388-9881
(719) 775-9513 (fax)

Falcon Office
11140 E. Woodmen Rd.
Falcon, CO 80831-8127
(719) 495-2283
(800)-388-9881
(719) 495-3014 (fax)

Office Hours:
Monday - Thursday
7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

February 2006   

Employee Anniversaries

Several of our employees are celebrating landmark work anniversaries the month. MVEA and its members thanks them for the years of service and their dedication to our cooperative.

Mike Fields has served the co-op for 35 years. He is a lineman in the Falcon Operations Center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jaclyn Parmer is the subsidiary clerk working out of the Limon Headquarters and has worked for MVEA for five years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pat Rush is an accounts receivable clerk in the Limon Headquarters and worked for 5 years at MVEA.

 

 

 

 

 

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Employee Promotions  

Several MVEA employees have moved into new jobs. Marge Tracy has accepted the newly created position of consumer relations clerk in the Falcon Operations Center. Marge's former position was Consumer Relations Representative. She has worked at MVEA for almost seven years. Some of her new duties will include coordinating collection of overdue accounts with the consumer relations specialist, monitoring the collection cutoff list, preparing collection service orders, adding notes to service orders, distributing daily service orders to the CRS and maintaining a record of the distribution, and maintaining a schedule for socket checks on accounts disconnected for non-payment.

Sue Gates, formerly a meter reader in Falcon, is moving into the consumer relations specialist position. Sue has been with MVEA for a little over two years. Duties in her new position will include collecting past due accounts, reading meters, identifying and investigating energy diversion cases and installing and removing single-phase meters per service orders.

 

 

Penny Black started in November as a receptionist and is now the new engineering aide in the Falcon office. Some of her duties will include tabbing input staking sheets for cost and construction, assisting the staking technicians, processing payments for construction, and processing consumer refunds.

Congratulations to these ladies on their new jobs!

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Esssay Contest Winner

Ashley Frost is the first place winner in MVEA's essay contest. Ashley will be traveling to Washington, D.C. in June to participate in the NRECA's Youth Tour. Ashley will fly to Washington with 23 high school juniors from other Colorado co-ops to join with approximately 1,000 high school juniors from around the U.S. During the week, Ashley will tour historical monuments and sites; meet and talk with Colorado legislators and receive a tour of the capital; tour NRECA and learn how our national cooperative association works with the legislators on issues that affect cooperatives; and participate in many social activities. Ashley is a junior at Limon High School and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Brian Frost of Limon. She is active in the International Club, student council, track, volleyball and dance team and does peer counseling. Congratulations to Ashley and following is her winning essay.

There is a wide variety in the types of cooperatives, but first let me explain the meaning of a cooperative. In short, a cooperative is a collective, profit sharing enterprise, but in particular, it is an enterprise or organization that is owned and democratically controlled by their members, people who use the co-op's services or buy its goods, not by outside investors. Cooperatives are extremely beneficial because they exist solely to serve their members.

The four main cooperatives include consumer, producer, worker and purchasing/shared services. To start, consumer cooperatives sell consumer goods. They provide housing, electricity and telecommunications. They also offer financial, healthcare and childcare. Producer cooperatives are owned by people who produce similar types of products. Farmers are producers because they grow crops, raise cattle, and milk cows. Worker cooperatives operate all sectors of the economy and provide workers with both employment and ownership opportunities. Lastly, purchasing and shared services cooperatives are owned by independent business owners, small municipalities and, in some cases, state governments. They band together to enhance their purchasing power, lowering their costs and improving their competitiveness.

To go more in depth about certain types of cooperatives, I will explain electric co-ops, which is a utility cooperative in the consumer type. Electric cooperatives are organized as non-profits under state law, and they provide at-cost electric service. Two types of electric cooperatives are distribution cooperatives and generation and transmission cooperatives (G&T's). Generation and transmission cooperatives generate and transmit electricity to distribution co-ops. Distribution cooperatives then deliver electricity to the consumer. A good example of an electric co-op in my rural community is Mountain View Electric Association, Inc. They serve about 35,127 consumers from places like Limon, Karval, Elbert, and Falcon in Colorado. Mountain View affects me personally because without this association, I wouldn't have electricity that I can't live without in this day and age, and, for instance, I wouldn't be able to type this essay. Life would overall be harder. However, Mountain View is just one cooperative that helps my community in particular.

I also have to give credit to another cooperative that means so much. I want to point out the Board of Cooperatives Educational Services (BOCES), because they help many schools. Education is a main priority, and I believe education will take, and lead me.

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New Employee

Mary Jane Braum is our newest employee. She was working at MVEA as a receptionist through Add Staff and is now employed by MVEA in that same position. We hope she will enjoy working for our co-op.