Andrea Melton:
Welcome to Live Wire, a podcast powered by Kosciusko REMC. We are a member owned and locally operated cooperative that supplies electricity to portions of Kosciusko, Fulton, Wabash, and Whitley Counties here in Northern Indiana. Live Wire is a program where we come together to discuss co-op matters, energy, community topics, and to communicate with KREMC members. I'm your host, Andrea Melton.

Welcome to another electrifying episode of Live Wire. Today we are going to talk about what it means to be a cooperative member. And I thought a great way to kick this episode off would be to give a brief overview of the history of rural electric cooperatives in our great nation. You see, electric co-ops tell a remarkable tale. Let's embark on a brief journey through time where darkness meets determination and a spark ignites a revolution.

In the early 20th century, America was buzzing with urban electrification. Cities were enjoying the bright lights and modern marvels, but out in the rural expanses, the landscape was quite different. Picture this, quaint farmhouses, rolling fields, and nights lit by the pale glow of kerosene lamps. It was a time when the big power companies turned a blind eye to the rural folks, deeming it too expensive to run power lines through those cornfields and hills.

In the 1930s, a spark of inspiration lit up the minds of a few visionaries who saw electricity not just as a luxury, but as a lifeline. Enter the rural electrification administration created during the New Deal era. This government agency was like a lightning bolt that jolted rural communities to life, financial backing and low-interest loans, check. Support to build power lines and set up electric co-ops, double check. And thus, the Rural Electric Cooperative Movement was born. These co-ops weren't just about wires and wattage. They were about uniting neighbors, pooling resources, and electrifying dreams. As the lines extended and the lights flickered to life, the transformation was bright. Children could read under proper lights, people could cook with ease, and businesses started to flourish. It was a true story of empowerment through collaboration. The spirit of these co-ops echoed the heartland values of working together, looking out for one another, and building something bigger than oneself.

It wasn't about big corporations, it was about local control and community impact. Rural Electric Cooperatives are woven into the very fabric of this great land. From humble beginnings, they've grown into reliable powerhouses, serving millions across fields, forests, and farmlands. Did you know cooperatives around the world operate according to the same set of core principles and values adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance? You can trace the roots of these principles to the first modern cooperative founded in England in 1844. These principles are a key reason that America's electric cooperatives operate differently from other electric utilities putting the needs of their members first. The principles are open and voluntary membership; democratic member control; members' economic participation; autonomy and independence; education, training, and information; cooperation among cooperatives; and finally, concern for community. There is a lot to say about how Kosciusko REMC embodies these cooperative principles, but we'll save that for another episode. Kosciusko REMC was founded in 1939, and now we proudly supply electricity to over 18,500 meters in several counties.

Today, we are going to talk about your role as a KREMC member, explore the resources available to you, and highlight the benefits of being a co-op member. I'm so happy to have our Vice President of Member Services, Stephanie Scott, with me in the studio today to help me dive into all of the facets of KREMC membership. Hi, Stephanie. How are you?

Stephanie Scott:
Hi, great. How are you?

Andrea Melton:
I am wonderful. I'm so happy that you've joined me today and very excited about the conversation we're going to have.

Stephanie Scott:
Yes, me as well.

Andrea Melton:
Well, let's start by explaining the basic premise of co-op membership. If you've received your electricity from KREMC, you are a member, is that right?

Stephanie Scott:
Yes. Member owner. So you're part of the co-op now, once you become a member and you have a vote, so you are able to vote for our board of directors at our annual meeting, and you're part of something really special at this point.

Andrea Melton:
Steph, if someone is moving into KREMC service territory, so they're going to be a new member, what do they need to know about setting up their service?

Stephanie Scott:
So setting up service is typically done online. They would go to our website to set up and apply for service, and at the point where they apply for service, they fill out an application, we will run a credit check and then contact them to let them know that we've run the credit check and how much they need to pay to start service. And then we'll finish the application typically over the phone.

And then once our service is set up, then we'll go over the billing options with them. So we'll let them know that we have two different billing options. We have prepaid service, which is highly successful. We have over 1,200 people on prepaid service, which has been great. And then we have regular monthly billing. So that's just where you use the power and then you get a bill once a month. The prepaid service, we usually try to encourage people to use or to go with because it ends up saving them a lot of money. Actually did a comparison not too long ago, people who had been, or someone who had been on regular monthly billing and then switched to prepaid service at some point in the game after he'd been a member for many years and he ended up saving a lot of money because he went with prepaid service.

So it's a really cool option for people, but they pay for it before they use it. So it's something that eliminates them having to pay a deposit when they start service, if they have less than favorable credit. So it's a really cool billing option that we have available.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. Okay. I've only been here a few months now and I've heard of the prepaid service, but I guess I wasn't really aware of the logistics of that. So kind of explain how you pay the bill ahead of time, but if you don't know, I guess, what your usage is going to be, can you explain a little more about how that works with the prepaid service?

Stephanie Scott:
Prepaid members get a text alert every day to let them know how much they've used in the previous 24 hours. So they start out with a set amount in their prepaid bank, so to speak, and then every day they would get a text alert to let them know, or they could get an email alert if they don't use text alerts. They could get an email alert and let them know how much they used in the previous 24 hours and how much money is left in their prepaid bank.

Andrea Melton:
Oh my gosh, that is so cool.

Stephanie Scott:
Yeah, it is really cool. So if they start out with $50 and their prepaid bank, so basically to start prepaid service at $75, $25 for their membership fee and $50 for prepaid service. And then each day they'd get an alert. So if they use a dollar, they're down to $49 the next after the first day and then so on. Each day they would get a text alert to let them know that they used however much the day before and then how much is left in their bank. So there's never any surprises as to how much money they have left and how much they've used.

What people tend to be much more aware of is how much power they're using, so they tend to turn more lights off. So I always compare it to the difference between using a debit card and a credit card. When you use a debit card at the grocery store, you see that come out of your account right away. That's prepaid. When you use a credit card to the grocery store, you don't get that bill until the end of the month. You're like, "Wow, I can't believe I spent that much on groceries throughout the month. And you get your bill at the end of the month." That's like our regular monthly billing because you don't see it until the end of the month. And so always compare the two between using a debit card and a credit card to pay your bills.

Andrea Melton:
Yeah, that's a great comparison. That makes it very clear in my head. Okay, I know how this works now.

Stephanie Scott:
So yeah, people tend to spend a lot less money on power when they're on prepaid, so we highly encourage it.

Andrea Melton:
I'm not going to lie, Steph. I might be looking into that. Okay, this is good. This is good. Tell us more about the KREMC mobile app that's free for our members. They can download it. What other features does it offer?

Stephanie Scott:
One of the quickest ways to make a payment is the mobile app. It's super easy to download. It's always great to have on your phone because you can make a quick payment. So especially for prepaid members that need to make a payment very quickly because prepaids shut off at one o'clock each day. If they are up for disconnect and they're out of money in their prepaid bank.

So when you're trying to make a payment very quickly, the mobile app is awesome. We make it where you can view and monitor your usage. On our mobile app, you can report outages, you can set up a payment arrangement, you can set up autopay, you can set up budget billing. There's lots of different options on there.

Andrea Melton:
Yeah, that's very comprehensive for sure. Very cool.

Stephanie Scott:
It can basically do anything that our website can do.

Andrea Melton:
When you do visit our website, which is kremc.com, and you click or tap on the services tab, there are several categories and one of those is our outage center. So for our members, what if the power goes out? What do we want our members to do?

Stephanie Scott:
Honestly, they don't really have to do anything. Our system is sophisticated enough that we are aware when their power goes out for the bulk of our members, we know right away, as soon as the member or the meter stops communicating with our outage system, we're aware of it.

What we don't know is what caused it to happen. I mean, obviously sometimes weather is going to be the case, but we don't know exactly what happened. Did a tree fall on the line? Did a car accident happen and someone hit a pole and that was the reason or what exactly happened? So that's the information that's really helpful. So if someone knows that a transformer blew or someone just hit a pole outside their house, those kind of details are really important. So when they call in to report the outage, that information is what's really helpful. And so if they can give us those details that can get the outage restored quicker. And then within that outage center on our website, there's a map.

Andrea Melton:
What information can people find if the power goes out and they go to the outage center and they want to know what's going on?

Stephanie Scott:
So the outage map can actually deal how many people are out of power. Unfortunately, it can't tell how long because we don't know exactly how long that's going to be just yet because we don't know the cause of the outage usually right away. But the outage map can tell you what we're dealing with. So a lot of times people think they're the only one without power. That happens all the time. They think they're the only one without power. And so they call, they're frantic and they're thinking they're the only one that's without power. And then you go to the outage map and you see there's 1,200 people without power or 300 people without power. And so I think the outage map really gives you a glimpse into really what we're dealing with. And when we're only dealing with less than 20 linemen, trying to get that many people-

Andrea Melton:
Turned back on.

Stephanie Scott:
... turned back on, yeah. That many people's power restored in as quick as possible. It's difficult to really grasp that until you can see how many people are actually without power, so...

Andrea Melton:
For sure, we like to remind our members about the Home Energy Advisor that is available to them online, which they can find on our website. Can you tell us more about the Home Energy Advisor?

Stephanie Scott:
I get really excited about the Home Energy Advisor tool. I think it's such an awesome tool. We used to have a home energy advisor on staff, and we started to notice that we used that tool or that person less and less as time went on because there's so many things that we can tell from here at the office. As we started using these advanced meters and this advanced system, there's so much information that we can see digitally that we can tell online and from the data what the actual issue is. You can see that on Tuesday to Thursday that there was a lot of power used.

And then you can talk that over with the member, even from here at the office and they say, "Oh, I had company that day. I had a company for a few days or whatever, and that's probably why my power went up or that's when we turned the pool heater on," or whatever the situation is. So there's so much information that we can get from the data. So what the Home Energy Advisor does, it's an online tool where members can go in and they can put the information, the details about their home so they can put in the type of insulation they have, the size of their home, the number of people that are in their home, how old their appliances are. The more information that they give the tool, the better results they're going to get. And they basically get a score or a grade as far as the efficiency of their home.

So it's really a cool tool that can tell them not only how efficient their home actually is, but it'll give them tips on how to improve that efficiency score, I guess, I should say. And then it'll piggyback on that and it will give them rebate options. So we have rebates that are available to our members, not only from Kosciusko REMC, but also from our power supplier. So if you have an old thermostat that's not programmable, it can let you know that there's a rebate out there that's available to change out your thermostat. And so I think that's really cool because part of that, it can tell you that if you were to change that programmable or change that thermostat to one that's programmable, this is how much money you could save. And so I think it's really cool that it tells you all that information on the Home Energy Advisor.

Andrea Melton:
Absolutely, that is cool because everybody has a general sense of ways that you can conserve energy, things that we've learned over the years, and we remind people about those tips on our social media or in our Indiana connection. But to have a personalized report based upon your home, your situation, what's really going to work for you. That's pretty cool.

Steph, I know you have an exceptional member services team, and we just wrapped up member appreciation month, which we celebrate in August. But can you tell me more about your team and how your team engages with our members throughout the year? Some of the things you do?

Stephanie Scott:
Yes. Member appreciation month is every year, and it's each Friday in August. And we get really excited to spoil our members, so to speak. We love engaging with our members, and throughout the year, we'll have impromptu events where we may hand out cookies during Christmas or may have something during Halloween where we hand out candy or something like that. We always try to do events where we engage with our members. We only see a portion of our members, the ones that actually come to the office.

The marketing team will try to do some things on social media to engage with members, which is always awesome, try to have contests and things like that. So I always think that's great to engage members in different ways. One of the things that we like to do is when members call in to our office, we always like to take the time, and I always think that's really important. We've never timed calls, so to speak. I've never really told the team, you can't spend more than X amount of time on a call. We want to be there for our members, whatever they need.

Andrea Melton:
Absolutely.

Stephanie Scott:
So if they need to discuss their usage or they need to talk about their account and try and figure out what's going on or work through a payment arrangement or try and figure out how to get their account down to a zero balance or get on budget billing or talk through whatever it is, I want my team to talk them through that.

And so, I feel like that's one of the best things that we can do to engage with our members is to take the time to really listen to what their needs are and help them through that. Because even during situations where we're disconnecting power, people are in a really bad place, personally in a really bad place. And I think it's so awesome when you get done talking with someone and they've had their power disconnected and you've gotten them reconnected, and now they're on prepaid, and then they call you a few weeks later and they're like, "This prepaid billing, this is awesome. I think this is so great." I wish everybody was doing it because I've had this deposit on file for several years now of $200 or $300, and now I got that back. And now I am much more aware of how much I'm using and I'm able to pay when I want to pay.

I'm putting money on it every week when I get paid. And I just think this is wonderful. And so, I think it's great when we can engage with our members, when they contact us, when they need us. And so I think that's something that we do. One of the biggest ways that we obviously engage with our members is annual meeting. I think annual meeting is our most fun event because everyone's excited. They're getting a free meal, they're voting for our directors. And so I think annual meeting is one of our most fun events. So that's obviously the biggest way that we engage with our members is annual meeting.

Andrea Melton:
The annual meeting is a lot of fun. And that was my first big event working with KREMC when I came on board a few months ago. How much fun, if anybody's listening and they're not aware of the annual meeting, it's how our members come and vote for positions that might be open on the board of directors.

And we've been over the past few years, doing a drive-through style annual meeting where you can drive through our property, our garage and cast your vote. And it's really, really cool. I agree. A very fun event, a great way that we engage with members. And let's talk for a minute about the board of directors and how that's comprised and the importance of the votes in the annual meeting.

Stephanie Scott:
We have a nine-member board, and leading up to annual meeting, we have a nominating committee that puts together some director candidates. They put those together and anyone can nominate a member. And then they are presented, and we post that in our Indiana Connection, the monthly newsletter, and then our members get to read about the candidates and then they pick their choice. In my opinion, it's a benefit of being a member. So I think that's something that makes it special, but I always feel like it's somewhat of a responsibility as well of being a member of the cooperative is exercising your right to vote.

We have those nine board members and then they make the decisions and guide the cooperative.

Andrea Melton:
Absolutely. At the beginning of this episode, when I talked a little bit about cooperative history and then the cooperative principles, that would be an example of Democratic member control with our annual meeting and the way that process goes. And our members have been so engaged and responsive. I know we keep upping those voting numbers every year, and that's just really great to know that they're paying attention and taking part. And you mentioned the Indiana Connection. I think that's a great benefit of being a member. If you are a KREMC member, you should be getting that Indiana Connection Magazine in your mailbox every month. And of course, it's also available online for you to view. But in that magazine, we have stories from other Indiana co-ops as well as more localized articles and content that highlight our special events and things we have going on, energy tips, community events, and just information that we want to communicate to our members. So I love the Indiana Connection.

Stephanie Scott:
And great recipes.

Andrea Melton:
Oh, yes. The recipes are a highlight too, for sure.

Stephanie Scott:
That's so great.

Andrea Melton:
Well, we've talked about a lot today and it's gone by so fast, but I think we're going to stop for now, and we might extend this topic though for another episode because there is so much more to talk about when it comes to cooperative membership and specifically being a KREMC member. But we will wait for the next time.

Stephanie, this has been wonderful, fun, enlightening. You've shared some great information, and thank you so much for coming in.

Stephanie Scott:
Thank you.

Andrea Melton:
You've been listening to Live Wire, the official podcast of Kosciusko REMC. To learn more about KREMC, visit our website krmc.com and follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.