I hope you’ll consider joining us at this year’s 84th Annual Membership Meeting. This is an important time to join with your fellow members and meet the team behind your power. I’m looking forward to meeting you and sharing about the growth we’re experiencing here at Medina EC this year.
We do our best to share that information throughout the year—through this magazine, our website, social media and other member communication tools like SmartHub—but the meeting is a chance to meet in person to talk about what happens at Medina EC locally, and at the state and national levels.
There continue to be conversations regarding reliability and the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules that were released in May for cutting carbon emissions, which impact new and existing coal and natural gas-powered plants. These rules could cause strain to all power grids at the state and national levels, resulting in critical, always available power plants—like natural gas and coal—being forced into early retirement and making new natural gas power plants exceedingly difficult to permit, site and build.
Medina EC staff and directors will continue to be present at future legislative rallies to ensure that political leaders hear firsthand the hurdles facing electric cooperatives. We will also continue to monitor growth locally and make changes and adjustments to meet the increase in demand. A large handful of this growth is seen in Medina County as more people and businesses are moving out of bigger cities like San Antonio to put down roots in more rural and smaller communities like Castroville, Hondo, Devine and many of the other towns in the county. In 2022, we finalized a sale of the property adjacent to our current Hondo service office on Highway 173. This property gives us the needed space to expand our office and warehouse to be better equipped to accommodate the growth in construction and population. We continue to make upgrades to our power lines through voltage conversions that increase the capacity of our power lines, allowing us to maximize the use of our existing infrastructure. In the last year, we’ve completed 11 voltage conversions and have three more scheduled through the end of the year.
In 2022, we broke ground on the system operations building located at the general office in Hondo, and we moved in at the beginning of this year. The building allowed us to grow our system operations center. The operators not only improve the safety of employees, contractors and the public, they ensure the reliable and efficient operation of our distribution system, including grid monitoring and control operations for the flow of electricity, outage management and crew dispatching, and coordination with our generation and transmission partner.
Growth isn’t limited to people and demand. Technology continues to grow and evolve and has many benefits to keep us interconnected and always on. However, we also recognize the risk a digitized world brings. Medina EC prioritizes a robust cybersecurity plan to protect our assets, our grid and our members. We constantly work to improve spam filtering, provide extensive internal training on cyber risks and preventions, complete server backups, and have physical security measures such as video surveillance.
An important part of being a cooperative is supporting the communities we live and serve in. In 2022, we gave back $89,000 in donations to a variety of organizations in our service area including Little Leagues, chambers of commerce, civic clubs, schools, first responders and more. We also gave $5,500 in grants to organizations that focus on improving their quality and quantity of viable services in our community and supported 25 students who each received $1,000 scholarships for secondary education. We put a high value on helping the communities we’ve been a part of since 1938 thrive to power our future for generations to come.
You should know that your cooperative continues to be a financially strong and viable organization. In 2022, our total margins were $3.9 million, and we retired $2.08 million in capital credits. Every decision made at the cooperative is made with the benefit of our members in mind. We look forward to the next year, and many more to come, to safely power your life with reliable and equitably priced energy.
I hope to see you on Saturday, September 23!
Trey Grebe
Get Involved! Join Us at the Annual Meeting
Message from Board President Kenneth White
One of my favorite events is coming up on September 23, when Medina Electric Cooperative will host its annual meeting for you, the members we proudly serve. I always look forward to this event because it’s a great opportunity for me and the rest of the board plus our employees to talk with our members and hear what’s on their minds.
We hope you’ll join us for the annual meeting, which will take place at Graff 7A Ranch in Hondo. For those who are unable to attend in person, we also offer a virtual option via Zoom. Whether you attend in person or online, we thank you in advance for getting involved because your participation means so much to us. Learn more about the meeting, RSVP or register to watch the Zoom meeting at MedinaEC.org/AnnualMeeting2023.
During the annual meeting, we’ll share a few brief co-op business updates and introduce our new board member. But we’re going to have a lot of fun too! We’ll have activities for the kids, a tasty breakfast, several prizes, including a $1,000 grand prize.
Spending time with you and hearing your take on our community’s energy future is so important to us. In fact, it’s essential because everything we do is shaped by the members of our community. As I’m sure you know, the energy industry is in the midst of massive change. Consumer needs and changing technology impact nearly every aspect of how we manage and deliver energy to local homes, schools and businesses.
As we navigate major changes in the coming years, we need to hear from you and your neighbors to help with our planning as we strive to meet the long-term needs of all Medina EC members.
This local input means those closest to the community know its needs and priorities and help direct where the co-op’s dollars are spent. Every year, we invest funds to make updates to our local system, which helps maintain reliability and grid resilience. Think of it this way: Every time you pay your electric bill, you’re actually investing in your community because all the money we take in stays here in the local community. By making these investments in our local system, we can ensure you have reliable power for everyday life.
Most consumers likely don’t equate active involvement with their electric company with helping their community. But Medina EC is not an ordinary utility company. We’re a co-op, and our business model is meant to serve the members and the community in which it operates.
Our core purpose and mission are to provide energy services that are safe, reliable and equitably priced to enhance the lives of our members. But as a co-op, we’re also motivated by service to our community, rather than profits. We hope you’ll exercise the benefits of your co-op membership and join us for the annual meeting on September 23. I look forward to seeing you!
