CEO’s Message – May 2026

Stay safe out there

We emphasize safety a lot at Wiregrass Electric Cooperative. We want to keep our employees safe, as well as our members and the people who live in the communities we serve.

It’s not a hollow gesture or just empty words. Safety is one of our top priorities. There are a lot of risks in the work performed by our employees — whether running a forklift in a warehouse or climbing a utility pole on the side of a busy road. As we prepare for the start of another hurricane season on June 1, the focus on safety becomes even more important.

Wiregrass Electric is on standby 24/7. We have a dedicated group of employees who monitor the cooperative’s power grid. Our scheduling ensures our system and our members are always covered. Holidays, weekends, you name it, we have some-one standing by to respond when the need arises and as soon as it is safe to do so.

The focus on safety from the top down has changed so much over the years. There’s more understanding — and, yes, regulations — on the importance of following safety protocols.

Our lineworkers have monthly safety briefings to stay abreast of the latest industry practices.

In this edition of Alabama Living, you can read how our lineworkers train so they can respond quickly to help their fellow lineworkers in an emergency. You’ll see how they do regular inspections of our power lines and utility poles. Yes, those inspections help ensure reliability for our members, but they also contribute to overall safety for our employees in the field as well as the general public. And with May being National Electrical Safety Month, we’ve provided some tips to help keep everyone safe inside and outside their homes.

Technology has helped improve safety in the electric utilities world. Our employees can moni-tor the cooperative’s electrical system from head-quarters. They can see when there is a problem with low voltage, for example. Even the smart meters we use now report information back to our communications center 24/7, which can alert us to potential problems. All this technology allows us to better pinpoint where to send crews when the need arises rather than our lineworkers having to travel an entire stretch of line, some-times in the dark and stormy weather. All of this creates a more reliable system for members and a safer environment for our employees.

We have a staff of 56 people, many of them members themselves. That is 56 people doing a variety of jobs to make sure the cooperative’s 3,200 miles of line keep working properly to meet the needs of the nearly 20,000 members within our 1,040-square-mile service area.

As a cooperative, Wiregrass Electric is dif-ferent. We’re not a large corporation that needs profits to satisfy investors. We are an at-cost, member-owned electric utility provider. We’re self-governed. The cooperative’s board of trustees is elected by the membership.

We are competitive in the prices we charge to provide a 24/7 service. We cover our costs while conservatively and wisely investing in the coop-erative’s future. Our employees see to that.

We cannot, however, compromise safety at any cost.

If we cannot do something safely, then we are not going to do it. We can’t afford to take short-cuts — not when our employees’ safety and the public’s safety is on the line.

We like to say we’re big enough to serve and local enough to care. We’re just as rooted in this community as our members. So, please, my friends, stay safe out there.