Winds of change

Who likes change?

If you were to ask this question to a majority of people, they would likely say, “I am for change, if it makes everything better.” But when you want to change something, their true colors will surface.

For example, if the music director of a traditional Southern Baptist church replaced the Sunday church hymns with modern praise music without asking anybody, that change would not go over very well, trust me.

There is a saying often attributed to Christian author C.S. Lewis: “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when we look back, everything is different?”

Electric cooperatives are not protected from the winds of change. There are around 900 electric cooperatives across the U.S. Within the next five years, over 40% of the CEOs of those cooperatives will be eligible for retirement. I am in that stat. This change in leadership is concerning as the electric industry faces so many challenges.

News channels report about the artificial intelligence revolution, stating the U.S. must win this AI race with China. There is a basic electric demand issue that needs to be addressed in the near future. The data centers that power AI will absorb a great amount of the electric demand capacity, and there are questions on who is going to pay for the generation needs that come with AI expansion.

With the normal residential and commercial growth within electric utilities, that question is easily answered. Those members pay for that growth. But AI growth may be different. Politicians are diving into the issue. They want data centers to pay for all the electric demand, generation and transmission costs up front or build their own generation and transmission assets.

I have not formed an opinion on data center companies being in the electric business, but I can see opportunities for us. Over the past few years, I have written in my monthly columns about various issues facing the cooperative world. We navigated the waters of a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, electric steel shortages, supply chain delays, labor shortages and the high cost of building electric generation plants and transmission and distribution lines.

While traveling through these rough and deep waters, the cooperative has maintained its focus on safety, reliability and reasonable cost of electricity.

During these times, Gary Smith served as the CEO of PowerSouth Energy Cooperative. He held this position for more than 26 years and had a PowerSouth career spanning over 37 years. Like myself, Gary is an accountant, but he attended law school and became a lawyer not a CPA. However, Gary’s greatest asset as CEO was his ability to develop relationships.

These relationships ranged from PowerSouth member cooperatives — which SAEC is one — employees and trustees, leaders at Alabama Power Company, the Business Council of Alabama and electric industry leaders.

By the time you read this article, Gary will be retired. The native of Corinth, Mississippi, made a big splash in the electric industry world. But things do change.

Gary and I are “Roll Tide Roll” fans and old enough to remember the times when Alabama had to hire a new head football coach to follow the greatest college football coach ever! Now, I am not going to discuss which Bama head football coach is No. 1 or No. 2, but Paul “Bear” Bryant and Nick Saban are, without a doubt, the greatest. You do not replace those coaches, and you do not replace Gary Smith.

Like Alabama football, PowerSouth has high standards. Our new CEO starts June 1. Damon Morgan will continue to meet those high standards and lead the members through the continuing rough waters of the electric industry.

Damon has over 40 years of service at PowerSouth, mentoring under Gary for over half of those years. Damon has a great ship to sail, and I am confident he will not run that ship to ground.

As far as the country boy from Corinth, I’m going to miss Gary’s leadership, knowledge and his friendship. Gary enters retirement with his wife, Debbi, three daughters and sons-in-law and eight grandchildren. As you can see, Gary can stay as busy as he wants to be with his family. Gary also has a boating and fishing companion — his trusted yellow Lab, Yadi.

Gary, good luck on your next race. You have finished your race at PowerSouth, and like a true Alabama football fan, you finished your race as a champion!