30-foot waves rolled across Lake Superior on Tuesday, October 24. Winds near the shoreline gusted to over 60 mph taking down trees and powerlines in over two dozen locations in Alger, Marquette and Schoolcraft counties. The Upper Peninsula was hit with a weather bomb. A ‘weather bomb’ is an unofficial term for a rapidly intensifying storm that typically develops over the water when a [...]
The Governor’s Energy Excellence Awards honors Michigan organizations and individuals for outstanding achievement in reducing energy waste. This year, MECA EO Collaborative members received awards for Best Project – Public for Ewen Trout Creek School District (Ontonagon) and Best Project – Agriculture for Friske Orchards (Great Lakes Energy). Ewen Trout Creek is one of Michigan’s most rural school districts with only 205 students. [...]
Alger Delta Cooperative Electric Association (Alger Delta) celebrates its 80th anniversary this year. Alger Delta Electric is a proud member of WPPI Energy, a not-for-profit wholesale energy provider and joint action agency. The co-op’s milestone anniversary was recognized at an awards luncheon during WPPI Energy’s annual meeting in September. Alger Delta’s CEO Tom Harrell, Directors Mike Lawless (District 3, Grand Marais) and Darryl Small [...]
Virtual Reality Advertising. Virtual Reality Advertising When Wolverine Power Cooperative (Wolverine) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 876 (IBEW Local 876) announced a partnership in May to continue utility linemen training in the state of Michigan, their partnership marked the beginning of the new Joint Michigan Apprentice Program (JMAP). The program’s inaugural class began in September, welcoming 61 apprentices from 28 Michigan [...]
MECA hosted an Electric Cooperative Foundations workshop at the Wolverine Power Cooperative office in Cadillac on Sept. 20. “This workshop has three main goals,” said Doug Snitgen, Executive Vice President at MECA. “We want every participant to gain a better understanding of the cooperative model, connect the cooperative principles and values to their own daily work, and meet employees from other Michigan co-ops [...]
Hurricane Irma has plowed into Georgia leaving hundreds of thousands in the state without power. Today, 31 Michigan co-op linemen are headed south to help Georgia co-ops, Irwin EMC and Middle Georgia EMC, bring the lights back on. The Michigan team will stay in southern Indiana tonight. After a safety briefing tomorrow morning lead by Joe McElroy, MECA's safety director, the group will [...]
A day in the life of a lineman and the Michigan Partners for Power 2018 project in Bolivia headlined the 80th Annual Meeting of HomeWorks Tri-County Electric Cooperative on August 19 in Mount Pleasant. Blanchard linemen Rick Warchuck and Cody Teegardin talked about their jobs as linemen and how being away from home for mutual aid during storms affects their families. Both men [...]
Wolverine Power Cooperative announced today an agreement to purchase Baker College of Cadillac’s Center for Transportation and Technology (CTT). The facility, located at 4800 S. Morey Road (M-66) in Lake City, Mich., will become a state-of-the-art electric utility training center, and house the Joint Michigan Apprentice Program (JMAP). "Michigan electric cooperatives have a rich tradition of training utility apprentices spanning the last 30 years [...]
Cherryland members were introduced to a new voting option for the 2017 board election. In addition to voting via a mail-in ballot or in-person at the annual meeting, members could cast their vote using any device with an internet connection. Cherryland partnered with Survey & Ballot Systems of Minnesota to administer the voting. The outcome? The 2017 board election had the most ballots cast [...]
Chassell High School was the setting for the 2017 Ontonagon County Rural Electrification Association’s (OCREA’s) Annual Meeting held on Saturday, June 17. Approximately 150 members from the co-op’s five county service area attended the event which featured food, prize drawings, reports from the co-op manager and the board of directors and seating of new directors. According to General Manager Debbie Miles, “This is [...]
