Shedding Light Willamette Valley Th e H i s t o r y o f C o n s u m e r s P o w e r I n c . b y Pa t S w i n g e r C o n s u m e r s E l e c t r i c P a g e s . i n d d 1 9 / 2 2 / 1 4 4 : 1 5 : 2 6 P M on the Copyright © 2014 by Consumers Power Inc. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review. For information, please write: The Donning Company Publishers 184 Business Park Drive, Suite 206 Virginia Beach, VA 23462 Steve Mull, General Manager Barbara Buchanan, Offce Manager Annie Devoy and Anne Burns, Editors Tonya Washam, Graphic Designer Kathy Adams, Imaging Artist Sherry Hartman, Project Research Coordinator Nathan Stuffebean, Research and Marketing Supervisor Katie Gardner, Marketing Advisor Dwight Tompkins, Project Director Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-57864-926-6 Printed in the United States of America at Walsworth Publishing Company Consumers Electric Pages.indd 2 9/22/14 4:15:26 PM contents Foreword by Ted Case, Executive Director, Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association 4 Introduction 6 Chapter 1: A “Cooperative Effort” 8 Chapter 2: Let There Be Light 16 Chapter 3: A Co-op Comes of Age 26 Chapter 4: Taking It to the Next Level 40 Chapter 5: Politics and Power 50 Chapter 6: The End of the Age of Plenty 60 Chapter 7: Price, Partnerships, and Problem-solving 70 Chapter 8: Innovations for the Future 78 Selected References 95 About the Author 96 Consumers Electric Pages.indd 3 9/22/14 4:15:26 PM foreword t is well known that in the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a vision of an electrifed America, Iwhich was manifested through the creation of the Rural Electrifcation Administration (REA). He had special help from an unheralded engineer named Morris Cooke, who drafted the REA plan and convinced the president to sign an executive order putting it into action on May 11, 1935. What is less known is the doubts harbored by both FDR and Cooke about the future of the REA. Specifcally, they wondered if their potential partners in this grand endeavor—fedging rural electric cooperatives—had the technical expertise and business acumen to keep the lights on and pay their bills. In the following pages you will read a superb history of men and women attempting, against long odds, to prove they could indeed provide affordable, reliable electricity to the people of western Oregon. You’ll learn about men such as A. F. Barclay, considered the father of the original Benton- Lincoln Electric Co-op, who was more interested in doing something for his community than claiming any credit—a credo that has survived at the co-op for seventy-fve years. The CPI story is a story of rapid expansion, technological innovation, and men like John Mayse, who helped navigate the treacherous waters of power supply in the Pacifc Northwest. It is a story of co-op leaders who were never afraid to lead the way, to build a frst-class utility system or to quickly rebuild it when historic storms crossed their 4 Shedding Light on the Willamette Valley Consumers Electric Pages.indd 4 9/22/14 4:15:28 PM path. And it is also a story of how the Benton-Lincoln Electric Co-op outgrew its name when it expanded to six counties, but never forgot who they were ultimately serving. In fact, they were memorialized in the co-op’s name: Consumers Power Inc. As you will read, the questions posed by FDR and Morris Cooke about whether electric co-ops could keep the lights on and pay their bills have been defnitely answered. Yet, my experience working with CPI’s dedicated board of directors and CEO Roman Gillen tells me the can-do tradition of the co-op’s forefathers is alive and well. Even after seventy-fve years, Consumers Power Inc. still acts as though they have something to prove. Ted Case Executive Director Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association The History of Consumers Power Inc. 5 Consumers Electric Pages.indd 5 9/22/14 4:15:28 PM introduction eventy-fve years have passed since the men and women of rural Oregon began envisioning a better life for themselves Sand their neighbors and organized the Benton-Lincoln Electric Cooperative. In the years since, so much has changed that the current operation of Consumers Power Inc. bears little resemblance to the earliest days of the cooperative. Bucket trucks and digger trucks have made new construction much easier and safer than it was when a lineman’s day often meant eight hours of climbing and working on poles. In the offce, automation and computers have replaced the clunky and clumsy equipment of years past. So, too, have the members’ lives changed since those early days. The backbreaking and often dangerous labor of everyday life in rural America has been exchanged, in large part, for a life of greater 6 Shedding Light on the Willamette Valley Consumers Electric Pages.indd 6 9/22/14 4:15:31 PM ease, albeit one of much greater complexity. And while the service Consumers Power Inc. supplies has become almost as necessary to our existence as the air we breathe, the irony is that we too often take it for granted. The truth is the people of Consumers Power Inc. work with the same dedication as did the people who organized and worked the cooperative in its earliest days. They are committed, now as much as ever, to serving their communities…their friends, their families, their neighbors…and this is their story. The History of Consumers Power Inc. 7 Consumers Electric Pages.indd 7 9/22/14 4:15:34 PM chapter 1 A “Cooperative Effort” hen the members of Consumers Power Inc. (CPI) gather for their annual meeting in 2014, they will mark their seventy- Wffth year of operation under a system that exemplifes the very best qualities of American society; of what can be accomplished when people work together for the beneft of all. The people of CPI trace the philosophical origins of their cooperative to a group of weavers in Rochdale, England, more than a century ago. Forced into poverty by the Industrial Revolution, they banded together in December 1844 and opened their own store in an effort to make the food items they needed affordable. The Rochdale Pioneers, as they came to be known, weren’t the frst group to form a cooperative; several attempts at cooperative businesses had been made centuries earlier and failed. They were, however, the frst to operate a cooperative under the Rochdale Principles, tenets that became the A family living on the outskirts of town near Klamath basis for the success and growth of the modern Falls, Oregon, 1939. Photo courtesy of the Library of cooperative movement. The principles were Congress quite simple: membership in the cooperative be volunteer, the cooperative be governed democratically for the fnancial beneft of all its members, and its guiding force be service to the community. That is the very defnition of rural electric cooperatives in general and Consumers Power Inc. in particular. 8 Shedding Light on the Willamette Valley Consumers Electric Pages.indd 8 9/22/14 4:15:34 PM In 1930, Benton County, Oregon’s population was 16,555. Across the United States, 58 percent of the farms had cars but only 13 percent had electricity. Without it, farm life was a series of diffcult and hazardous chores repeated day after day after day. The work began before dawn. Water had to be hauled, eggs gathered from the henhouse, the horses and livestock had to be fed. Cows had to be milked and wood brought in to fre up the stove. Having downed a hearty breakfast, the farmer went about the business of tending the crops or livestock while the women tended the household—cooking, cleaning, sewing, and laundry—and the garden…all without beneft of any of the labor-saving devices now take for granted. As if life weren’t diffcult enough, the economic crash that led to the Great Depression began October 24, 1929, on a day known as Black At the end of the workday, tired Thursday. By the next March national unemployment doubled to 3.2 husbands and wives shared a bit of million. Men in suits, many of them former bankers, took to selling supper by the light of an oil lamp. apples on city street corners. Reprinted with permission. © Rural life was already Copyright NRECA diffcult without electricity so when the Great Depression hit, farmers across the country were better prepared to face its challenges than A woman’s frst task of the day was their city cousins. Farmers to get the stove heating to warm were at least able to feed the kitchen, cook breakfast, and their families, though cash then heat the sad irons to do the for other necessities was in ironing. Reprinted with permission. short supply. Women learned © Copyright NRECA The History of Consumers Power Inc. 9 Consumers Electric Pages.indd 9 9/22/14 4:15:38 PM to reuse and recycle clothing, even making dresses and other articles of clothing from feed sacks. President Herbert Hoover advocated a hands-off approach to the nation’s economic troubles. When thousands of homeless families threw together makeshift housing on public grounds and vacant lots, the shantytowns they built were nicknamed “Hoovervilles.” Things began to change when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency in a landslide election against Hoover in 1932. Roosevelt advocated a more proactive approach to the nation’s economic woes and established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933. Designed as a relief and employment program for young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-seven, the CCC was composed of groups of young men who worked in national forests and other federal lands for nine-month stints. Throughout Oregon they cut trails, built campgrounds and ranger stations, and damned creeks. In April 1935 FDR signed legislation creating the Works Progress Administration, a few years later renamed the Works Projects Administration (WPA). WPA projects in Oregon included Timberline Lodge on the southern slopes of Mount Hood, an armory in Klamath Falls, a high school in Corvallis, and a sewage disposal plant in Medford. At its peak in 1935 the CCC employed 500,000 young men, many of whom had left their homes, sending meager paychecks back to stave off foreclosure of their family’s property. Over the course of its life, the Works Projects Administration employed more than 8.5 million individuals in three thousand counties across the nation. These individuals, drawing a salary of only $41.57 a month, worked on highways, roads, bridges, and airports. Thousands of artists—writers, painters, and sculptors—were hired to boost the arts and tourism. Members of Congress continued debating the merits of federal assistance as a means of restoring the nation’s economic health until they fnally launched a second round of New Deal legislation in 1935. However, this time the legislation was focused less on relief and more on creating avenues for sustainable change. 10 Shedding Light on the Willamette Valley Consumers Electric Pages.indd 10 9/22/14 4:15:38 PM