WREC general manager garners national honor
With a career spanning more than half a century, Billy E. Brown has received a national honor for his work as general manager and executive vice president of Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative.
Brown received the President’s Award from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, no small feat since the nation has more than 900 cooperatives.
“Billy Brown is a tireless advocate for electric cooperative consumers,” NRECA CEO Glenn English said in a news release. “With his guidance, Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative has become an example for all co-ops across the nation.”
In 1956, Brown joined Dade City-based Withlacoochee as a lineman trainee. He has held nearly every job at the co-op, including warehouse manager, billing supervisor and district manager in two offices, according to David Lambert, a WREC representative.
During Brown’s tenure, WREC grew from 3,000 members to more than 200,000, Lambert pointed out. The cooperative employed 444 people as of 2010.
The member-owned co-op serves customers in five counties, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus, Sumter and Polk. Corporate offices are based in Dade City. Four district offices include the Bayonet Point office in the Shady Hills area.
Brown has focused on economic and community development, Lambert emphasized.
For instance, WREC in 1997 formed an educational foundation to help children of cooperative members obtain an advanced education. WREC has awarded 1,081 scholarships worth about $4.7 million through 2010.
Just last week, WREC helped launch Pasco County’s Mobile Medical Unit with a $5,000 donation.
In recent years, Withlacoochee invested heavily to help rebuild the Lacoochee community, the economically disadvantaged area in northeast Pasco. Withlacoochee earned the NRECA Community Service Award in 2010 for its efforts.
Brown helped develop two industrial parks, Lambert pointed out. One Pasco Center industrial park at S.R. 52 and I-75 contains more than two dozen businesses that employ a few hundred people.
Brown personally went to Bentonville, Ark., to meet with Sam Walton to build the Walmart Distribution Center in Hernando County, Lambert recalled. The distribution center employs about 1,000 people in the area.
WREC’s “Operation Round-Up” program has given more than $2.5 million to 497 cooperative families in need since 1994.
Employees at WREC have pledged thousands of dollars to the United Way and logged thousands of hours of volunteer time for many nonprofit organizations.
Brown has served as a member and chairman of several committees on the Seminole Electric Cooperative Board and as an active member of statewide and national associations.
Brown rivets much of his attention on reliability of the WREC system. The winter of 2010 was one of the coldest winters on record in central Florida, Brown recalled in his message in the 2010 annual report.
Record energy consumption pushed the WREC system to a peak load of 1,355-megawatt hours at the time. While other electric utilities throughout the state were implementing rolling blackouts, the lights remained on for WREC members. Any outage for an individual customer was limited to 97 minutes on average.
Technology played a key role in improving service, Brown observed. An automated system detects faults or other problems and switches power to another source.
WREC has not shied away from political issues. Utility leaders fear “burdensome regulations” could make electricity unaffordable, Lambert had said in a January interview. The WREC website devotes much space to the “Our Energy, Our Future” dialogue. Learn more online at www.ourfloridaenergy.com.
Withlacoochee and nine similar cooperatives own Seminole Electric Cooperative, a wholesale energy supplier based in Tampa. The Seminole plant already ranks as one of the cleanest coal-fired plants in the nation, with $500 million invested in pollution control the past few decades.
“We are doing our part,” Lambert said previously. Seminole also has one of the largest renewable energy programs.
Withlacoochee also promotes NRECA efforts to register people to vote.
