The Power of Connections

“We still compete in areas that aren’t covered by the territorial agreements, but we work well together now and have a lot of shared services.” —Kevin Hurd

The territorial agreements also strengthened the co-op’s ongoing business relationship with Ameren Missouri. “We still compete in areas that aren’t covered by the territorial agreements, but we work well together now and have a lot of shared services,” states Hurd. He credits Brown for his foresight to look into the future and position the co-op for sustained expansion of its service territory. “Those territorial agreements not only secured our future growth areas, but also allowed us to protect our investments, become more efficient, and stabilize our rates because we could spread out those fixed costs,” he says. Economic Development Broadens the Membership Base Beginning in the mid-1990s, the co-op also began to focus on broadening its membership base by pursuing additional commercial/industrial customers. At the time, about 96 percent of CREC’s members were residential users. Because the monthly electricity use of commercial and industrial businesses reflects less seasonal fluctuation than residential consumers, CREC could balance its revenue by expanding the number of businesses in the co-op’s service area. “Increasing our commercial and industrial load helped spread out fixed costs over more members and bring in a more

Verizon’s facility in Weldon Spring is one of CREC’s commercial members.

SSM’s St. Joseph’s West Hospital was one of CREC’s first prominent commercial members.

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