World Power
U.S. Co-ops Spread Rural Electrification Globally

Jump River Electric Cooperative Director Allen Beadles found himself stepping 50 years back in time when he arrived at the tiny Central American island on Easter Sunday, 1993. Roatan, just 35 miles from mainland Honduras, was home to about 20,000 of that country’s citizens-only about one-tenth of whom had electric service.
“You know, when rural electrification began in the U.S. in the 1930s, that’s about the same percentage of farms that had power,” Beadles observed in a story Wisconsin R.E.C. News carried about his weeks as an international volunteer.
He discovered that the relatively few islanders who could afford electricity were paying a premium price-21¢ per kilowatt-hour-for power produced by three diesel generators. For most of the population, electricity was as scarce a commodity as health care, a functioning water and sewer system, or fire protection.
Roatan and the rest of Honduras didn’t have anything comparable to this country’s Rural Utilities Service to help finance upgrades to electric service or provide funds for other rural development. But they did have help from beyond their borders: willing volunteers from U.S. cooperatives and the resources of those co-ops’ national organization, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), working in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Allen Beadles-a farmer from Sheldon, Wisconsin-was more than happy to do his part.
Things were improving on Roatan. By the time Beadles arrived in the spring of 1993, eight months of work by volunteer co-op lineworkers and other personnel (including a stint by office workers Kathy Ruscin and Shirley Thompson of Wisconsin’s Eau Claire Electric Co-op) had dramatically improved system reliability and administrative processes. Beadles’ task was to help organize the first election of the Roatan Electric Company’s (RECO) governing board, a cooperative-like process that became most citizens’ first experience with an election that wasn’t run by the Honduran military.
On April 25, 1993, more than 2,000 people-half of all eligible voters-came by bus, boat, and foot to the RECO headquarters near the center of the island for an inauguration fiesta. Beadles and a volunteer from Ohio were the official tellers and certifiers of the election. “They accepted us totally and were so appreciative of everything we did to help,” said Beadles.

At It for 40 Years

That example from 10 years ago and hundreds of others during the past four decades is a proud record of achievement for the International Program at NRECA. More than 50 million people overseas enjoy electric service today thanks to the establishment of electric cooperatives in their communities with the assistance of the program.
Vice President of NRECA International Paul Clark, who has been with the program since 1981, recalls the early days when the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) turned to NRECA and electric cooperatives across the country to help bring electricity to developing countries.
“Rural electrification through cooperatives was such a success in the United States that it was natural for USAID to want to bring electric cooperatives to the developing world. The cooperative business model was a model they could understand and believe in and with good reason,” he said.
Clyde Ellis, NRECA General Manager at the time, was a big supporter of NRECA beginning its international program, explains Clark. “Ellis believed that not only should every American have electricity but that every human being should have it.”
International outreach was a particular priority of President Kennedy, known for his staunch backing of programs such as the Peace Corps. NRECA inked its first agreement with USAID in a 1962 White House ceremony that featured Kennedy and NRECA’s Ellis as signatories.
One of the very first projects that the program undertook was bringing an electric cooperative to Santa Cruz in Bolivia. That cooperative, Cooperativa de Eléctrificacion Rural, or “CRE,” is now one of the largest rural electric cooperatives in the world. According to Clark, CRE has consolidated many of the smaller electrification projects that started with U.S. help and now serves an area the size of Wyoming, providing electricity to more than 250,000 members.
“We’ve shown the Bolivian government what a co-op can do that a private utility couldn’t,” Clark asserted.

More Southern Exposure

In another R.E.C. News story not long after the one concerning Beadles’ mission, Wisconsin figured into one of those smaller Bolivian electrification projects. Dan Kanack, a farmer from Lena and director of Oconto Electric Co-op, volunteered in one of the most remote Bolivian sites under sponsorship of the Volunteers for Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA), another national organization with ties to USAID and NRECA’s International Program. Clark said NRECA helped finance some of VOCA’s Bolivian projects.
Like Beadles had seen on Roatan, Kanack found a community in need of basic services. “It’s a life-sustaining existence, and that’s about it. There are no real classes of people; you’re either poor or you’re poorer,” he said in the story. For the few who had electricity, “service” consisted merely of one light and one plug per household, at an average residential usage of 54 kilowatt-hours per month.
The Cooperativa de Servicios Publicos-an electric co-op serving the city of Monteagudo and three nearby villages-desperately needed engineering assistance to address serious line-loss problems. Via radiotelephone, Kanack communicated with his co-op back in Wisconsin, and after relaying readings taken from the Bolivian co-op’s system, obtained some of the first professional engineering advice the Monteagudo co-op had received in years. The recommendations of Oconto Electric’s engineering staff were gratefully accepted by the manager and lineworkers of the Bolivian co-op.
These guys were so eager to learn,” Kanack said of the line crew members. “They were trying to learn the job on their own.” It was obviously a dangerous way to train, as Kanack observed: “Luis, the line foreman, and another guy both had burns on their arms from contacts [with electric lines]. They work with leather gloves mostly. There’s just one pair of rubber gloves.”
Broadening Horizons

While the early days of the program focused on Latin America, NRECA’s International Program now works in every region of the developing world. During the 40 years of its existence, the program has assisted some 50 countries with establishing cooperatives and electrical systems for the first time or helping them to rehabilitate ailing systems. One of the largest targets for these efforts has been Bangladesh, where 67 electric co-ops now serve some 20 million people.
Clark credited electric cooperative employees and directors for playing a crucial role in going abroad to help establish new cooperatives and donate equipment. “When NRECA was celebrating the 50th anniversary of REA, we published a list of people from our member co-ops who had participated in our overseas program,” says Clark. “There were 500 names on that list. Now, we could be up to 700 or more.” Among them are many other workers from Wisconsin’s electric co-ops, who frequently take leaves of absence to assist with overseas projects.
The NRECA International Foundation, formed to organize voluntary assistance programs to complement the national organization’s technical assistance program overseas, has provided a big boost. Since 1985, some $3 million in surplus equipment and materials-wire, meters, transformers, lineworker gear, and even generator sets-has been shipped overseas thanks to contributions from NRECA member electric systems across the United States. Numerous Wisconsin cooperatives routinely contribute equipment and money to the foundation.
NRECA’s International program is funded with grants and contracts primarily from the USAID but also funds from other international lending organizations such as the World Bank.

The Power of Many

Clark points out that while in principal the cooperative model has been very successful in developing countries, they have encountered many obstacles as well.
“It takes discipline and organization to set up a cooperative and the infrastructure for an electrical system, not to mention political support. The difficulties that we have had to overcome overseas are testament to the accomplishment of the Rural Electrification Administration to bring electricity to rural America in the 1940s and ’50s and the level of sophistication and service quality that they show today,” he said.
Clark says the core of their program and what has made it work is the sheer strength of desire and motivation of the people to get electricity into their communities. Working with scarce resources and sometimes-limited technical experience, local co-op organizers and workers have proven themselves both innovative and resilient, making the most of hardware and manpower contributed by their American neighbors.
In the words of Allen Beadles, “If ever there was a justified need for U.S. aid, this is it. It’s succeeding.”-Perry Baird, with material from NRECA’s Christine Grammes and photos by Bob Gibson

About a year ago, a story in the New York Times that got scant attention in other media told of a desperate—some might say obscene—attempt by energy conglomerate Enron to wring profit from one of its failing business ventures.
Branching well beyond its original energy-trading business, the Houston-based company sought to cash in on the growing market for high-speed Internet service. But, as with its other over-hyped, under–capitalized, and financially convoluted enterprises, Enron’s broadband unit began to fail.
Ever creative in keeping ahead of creditors, Enron executives reportedly approached General Media Corporation (owner of Penthouse magazine) with a scheme to offer pornography on demand via its Internet service. The Times article noted that Enron apparently made a similar proposal to Playboy Enterprises, but no deal resulted from either overture. A General Media spokesman was quoted expressing surprise that if a supposedly mainstream company such as Enron turns to pornography, “they’re desperate.” As it turned out, indeed they were.

Take It To the Tube

When I first saw the story the thought occurred to me that Enron and its leaders—already known to possess greed, ruthlessness, arrogance, and deceit—had finally stooped to dabbling in a crass, as-yet untapped sin: perversion.
So, with all of that requisite evil going for it, where would be the next stop for the Enron story? Why, network television, naturally. How foolish to think Hollywood wouldn’t consider this slimy morass a hot property.
A made-for-TV movie in January (titled “The Crooked E”) presented a tale with all elements of a prime-time soap opera, particularly the seduction and betrayal of a hapless employee who bought into the Enron mystique and then suffered personal loss and disillusionment. It was an all-too-common theme among real-life employees of the bankrupt company.
I had a hard time swallowing the scene where an upper-level manager (played by Brian Dennehy) has a pang of conscience as Enron is collapsing, and he says he actually “looks forward to jail.” From what we’ve seen thus far from the countless regulatory and judicial proceedings in the wake of Enron’s fall, those who made off with the big cash seem pretty unrepentant.

Working up the ladder

A few days before the program aired, news reports told how government investigators were continuing to squeeze mid-level managers to build cases against the former top bosses. “Working up the ladder,” is how one observer characterized the prosecution’s process. Near the top rung is former President Jeffrey Skilling, whom investigators think was central to setup and profit taking from the telecommunications venture that reportedly courted pornographic content.
Yes, in more ways than one, you could say Enron’s profits were obscene. And we can only hope that those managers who had cause to even fleetingly long for the peace and solitude of jail will get their wish.

From humble beginnings in 1973, in which a mere 35 skiers vied for the first American Birkebeiner title, today’s “Birkie” is heralded as the largest cross-country ski race in the world. The event, staged annually in the Cable–Hayward area, is now part of the Worldloppet circuit of international ski marathons, and the three days of Birkie activities encompass many races for all ages and abilities. Altogether, American Birkebeiner staffers estimate 9,000 skiers and 20,000 spectators from all over the world will attend the 30th-anniversary version of the event, while some 20 million American and European viewers will see the Birkie on TV.
Races for the top skiers—the 51K Johnson Bank American Birkebeiner and the 23K Kortelopet, with a combined total of some 6,500 skiers—begin Saturday morning, February 22, at the Cable Union Airport. The Birkie’s finish line is in downtown Hayward, while the Kortelopet trail doubles back to finish at Telemark Resort, located on Bayfield Electric Co-op lines near Cable.
Races that lead up to the Birkie and Kortelopet include the Salomon Elite Sprints, in which top skiers race head to head; the Sons of Norway/Swiss Miss Barnebirkie, for children 3–13 years of age; the CenturyTel Junior Birkie; the Chequamegon Telephone Cooperative 10K Family Ski Run; and the Hayward Chamber of Commerce Citizen Sprints. Ski demos and an expo will also be held at Telemark Resort Thursday and Friday.

The Birkebeiner and the Kortelopet begin at 8:20 and 8:30 a.m., respectively, at Cable Union Airport on Saturday, February 22. Related cross-country events begin on Thursday, February 20. For more information, call 715/634-5025 or visit www.birkie.org.