Habersham EMC`s Legacy Continues

Habersham Electric
Membership Corporation
A Touchstone Energy® Cooperative
May 2013
The Official Publication for Members of Habersham EMC
Habersham EMC’s Legacy Continues
Through the Operation Round Up® program, HEMC Members have awarded more than $1 million to worthy individuals and
organizations within our service area.
H
abersham EMC is celebrating its 75th
Anniversary this year. Join us as we continue
our journey through this rich history. Part five of our
series travels through the 2000s.
The new millennium brought more advances in technology and a greater demand for electricity—and efficiency. In
January 2003, HEMC
opened the Cleveland
office, a full-service
branch, to better meet
the needs of members
in White, northern Hall
and eastern Lumpkin
counties.
An Operation
Round Up program was
implemented in 2004,
as a way for Members
to collectively support
worthy local organizations and individuals in
The Cleveland office opened January
our community. The same year, PowerGuard Security,
a division of Habersham EMC, began to provide installation and monitoring of both residential and commercial security systems.
Watch for more historical reflections throughout 2013.
PowerGuard Security was voted Best Security Company in
2011 and 2013 by readers of The Northeast Georgian.
Melanie Peek, left, with the Cornelia newspaper, presents
the certificate.
20, 2003.
Visit Habersham EMC’s 75th Anniversary website for more history: habershamemc75th.com
Habersham EMC—Proud of our past, prepared for our future.
May 2013
22A
Habersham EMC Announces Habersham EMC Appoints
2013 Nominating Committee New Board Member
I
n accordance with the
bylaws, Article II,
Section 3.04, the Board of
Directors of Habersham
EMC, at their meeting on
March 26, 2013, appointed
a nominating committee
to make nominations to
fill the positions held
by David Crouch, East
District; Ray Meaders,
West District; and Dan
Thurmond, West District.
Three directors are
elected each year for
three-year terms. Nominations are made by the
committee and also may
be made by petition.
Members wishing to run
for a board position must
be a resident of either the
East or West District.
The Nominating
Committee will meet May
16, 2013, to make nominations. Any member interested in being a candidate
should contact a member
of the Nominating
Committee by the early
part of May.
Nominations by the
nominating committee, as
well as any made by petition, will be posted in the
Habersham EMC Clarkesville and Cleveland offices,
and will be published in
this newsletter prior to the
HEMC Annual Meeting on
July 25, 2013.
The following are
members of the 2013
Nominating Committee:
2013 NOMINATING COMMITTEE
Reginald C. Coley
110 Walker Branch Ct.
Clarkesville, GA 30523
(706) 754-1057
Joe Ed Holcomb
4142 Highway 254
Cleveland, GA 30528
(706) 969-8724
Patrick Franklin
1279 Toccoa Highway
Mount Airy, GA 30563
(706) 499-6267
Lee Marsengill
511 Gibson Road
Clarkesville, GA 30523
(706) 754-5047
A
special HEMC Board
meeting was held
March 13, 2013, to fill the
unexpired term of Director
Carl Tallent Jr., who recently
passed away. According to
the bylaws, it is the responsibility of the Board of
Directors to appoint a
replacement. David Crouch,
of Turnerville, was appointed
and will serve the remaining
term that will be up for
election at the Annual
Meeting on July 25, 2013.
Crouch has lived in
Georgia his entire life, moving to Habersham County
in 1982. He is the owner of
Coon Dog Auto Parts Inc.
in Clarkesville. Crouch and
his wife, Teresa, reside in
Turnerville, where they
raise beef cattle, meat goats
and a small flock of chicks
at their Turkey Crest Farms.
The couple attends The
Torch, and Crouch is a
member of the Gideons.
He has a grown daughter,
Trisha, and a granddaughter, Sydney.
David Crouch
Crouch holds an
Associate of Arts degree
from Reinhardt College and
a Bachelor of Science
degree from the University
of Georgia. He also serves
on the Habersham County
Farm Bureau Board of
Directors.
“I am extremely humbled, honored and blessed
to be appointed to the
HEMC board. I feel I’ve
been given a gift of servanthood and want to apply
that to serving the HEMC
Members,” Crouch says.
Save the Date!
In honor of our 75th anniver-
James F. Gragg
P.O. Box 332
Tiger, GA 30576
(706) 782-6055
Phillip Robinson
390 Robinson Road
Cleveland, GA 30528
(706) 878-9740
Donald Welborn
3467 Highway 255 South
Cleveland, GA 30528
(706) 865-2495
22B
sary, Habersham EMC will
hold the 2013 Annual
Meeting on Thursday, July
25. HEMC was incorporated
on this same date in 1938! The
event will be held at the
Habersham Ninth Grade Academy
in Mount Airy.
www.habershamemc.com
GEORGIA MAGAZINE
Light Reading
Official Monthly Publication
of Habersham EMC
BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Chairman,
Hugh Rucker; Vice Chairman, Rick
Wood; Sec.-Treas., George Fry; Herman
Barrett, David Crouch, Jeff Ferguson,
Frank McCrackin, Ray Meaders
and Dan Thurmond.
STAFF: President/CEO, Todd Pealock;
Manager of Marketing and
Contact Centre, David Foster;
Director of Marketing and Contact
Centre, Susan Baker; Editor,
Marketing and Communications
Specialist, Nicole Dover, CCC.
EMERGENCY SERVICE: Call (706) 7542114 or (800) 640-6812.
Cleveland Branch Office, (706)
865-4362 or (800) 640-6812.
OFFICE HOURS: Monday through
Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Clarkesville
drive-thru Monday through Friday,
7:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
SERVICE AREA: Serving members in
Habersham, Hall, Lumpkin, Rabun,
Stephens and White counties.
MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 25,
Clarkesville, GA 30523
SHIPPING ADDRESS: 6135 State Hwy.
115 West, Clarkesville, GA 30523
WEBSITE: www.habershamemc.com
EMAIL: forinfo@hemc.net
Habersham EMC is an equal opportunity
employer, M/F/V/H, and a drug-free workplace.
TELEPHONE: Clarkesville Headquarters,
(706) 754-2114 or (800) 640-6812;
HEMC — THE POWER OF 34,000 MEMBER-OWNERS AND THEIR FAMILIES
HEMC Employees Donate
to Circle of Hope
Suzanne Dow,
left, Executive
Director of the
Circle of Hope,
accepts a check
from HEMC
employee
Valerie Stamey.
A
s part of a community
service initiative, a
group of HEMC employees organized an indoor
yard sale to benefit the
Circle of Hope, a local
organization that provides
shelter and services for
victims of domestic abuse
and their children. HEMC
employees donated items
for the event, and promotional ads were placed
with local media outlets.
A steady crowd
helped make this event a
success, with some buyers
giving extra money as a
donation. As a result,
HEMC raised $1,200 for
the Circle of Hope.
Holiday Closing
Habersham EMC offices in
Clarkesville and Cleveland
will be closed Monday,
May 27, in observance of
Memorial Day. Personnel
will be available in case of
an outage. To report an
outage, please call (706)
754-2114, (706) 865-4362
or (800) 640-6812.
May 2013
Fain and Padawer
HEMC’s Washington
Youth Tour Delegates
H
abersham Central High School student Megan Fain and
White County High School student Ella Padawer will
spend part of their summer attending the Washington
Youth Tour, an all-expenses-paid leadership experience
sponsored by the electric membership corporations
(EMCs) in Georgia.
Selected through a contest held
at Habersham EMC, Megan and Ella
will be among 106 high school juniors at the eight-day event, set for
June 13-20, with stops in Atlanta
and Washington, D.C. As Georgia’s
oldest leadership program for teens,
the Washington Youth Tour is
designed to teach high school students about U.S. history, the role of
Megan Fain
government and the importance of
community and public service.
Megan is the daughter of Jeff
and Deborah Fain, of Cornelia. Ella
is the daughter of Ariel and Orly
Padawer, of Cleveland.
Nicole Dover, Washington
Youth Coordinator at Habersham
EMC, says the Youth Tour is
an opportunity for exceptional
students to meet members of
Georgia’s congressional delegation
Ella Padawer
and visit historical points of interest
in Georgia and the nation’s capital. “Particularly during
their formative years, the trip opens them up to possibilities they otherwise may not have considered,” says Dover.
“When you add personal tours of the memorials and
monuments, and stories of sacrifices by others, the Youth
Tour offers a history lesson that can’t be learned from any
textbook or classroom in Georgia.”
22C
Members Rank Habersham EMC High
for Customer Satisfaction in Survey
A
s one of more than 700
Touchstone Energy
cooperatives, Habersham
EMC uses Touchstone
Energy Services (TSE
Services) to conduct a
Member Satisfaction
Tracking Survey. TSE
Services selects a sample
of members, completes a
telephone survey, analyzes
the data and writes reports
to ensure a continuous
measure of member
satisfaction.
Each quarter, approximately 255 residential and
small commercial member
interviews are conducted.
All surveyed members are
asked to rate their satisfaction with service received
from Habersham EMC, as
well as other service
providers.
Habersham EMC’s
average score for 2012 was
9.16 on a 10-point scale. In
comparison, the Quarterly
Benchmark among 39
electric cooperatives across
the country was 8.90.
In cooperation with
Touchstone Energy, TSE
Services asks four core
questions from the
American Customer
Satisfaction Index (ACSI),
on behalf of cooperatives
participating in the survey.
1st Qtr
2012
2nd Qtr
2012
HEMC
87
87
TSE SERVICE GROUP
84
84
TOUCHSTONE ENERGY CO-OPS
81
82
TOP INVESTOR-OWNED UTILITIES (IOU)
83
84
OTHER COOPERATIVES
83
83
IOU AGGREGATE
76
74
Habersham EMC wants to thank our members for giving us good
ratings. As a member-owned cooperative, we are always looking
for ways to offer the highest level of service. If you have any
suggestions, please communicate those with us.
Responses are submitted to
leading corporations
the ACSI for scoring, allowing across the economic
cooperatives to compare
spectrum.
their performance with the
The ACSI tracks trends
in customer satisfaction
and has proved to be a
3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
2012
2012
2012
Average
powerful economic
indicator for companies,
88
87
87.25
industry trade associations
84
84
84.00
and government agencies.
ACSI scores are rated on
83
85
82.75
a 100-point scale. To the
85
85
84.25
left is Habersham EMC’s
average score for 2012,
82
81
82.25
compared to other com76
76
75.50
panies in our industry.
Saturday, May 18
Clarkesville
Parade • Outdoor Food Court
Arts & Crafts • Children’s Activities
Live Music • Fireworks Finale
For more information:
(706) 754-4216
www.clarkesvillega.com
22D
www.habershamemc.com
GEORGIA MAGAZINE