Welcome to your 85th Annual Meeting. I’m Rob Schwartz, CEO of your co-op. With us tonight are your board of directors — President Jim Savage, Vice President Todd Smith, Secretary-Treasurer Cindy Scott, Don Wilson, Mark Hahn, Scott Marschand, and Tony Caldwell. Also, here are some staff members — Mike Barron, member services; Matt Mavrick, IT and fiber operations; and Kerri Gaumer administrative assistant and board liaison. I would like to thank pastor Dr. Cole Westwood for the invocation and Rocket Schwartz for the playing of the national anthem.

After some long conversations in the board room, we decided to have our business meeting virtually, like we did during COVID. However, we are doing this for different reasons. We believe it will be easier to find different venues for Member Appreciation Day if we won’t have to accommodate a business meeting. We have also done some benchmarking with other co-ops in our state, and most are doing the business meeting virtually.

It has been a crazy and busy year since well all met last. The electric side of the business has been running like normal and we have had a safe year, which makes me proud.

Our outages were extremely low for 2023. Our average member saw 2.2 hours of outage time. This year started out about the same until May through now. We have seen more inclement weather, which has brought up outage time. Hopefully it will settle down and will get back normal. The cost of power we have to purchase has gone up considerably due to the weather as well. Material poles, wire, and transformers have increased by 24% on average since the last quarter of 2023. However, the lead times on equipment/supplies seem to be getting better, except for transformers.

Our fiber initiative is moving along, although not as fast as we would like. We are throwing a lot of man power and time at it. We are approximately half way done with building out the infrastructure. We are beginning to average six installs per day and hope to increase that to 10 in the next few months.

To remind you, we are building in Miami, Cass, Carrol, and parts of Howard and White counties. We have also seen a significant increase in fiber material costs. We have seen a 28% increase pretty much across the board. Lead times for the communication equipment needed has gone up 38% and the lead times have increased by a minimum of six months. So, needless to say, it has its challenges.

We strive hard as your cooperative to bring the necessities you need to thrive in this ever-changing world. Electricity and internet go hand-inhand to help us all navigate all aspects of what it takes to be safe, healthy, successful, and content. Miami-Cass REMC exists to serve you, our members.