News > CEO’s Message – February 2024

CEO’s Message – February 2024

Employees Are the Heart of Our Cooperative

In February we celebrate Valentine’s Day, so I thought I’d take some time to highlight the “heart” of serving Stearns Electric member-consumers – our employees. 

Every month, we spend time building and enhancing our Cooperative culture. In 2019, we partnered with an organization called GiANT Worldwide to provide a foundation of leadership and self-awareness tools and resources that we could use companywide. Since then, our employees have taken that foundation and built it up into our Stronger Together culture. 

We have 69 employees, two offices and various roles at Stearns Electric; it is extremely difficult to gather all employees together regularly. However, we maintain consistent communication and cross-department collaboration through our Stronger Together culture – where “employees aspire to be their best self and contribute to everyone’s success.” Every month, each department receives information to review among employees so we can grow ‘stronger together.’ After all, the more we can work together and learn from each other, the more effectively we complete our daily job, which is ultimately serving you, our member-consumers. 

We value our employees and their contributions to our Cooperative’s success. As we prepare for a new headquarters facility, we utilized our experts – our employees – to provide feedback throughout the pre-design process. We asked employees for ways to be efficient with space and help them be effective at their jobs so they could better serve our member-consumers. Their guidance and support directly informed the design of several aspects of the new building. We are excited to implement the ideas that make the most sense for both our business and our budget. 

Culture doesn’t just happen within the office walls. Our annual Energy Education program encourages collaboration among our lineworkers, electricians and office personnel. And it gives our employees a chance to share their passion for the safe work they do to nearly 1,700 students throughout Central Minnesota – our future workforce. Our linemen and staking engineers also visit annually with area students exploring local career opportunities. We love that our employees feel empowered to share their work experience with others. They should be proud of what they do and where they work – I know I am proud of all they do! 

A new opportunity we committed to this year is sending one lineman to Guatemala. I am excited to share that Grant Kulzer will spend about three weeks working with 13 other linemen from cooperatives in Minnesota and Iowa to bring power to homes, businesses and schools in San Marcos, Guatemala through NRECA International. This service project not only supports the cooperative principles of ‘Cooperation Among Cooperatives’ and ‘Concern for the Community,’ but also shows that we are invested in growth opportunities and new experiences for our employees. 

Company culture is going to happen whether we are intentional or not, and Stearns Electric is proud that we choose to be intentional. I want to thank the membership for supporting our Stronger Together culture and I want to thank our employees for the “heart” they bring to their work every day.

Sincerely,

Matt O’Shea
Chief Executive Officer