During the fifties and sixties, three specific industries made a significant contribution to the ten-county area served by your Cooperative.  Hamilton, Saline and White Counties had the oil industry, Hardin and Pope were noted nationwide for the quality and quantity of fluorspar extracted from that area, and Franklin, Williamson and Saline were all the site of substantial coal mining activity.

Although there is still a significant amount of coal extraction from Saline County, those who lived in Southern Illinois during the peak activity periods of the three above noted industries can testify to the positive economic influence that each had on the area we call “home”.

If any good has come from the loss of industry and jobs situation that has plagued our area as well as the rest of the nation, it is the fact that more people than ever recognize the importance of attracting and retaining business and industry in their respective communities.

Business and industry not only provide jobs for us and our children, but also contribute to enhanced services and lower taxes due to the greater tax base created by larger county populations, not to mention the tax contribution made directly by business and industry themselves.

With all of that said, its time to address the importance of business and industry to your electric cooperative and without getting overly complex, let me say that the electric energy usage pattern of most industry and larger business is much better than that of the average residence.  More specifically most large business customers use about  the same amount of electricity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week as compared to the typical residential type load that has very light energy usage from 10:00 p.m. through 7:00 a.m.

Since electrical energy is sold on the wholesale market in the two major components of demand and energy (demand equaling the total electrical load of a wholesale customer and energy being a kilowatt-hour as it appears on your own residential meter), the consistency of demand or load created by commercial customers lets your Cooperative purchase energy at an average price that is significantly less than it would be if we only served residential customers.  Consequently, all SouthEastern members benefit in the form of lower electric rates and that is where Touchstone Energy comes into our equation.

In 1997 when Illinois and a number of other States introduced legislation deregulating the electric industry, SouthEastern and other cooperatives across the nation were concerned about the loss of commercial and industrial customers to other power suppliers through a process known as “cherry picking”.  Cherry picking would allow other power suppliers to come into a cooperative territory and take only the largest commercial-type loads which could negatively affect the wholesale power purchase component ratio, possibly resulting in a rate increase for remaining cooperative members.

To offset that possibility, the Touchstone Energy Brand was created with a focus on providing exceptional service to all members, but with a primary emphasis on commercial and industrial customers.

The Touchstone Energy Brand emphasizes four core values- integrity, accountability, innovation and commitment to community, and even though the threat of deregulation has somewhat been put to rest by the events in California and the shenanigans of Enron, the 600 plus cooperatives in 44 States who participate in Touchstone, including 23 out of 27 Illinois Electric Cooperatives, have “raised the bar for themselves”.  In addition many large chain stores including WalMart and Lowes regularly participate in Touchstone sponsored events. More specifically SouthEastern currently is involved with an application for electric service from a very large customer who has expressed their preference for dealing with us as a result of a very positive relationship with another Touchstone Energy Cooperative.

Touchstone Energy has created a Business Advisory Council to assist cooperatives in dealing with large corporate customers and also sponsors the SitesAcrossAmerica Web site which provides companies with important information in order to make their decision to locate in cooperative territory an easy one.

In addition to the Touchstone Energy television advertisements, member cooperatives have joined with the Discovery Channel to provide quality education materials to schools across the county, and an unforeseen benefit of the Touchstone Energy Alliance has been the positive influence it has had on cooperative employees who find comfort in knowing their employers have a focus on integrity and accountability, especially in this period of time when there appears to be a shortage of those two values at the highest level of corporate America.

There are numerous other Touchstone programs which for the sake of brevity won’t be mentioned here, but if you have any questions please give me a call and I’ll explain why  our 2005 National Touchstone energy fee, which equates to about ninety cents per year for each of SouthEastern’s 22,755 accounts, is a good investment for your Cooperative.

See you next month and as always, "We’ll keep the lights on for you."