Community Growth

When you think of an electric cooperative, you don’t necessarily think of community growth, unless you are speaking of poles and wires to a new subdivision. However, several years ago, South Kentucky RECC leaders decided the time had come for the co-op to take a more proactive approach in an effort to help each of its communities grow.

South Kentucky RECC CEO Allen Anderson says the co-op felt it had reached a pivotal point, and needed to take a bigger role in growing and expanding the area.

“The saying goes, ‘If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling backward.’ South Kentucky RECC’s board of directors, management team, and employees decided we needed to increase our efforts to move forward, so our communities can progress. South Kentucky RECC’s mission statement says one of our main goals is to improve the quality of life in our communities. One of the greatest ways we can do this is through economic development and by bringing more jobs to the area. When we decided this was the route we needed to pursue, then we put the wheels in motion.”

Anderson says the first thing the co-op did was to establish the Office of Community and Economic Development and bring Bennie Garland on board as the driver at the helm.

“Bennie Garland was the best person for the job,” says Anderson. “He has a vast wealth of knowledge in procuring grants and funding, and he also has a great network of organizations and people which he can work with. Once we got Bennie in office, things really began to take off.”

According to Anderson, since 2002, South Kentucky RECC has played a part in helping to get $32 million worth of projects funded, creating nearly 1,300 jobs in the South Kentucky RECC service territory.

“A major source of funding for many of these projects has been the USDA’s Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant Program, or REDLG program as we refer to it. These REDLG funds are available only to telephone or electric cooperatives like South Kentucky RECC. The recaptured grant money is used for revolving loan funds that are re-lent to companies, units of government, and non-profits through the co-op. Loans are made for a maximum of ten years at interest rates that are below prime.”

Anderson says the projects that have been funded have varied from revitalizing downtown Albany, Kentucky and helping to fund the construction of a senior citizens facility in Russell Springs to assisting in obtaining funding to help Somerset’s MAC Metal Sales to expand, creating 20 additional jobs, and helping King’s Tire in Whitley City purchase equipment to dispose of used tires by shredding them into a usable by-product, providing an environmentally-friendly solution to a problem, as well as 56 new jobs.

Other projects that have been assisted by South Kentucky RECC include the Otter Creek Academy, a 48-bed, private, non-profit youth treatment facility in Wayne County; Senture, which constructed a new facility in Wayne County and created 250 jobs; the Kentucky Regional High Growth Training Center (Lineman School) currently under construction in Pulaski County to train people to become utility linemen; the Somerset/Pulaski County Development Foundation, which built a new building in the Valley Oak Technology Park in Pulaski County has been leased to Presidium, Inc., thus creating 200 new jobs; and P. J. Murphy Forest Products in Wayne County, which bought equipment to manufacture wood flour, creating 15 jobs.

In addition to funded projects, there are several pending projects, which Anderson says could account for nearly 400 more jobs to the area.

“The goal of South Kentucky RECC and its board of directors and employees through this program was to try to help our communities develop and expand. Our expectations have been far surpassed and realized. It has been a good experience for us as a co-op, and we would hope that our members would agree. It has also been recognized across the state, with other co-ops seeking our input and advice on how to do this in their communities.”

Anderson adds that he hopes this shows the co-op’s members and others that South Kentucky RECC is not just about poles and wires, it is about community and bringing value to that community.