Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

Real stories of co-op electric utility operators overcoming challenges and serving their communities. Co-hosted by James Tanneberger (CEO of SCI-REMC) and Pablo Fuentes (CEO of Bloom Spatial).

Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators is a business podcast hosted by Bloom Spatial, with 35 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Bloom Spatial hosts Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators, a business show with 35 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

  034: Beyond the Balance Sheet: Cooperation, Trust, and the Business Case for Generosity (with James Tanneberger)

  Aug 31, 202617 min

  In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about one of the more unexpected questions in the cooperative world: can the co-op model work anywhere else? James speaks candidly about what it actually felt like to walk into an electric cooperative after years at investor-owned and municipal utilities, and how handing margins back to members changes something deeper than the balance sheet. He walks through what he calls "thinking long," the idea that real relationships in business come from generosity rather than squeezing every dollar out of every deal, and how that mindset built trust that outlasted any single transaction. To make the principle concrete, James shares how his co-op built a debt-free middle-mile fiber network through an equity-based deal with its members, then gave away the entire playbook, legal work, consulting, and processes included, to other states rather than guarding it. That decision has since grown into a shared model across 15 states, built entirely on trust rather than competition. Featured topics: Why "thinking long" and radical generosity build trust that competition can't buy The debt-free fiber network built through member equity, and why it was given away for free What happens when private companies try to sectionalize off a piece of their business for the greater good Lessons from the EV charging and nuclear industries on when competitors must agree on standards Why data interoperability, not proprietary advantage, will define the next generation of vendors How the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) model points toward shared standards across the industry James and Pablo close with a challenge to private companies everywhere: the businesses willing to open up, share data, and build trust will outlast the ones trying to protect a proprietary edge. This is a conversation about what happens when a nonprofit mindset meets a for-profit world, and why the co-ops that gave the most may end up gaining the most in return.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

  033: Bridging the Gap: Succession, AI, and the Future of Co-op Leadership (with James Tanneberger)

  Aug 17, 202618 min

  In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about one of the most pressing challenges facing electric cooperatives today: the coming wave of retirements and how to manage the knowledge transfer that comes with it. James speaks candidly about the generational gap co-ops are facing, roughly 9 million fewer people in Generation X than in the Baby Boomer generation, and what that means for building a bench deep enough to replace 30-plus years of institutional expertise. He walks through the real risk of a "transition mismanaged," drawing on an experience at one of the country's largest utilities where an entire engineering discipline rested on a single expert with no one behind him. To bridge that gap, James's co-op is bringing retiring staff back on contract to capture their knowledge before it's gone for good, and building a private AI tool the team affectionately calls "Shirley," trained on the co-op's own board minutes, business documents, and communications so institutional memory doesn't walk out the door with the people who hold it. He's candid about what it actually takes to get that kind of system to work: not just the technology, but the discipline of getting good data in, and giving people a real sense of mission around capturing it. Featured topics: Why succession planning starts with leaders figuring out how to replace themselves, sooner rather than later The generational math behind the co-op workforce gap, and why AI is becoming the bridge Building "Shirley," a private AI trained on institutional knowledge, business records, and email What a mismanaged transition looks like, and how a short bench can cripple even the largest utilities How cooperatives lean on trust and shared learning across the industry instead of competing on it Why interoperability and a "listen first" approach from vendors will define the next generation of co-op technology James closes with a look toward The Great Progression, a coming book on AI, clean power, and bioengineering, and the case that the next 25 years could be the most productive in cooperative history, if co-ops are willing to think ahead now. This is a conversation about turning a demographic challenge into a technological opportunity, and making sure decades of hard-won expertise outlast the people who built it.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

  032: Slow Down to Speed Up: Leading Through Crisis and Change (with Jennifer Brogdon)

  Aug 3, 202634 min

  In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with Jennifer Brogdon, CEO and General Manager of Upper Cumberland EMC, recorded live at the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association meeting in Florence, Alabama. Jennifer's story is one of family roots, hard-won trust, and learning to lead through a crisis before she'd even settled into the job. Jennifer grew up watching her uncle become an electrical engineer and her grandfather work as a lineman, and she followed a similar path into TVA, where she spent 28 years moving through engineering, marketing, and eventually regulatory oversight of local power companies. That last role taught her how to be both a help and a hard conversation, and it built the relationships that would later pull her into a co-op CEO seat. Six weeks into the job, one of the worst ice storms in the co-op's history knocked out power to a third of its members. Jennifer walked through what it took to lead a team through repeated freeze and collapse cycles, why communicating constantly with members mattered as much as restoring the lines, and how that storm exposed a system still run on paper lists and yellow post-its. What followed was a lesson in change management that took nearly a year to get right, not because the solution was wrong, but because the people who had to live with it weren't part of choosing it. Jennifer talks about stalling a rollout, rebuilding trust with her district managers, and the moment a visit to a neighboring co-op turned resistance into buy-in. Featured topics: Coming up through TVA and the pull toward co-op leadership Leading a team through a week-long ice storm crisis six weeks into the role Why the "perfect" solution failed and what got the outage management system finally adopted The role of story and peer relationships in change management Where AI, distributed generation, and standardization are taking the grid over the next decade Jennifer's outlook on where cooperatives are headed treats today's supply chain pressure and rising demand as an opening rather than a threat, one where co-ops build new expertise instead of waiting for someone else to solve it for them. This is a conversation about what it looks like to lead through the moment nobody trained you for, and come out the other side with a better system and a stronger team.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

  032: Why This CEO Thinks Every Co-op Should Steal Each Other's Best Ideas (with James Tanneberger)

  Jul 20, 202613 min

  In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, we sit down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about the programs that turn a utility into a neighbor. He makes the case that the smallest gestures, a rounded up bill, a hat off a Christmas tree, a hand on a truck door, are what set a cooperative apart from anywhere else he has worked. James came to co-ops after years at municipal and investor owned electric companies, including the largest electric company in the country. South Central Indiana REMC is his first cooperative, and after eight and a half years there he says the culture is different in a way that shows up everywhere, especially in how close the company stays to the community it serves. He walks through Operation Roundup, where members' bills are rounded up to the next dollar and a volunteer committee decides which nonprofits get the funds, right down to a heated debate over whether to fund a stray cat rescue. He talks about the employee auction that raises money for Christmas baskets, the tag tree in the lobby where staff pick a child's name and gift, and the coats and gloves left out all winter for anyone who needs them, no questions asked. Featured topics: How Operation Roundup works, and what actually happens in the room when members decide where the money goes The Christmas auction and basket program, and how linemen end up bidding on $1,000 ladders for a good cause The hat and glove tree in the lobby, and why the co-op never asks who takes one Touch a truck events and live line demos, and what it means to teach kids and first responders real electrical safety Where James finds new ideas, from IEC's monthly roundup of co-op news to conversations between neighboring co-ops Why he thinks the industry needs a shared library of these community programs, so no one has to reinvent them alone James is not describing a marketing strategy. He is describing a company where showing up for the community is just what people do, whether that means running a chainsaw, chairing a committee, or handing a stranger a pair of gloves. This is a conversation about what it looks like when a cooperative decides its job includes more than keeping the lights on.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators

  030: Shrinking the Footprint: The Future of Co-op Data Centers (with James Tanneberger)

  Jul 6, 202619 min

  div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 standard-markdown"> In this episode of The Co-op Heroes Podcast, Pablo Fuentes sits down with James Tanneberger, CEO of South Central Indiana REMC, to talk about a subject that gets more contentious by the month: electric cooperatives and data centers. Tanneberg makes the case that the mega load data centers people love to hate are already being replaced by something smaller, quieter, and a lot more useful to the communities hosting them. Most people picture a data center the same way: 300 to 500 acres, seven buildings at a billion dollars apiece, millions of gallons of water running through and back out into a river. That picture is a year or two out of date. Tanneberger has spent the last year studying what comes next, and what he has found is that the technology is shrinking fast. Closed cycle cooling instead of continuous water flow. Denser GPUs in smaller footprints. Modular units that fit in shipping containers and could sit inside the fence of a substation. The conversation goes past the buildings themselves and into what a data center can actually do for a co-op. Tanneberger's system is 98 percent residential, which means the co-op buys power at the two most expensive times of day, morning and evening, when everyone is home. A data center runs flat, all day, every day. Pair the two load curves and the co-op ends up buying more power when it's cheap, which brings costs down instead of up. Some of these smaller sites can even be set up as load modifying resources, meaning the co-op can shift a data center over to backup generation during a grid emergency and sell that flexibility back to the system operator. Revenue that didn't exist before, going straight into things like underground line conversions. Featured topics: Why the mega load data centers of the last decade won't be the norm going forward, and what's replacing them How pairing data center load with residential load curves can actually lower the cost of power for members What a load modifying resource is, and how a data center paired with a backup generator can support grid reliability during peak demand The idea of distributed AI, and how existing co-op fiber infrastructure could network small modular sites together instead of building one massive campus The "a la carte" or colo data center model, and why it may end up being the more common version in rural America Why national security arguments around AI are shaping local permitting decisions whether communities like it or not Tanneberger isn't arguing that data centers are good or bad. He's arguing that the version most people are picturing is already becoming outdated, and that co-ops who understand the shift early have a real chance to turn an unpopular trend into a benefit for their members. This is a conversation about reading where an industry is headed before the rest of the room catches up.

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Co-Op Heroes: Stories from Electric Utility Operators. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.