The Board of Directors of the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives has a new leadership team.
Serving as chair of the VMDAEC board for 2021-22 is Russell G. “Rusty” Brown, a director at Northern Neck Electric Cooperative in Warsaw, Va. Brown is a banker with Atlantic Union Bank & Trust in the Northern Neck and also is a director at Colorado-based CoBank, a cooperative lending institution.
“I am looking forward to working with our board and continuing our mission of serving our members by providing safe, reliable, affordable electricity and other necessary services for rural communities,” he said.
The vice-chairman for 2021-22 is Wade C. House. He is chairman of the board of Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative and is retired as president of the Virginia division of a large highway construction and materials manufacturing company.
Serving as secretary/treasurer will be C. Michael Sandridge, who represents BARC Electric Cooperative on the association board. Sandridge is retired from administration at the Rockbridge Regional Jail and currently a livestock producer. He lives on the farm once owned by his grandfather.
The leaders were elected during the association’s July 26 77th annual business meeting at the Marriott Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel, where more than 300 directors, CEOs and co-op leaders together at an in-person event for the first time in more than a year.
They will guide the course of the association as it delivers services to cooperatives that provide power to about 2 million people in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
“Each of these officers also serves on the board of their local electric cooperative and on one or more of the association’s 10 committees,” said Brian Mosier, president and CEO of the association. “We truly depend upon their commitment to provide input on how to expand and improve the services we provide our member cooperatives.”
Outgoing chair Patricia Dorey joked that she didn’t have a gavel to turn over to Brown, since she was elected at a virtual meeting in 2020 and only laid eyes on her gavel at this year’s meeting. Yet, “these unprecedented challenges have made us stronger in many ways,” she said.
Above photo: Russell G. “Rusty” Brown, incoming VMDAEC board chair, and Patricia S. Dorey, whose term as board chair ended at the association’s annual meeting. (Photo By: Steven Johnson)