SMECO serviceman Dave Brown demonstrates the new Mobile Workforce Management system for Gov. O’Malley

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) welcomed Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley on Thursday, July 26, for a tour of the Co-op’s headquarters in Hughesville.

Joe Slater, SMECO President and Chief Executive Officer, gave O’Malley an overview of the history and values of the Cooperative. Slater told the governor that SMECO is owned by its customer-members and provides electricity at cost with no mark-up. He outlined SMECO’s managed portfolio approach to purchasing power, which helps keep energy costs down for customer-members. O’Malley asked Slater several questions about this approach. The governor also had questions about how regional energy markets and utility deregulation have affected SMECO.

Following the presentation, O’Malley met with SMECO servicemen Dave Brown and Jay Herbert, who demonstrated the Cooperative’s new mobile workforce management system. Using laptop computers in their trucks, SMECO field personnel can obtain detailed information about outage calls and other work requests, and they can get real-time data back into the computer system more quickly. The Cooperative expects to fully implement this system by July 2008.

SMECO’s Safety Division held a Hot Line Demonstration for O’Malley. The demonstration, which is part of the Cooperative’s safety education strategy, showed how kite strings and tree limbs can pose dangers when they come into contact with live power lines.

The final leg of the tour was SMECO’s Operations Center, where Cooperative personnel oversee SMECO’s electric transmission and distribution system. Employees from the Logistics and Systems Operations Division showed how SMECO monitors the system’s electric load and dispatches its field crews.

The visit to SMECO took place the day after the Governor’s Energy Summit, where O’Malley invited experts to discuss ways of keeping energy affordable in Maryland. Participating in the summit was Kenneth Capps, SMECO’s Vice President, Engineering and Operations and Chief Operating Officer.

 
O’Malley greets SMECO Board Chairman Daniel W. Dyer
 

O’Malley with SMECO officials and local legislators outside the Cooperative’s Hughesville headquarters. From left: Maryland Del. John Bohanan, SMECO Director Gilbert Bowling, Maryland Del. Sally Jameson, SMECO Director W. Rayner Blair III, SMECO President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Slater, O’Malley, SMECO Director Richard A. Winkler, SMECO Board Chairman Daniel W. Dyer, and SMECO Directors W. Michael Phipps, James A. Richards, and J. Douglas Frederick.

 

SMECO is a customer-owned electric cooperative providing electricity to over 142,000 services in southern Prince George’s County, and in Charles County, St. Mary’s County, and all but the northeast portion of Calvert County.  Co-ops are distinctly different from investor-owned utilities because co-ops are owned by their customers, and these members vote for men and women who sit on the Board of Directors.  As one of over 600 Touchstone Energy Co-ops, SMECO promotes