The First One

By Britton Lightsey

On April 28th, Tombigbee celebrated the retirement of longtime CEO, Steve Foshee. Steve has served our membership for almost 25 years. He has been a strong leader with a vision to improve and enhance our area of Northwest Alabama. As I take over this role and explore this new chapter, I am honored to be serving as your new CEO. Steve has spoken about me in his past articles, but I am thrilled to have the chance to share a few things about myself with you.

My wife, Stacie, two daughters, Alexa and Averie, and I have made Winfield our home for the last ten years. We are heavily involved with our community and our church. Before starting at the co-op, I worked 15 years at Alabama Power in various capacities throughout Alabama. My time in Northwest Alabama has been spent serving Marion, Lamar, Fayette, Walker and portions of Franklin and Jefferson counties in several different roles. I joined the Tombigbee team in late June 2022 as chief operating officer. For the past several months, I have studied the daily operations of the cooperative, immersed myself in learning the fiber business, acquainted myself with the board of directors and operated alongside our great group of employees to best serve our electric members and our fiber customers. I am looking forward to the future, and I can promise to serve you to the best of my ability. This includes working with the board and my team of employees to ensure we are doing all we can to communicate with you, working to keep the lights and internet on and the rates and prices as low as possible.

Tombigbee experienced major storm damage throughout the month of March. We have shared some pictures from these storms in this issue. During the storm on March 3, Tombigbee Electric had approximately 65% of its system out of power at the peak of the storm. There was damage throughout our system. On the communications side, we had thousands of customers down due to broken lines and damaged equipment. While the second storm in March was not as widespread, we still had extensive damage in our service territory. We could not have gotten services restored as quickly as possible without the hard work of our outside crews, the dedication of our employees and the assistance from our extended cooperative family. We are immensely grateful for those who answered the call when we needed assistance.

Several of you have mentioned reading Steve’s articles throughout the years for the stories and the energy saving tips. I hope you’ll come to expect the same thing out of me. I am proud to be here and thankful to our board of directors for giving me this opportunity.

Britton Lightsey is the president and CEO of Tombigbee Electric Cooperative. Contact him directly at blightsey@tombigbee.org