THE WAY

Second Year Leading The

A.C. “Pat” Hecox, a director for Dawson Public Power District, in Lexington, Neb., is the association’s board president.

“A friend once told me that we can’t live in a vacuum. We should leave the world better than how we found it,” Hecox said. “I’ve volunteered and served on many boards because it is what I feel I should do – be a part of making it better for others.”

Hecox said he enjoys continuing to learn about the electric industry and the public power model in Nebraska.

“Every meeting I go to – whether it’s Dawson PPD’s monthly board meeting or a regional or a national one – I always learn something new,” he said. “Now that I have a more in-depth understanding of electric utilities and public power, I realize that Nebraska is a special place. Public power is not for profit. It is locally controlled by people who live within their power provider’s service territory. You see and hear that a lot, but the more involved I am the more I understand the value and importance of public power.”

“We strive to provide value to our customers beyond electrifying their home,” he said.

Hecox and his wife, Deb, have three children and six grandchildren. He enjoys playing golf, shooting sports, and welding art.

The Nebraska Rural Electric Association (NREA) is the private non-profit trade association for 34 rural electric systems that provide electric service to consumers in most of the rural areas and many of the small towns in the great State of Nebraska. Together, the more than 1,040 dedicated employees of our member-systems serve over 251,000 meters across more than 85,000 miles of line.

In the 1930s, rural leaders took on the enormous task of building the electric utility infrastructure in Nebraska that would provide themselves and their neighbors with reliable and affordable electricity. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created by executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 11, 1935, and NREA was formed in October of that year to help these early leaders deal with problems of standardizing line construction and obtaining wholesale power supplies. That legacy continues today.

Over the years, NREA's mission has evolved to include a broad range of activities to assist our member-systems as they face the many challenges of providing low-cost, reliable electric service to the rural regions of Nebraska.