Home Jobs Employment Media Contacts Tours Video Gallery Photo Gallery Event Registration Calendar Generation Portfolio Buy power for resale
Awards
 |
 |
 |
|
Award recipients (from left) Ken Ziegler, Howard Easton and Rich Fockler | ||
Cooperative Spirit Award
Recipients of this year's Cooperative Spirit Award are Howard Easton, Ken Ziegler and Richard Fockler, all former members of senior management at Basin Electric Power Cooperative.
The Cooperative Spirit Award is given for significant services performed by the recipient to Basin Electric and its membership.
Honorees are recognized for having been diligent in all aspects of their electric cooperative-related careers and created value and success for the cooperatives they work with/for through consistent good work.
| On this page |
|
Read about the 2009 Cooperative Spirit Award winners and their Annual Meeting acceptance speech excerpts. |
The award focuses on the recipient’s years of excellent performance, commitment and service to Basin Electric and its member systems. The Cooperative Spirit Award may be given to more than one person annually. The recipient may be a recent retiree, manager or director from Basin Electric, a member system, or another related organization.
This award recognizes the recipient’s outstanding performance and support for innovative and effective cooperative programs. Leadership, effectiveness and extent of impact shall be considered important factors in judging this award.
Howard Easton
 |
|
Howard Easton |
Acceptance speech excerpt:
"I want to thank the Basin Electric board of directors for the 2009 spirit award. I really appreciate it, gentlemen. It’s been thirteen years since I retired, but I do have fond memories of Basin Electric. Thank you again, board. I appreciate the award."
About Howard Easton
Easton joined Basin Electric in 1965 as an electrical engineer after having worked for the Bureau of Reclamation in South Dakota for seven years. For more than three decades, he helped the cooperative face some difficult challenges.
He was Basin Electric’s twelfth employee. In 1968, he was promoted to systems engineer, and in 1972 he became an electrical engineer III. He was promoted to senior electrical engineer in 1974, and in 1975 he was named manager of System Planning and Marketing. In 1985, he assumed his final position of Assistant General Manager of Marketing and Member Services responsible for system coordinating and budgeting activities in addition to what his title suggests.
In the early days, he has said one of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to come up with funding for Unit 2 at the Leland Olds Station. With less than 10 people on staff, they had to pull together $18.6 million dollars from the membership in just 90 days. They did it. Another challenge was constructing the Laramie River Station in Wheatland, Wyoming. With some perseverance, they got it done, and Laramie River has consistently ranked well as a lowest-cost production facility. Easton has said trying to get electric rates down in the mid-1980s was a great hurdle. But, working together as a team, they were able to do it, putting Basin Electric in an excellent position to compete with low-cost generation.
When he retired in 1996, Easton left these words: “Work together as a team, plan for the future, get things done on a timely basis, and trust each other.”
Other Honors
Chairman of the executive and management committees of the Mid Continent Area Power Pool
President of the Rocky Mountain Generation Cooperative
Member of the board of trustees of the North American Electric Reliability Council, the Inland Power Pool and the Western Systems Coordinating Council
Ken Ziegler
 |
|
Ken Ziegler |
Acceptance speech excerpts:
"Thank you Ron, Mr. President, and all the members for this award. My wife, Mona, couldn’t be here with me this evening, but she sends her greetings. She has many, many friends in the Basin Electric family. ...
"I thought they showed a lot of trust in me by handing me the microphone having been retired for ten years and some of the stories I might tell, but I won’t do that. But in my 30 years at Basin Electric, I was very pleased that we had an informed board of directors and membership and it was absolutely essential to our success. I think that as long as our membership is informed we can accomplish almost anything and we proved that over the years, construction programs, and I was fortunate to have a really great staff to work with. All the people at Basin Electric are great.
"... Ron {Harper} talked about United Power being part of our family, and I’m so, so happy that we were able to stop what may have become an effort all across the region to take over co-ops. So, I congratulate the members for having done that, and certainly today your report on the ruling against the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe {railroad}. I was dumbstruck that you accomplished that, but you stuck together and did it. My congratulations. Keep up the good work. Thank you."
About Ken Ziegler
Ken joined Basin Electric in 1969 as a right of way specialist just as the cooperative embarked on a major construction program for the second unit at Leland Olds Station.
In 1985, after serving in other roles at Basin Electric, Ken was promoted to manager of Communications and Government Relations, a role he held until he retired in 1999. During his career, Ken has said one of the things he’s most proud of is the work his department did to keep Union R-E-A, now United Power, in the cooperative family when Public Service Company of Colorado was determined to buy its members out.
A few of his other contributions include helping develop an innovative way of routing power lines and a mapping system that excluded valuable farmland and historic sites; influencing solid environmental legislation based on the cooperative’s Statement of Ideals and Objectives; and helping shape federal reclamation legislation based on what North Dakota had done. A strong believer in cooperatives and member ownership and control, Ken maintained that an effective communications program was essential to the cooperative’s success. With his staff, he implemented a number of expanded programs to keep the membership informed; the annual meeting being the highlight of those efforts.
“I was always very proud to work for a co-op,” Ziegler said. “I never once had difficulty representing myself to congressional representatives or state officials. It’s the best kind of organization to work for. The members are just terrific to work with. As long as I could give them accurate and timely information, nothing could go wrong.”
Ziegler retired in December 1998.
Other Honors
Presented the Eminent Service Award by East River Electric Power Cooperative - Sept. 8, 1999
Presented the Ambassador of Lignite Award by the Lignite Energy Council - Oct. 27, 1999
Member of Sen. Byron Dorgan’s Science & Technology Task Force
Treasurer of the North Dakota Nature Conservancy
President of the National G&T Communicators Association
Trustee for the Platte River Whooping Crane Habitat Maintenance Trust
Advisor for the Midwest Electric Consumers Association’s resolutions committee
Rich Fockler
 |
|
Richard Fockler |
Acceptance speech excerpts:
"Thank you, Ron. I would also like to thank the Board of Directors for the honor of recognizing me with the Cooperative Spirit Award. I would also like to thank many Basin Electric employees past and present who helped make this recognition possible. The base on this award looks like it’s part of an old power plant. I was wondering what happened to the {William J.} Neal Station*. ...
"More than 40 years have passed since Ken Ziegler and I and Howard Easton started at Basin Electric. That’s amazing how much time’s gone by. When I started at the Leland Olds Station, as Ron said, in the 1960s it was an open question whether or not the Leland Olds Station would ever be able to successfully burn lignite and make a reliable low-cost energy for the members. And at that time it was an open question whether all the members would stay around to pay the $30 million that the Leland Olds Station cost. Well, Lee Olds did run successfully and provide low-cost, reliable power for the members and the members stuck around and expanded also.
"The $30 million that Leland Olds Station cost probably doesn’t even pay the sales tax on some of the environmental systems you are putting on those facilities now. ...
"I could not imagine a time we are having right now back in the 1960s. I count it as my privilege to have been part of the Basin Electric family, and to have helped make the Basin Electric organization a reliable, low-cost provider for the membership. On behalf of my family and myself, I want to thank you, the board, and organization for that opportunity. Thank you very much."
About Rich Fockler
Fockler’s career with Basin Electric began in 1969 at Leland Olds Station as a results engineer. Before taking the job, however, he was already familiar with the plant. Four years earlier, while working for Babcock & Wilcox in Ohio, Fockler traveled to North Dakota to assist with the start up of the boiler for the first unit of Leland Olds. During his time at Basin Electric, Fockler was promoted twice. First, from results engineer to Leland Olds plant manager and again to manager of operations in 1975. In the years that followed, his titled changed to vice president of Operations and Engineering.
As an engineer, he liked to keep it simple. He has said that engineers possess an innate ability to “recognize that an ideal machine has very few moving parts. … The perfect machine, from an engineer’s point of view, is a rock – it has no moving parts.”
He retired from Basin Electric in 1999. However, in the many years Fockler worked for the cooperative, his personality, expertise and leadership spurred colleagues to think and act in new and innovative ways to find solutions for accomplishing cooperative goals and objectives. During 1975-85, Fockler represented Basin Electric on the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool (MAPP) Operating Committee for six years and was chairperson for one year. Fockler also served on the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) Operating Committee as a MAPP representative. In late 1988, Fockler began representing Basin Electric on the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council, serving as its chairman for four years.
*Editor's note: The WIlliam J. Neal Station near Velva, ND, was dismantled after many years of service.
Headquarters
1717 East Interstate Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58503-0564 USA
Phone: 701.223.0441
