Owen EC
A Scholarship Program That Works
October 1996
 It’s not all
that unusual for a business to run a scholarship program, but at
Owen Electric Cooperative, based in Owenton in northern Kentucky,
they put their scholarship winners to work.
Each year since
1991 the consumer-owned utility, which provides electricity to
nearly 37,000 consumers in nine counties, has presented scholarships
of $2,000 each to nine students (except for one year when 10
students received scholarships). The candidates must be
college juniors or seniors, they or their parents must receive
electricity from Owen Electric Cooperative, and they must be willing
to serve an orientation week in August. During that week,
scholarship recipients are assigned to work in different
areas of the cooperative (they do get paid for the week of work).
The work they do
includes a team project analyzing and making recommendations on part
of Owen Electric’s operations, and reporting those results at
a staff meeting at the end of the week.
“The
suggestions these students make at the staff meeting are taken to
heart,” says Bill Gill, Owen’s vice president for marketing and
communications. “We assign them areas we think need an objective
review from an outside party. Their work many times results in
changes here at Owen.”
This past August
the students tackled three projects: improve the way the cooperative
estimates future electricity use, improve the efficiency of the
system for opening new customer accounts, and recommend new programs
and services that consumers might want to receive from the
cooperative.
The scholarship
program is funded in a uniquely cooperative way as well. The
money comes from the interest from unclaimed capital credits. What
are capital credits? In a profit-making business, they would be
called dividends, which are paid to investors out of the profits.
But because Owen Electric is a not-for-profit, consumer-owned
business, money above what is needed to run the business is returned
to the customer in proportion to how much has been paid in electric
bills over the years. Capital credit money for people who may
have moved or otherwise cannot be located is put into a
reserve fund, and it is the interest off that money that has been
used for the scholarships.
“We’re very
pleased with the success of the program,” says Frank Downing,
president and chief executive officer of Owen Electric
Cooperative. “We’re not only able to help our consumers, but we
also help the cooperative operations. It has worked quite
well for us.”-Paul Wesslund |
