2025 Annual Meeting Re-Cap
MVEC's Annual Meeting was held in Peosta on August 14th. Through mail-in ballots, online voting and in-person attendance, 1,165 members participated in the governance of the Cooperative they own. Voting members were entered into a drawing for cash prizes totaling $2,000 and those who attended in-person were treated to lunch. During the meeting, CEO Jeremy Richert acknowledged MVEC’s 90th anniversary by highlighting 90 Years Strong: The Power of Cooperative to reliability, affordability, safety, and community. Richert also provided members an update on the MVlink broadband efforts and its impact on service reliability while continuing to maintain affordable rates for both electricity and internet services. He concluded his report by highlighting the cooperative’s recent high customer satisfaction scores for both electric and fiber services.
During the program, Christie Remley, Manager of Communications and Public Relations,
interviewed a panel of four MVEC retirees on their experiences at the co-op spanning nearly seven decades. The panelists included:
• Dorothy Postel, who retired as CEO in 2000.
• Marv Marek, who retired from Member Services in 2006.
• Patty Manuel, who retired as Director of Public Relations in 2021.
• Dan Schulte, who retired in August as Director of Operations.
Some of the questions were: What was it like working at MVEC? What was their favorite memory? Why did they stay so long at MVEC?
An election to fill four MVEC Board seats, Region-1 for a one-year term, Region-2, 3 & 4 for a three-year term. MVEC members were able to vote by mail (ballots were due back to MVEC’s office by Tuesday, August 12th, at noon), by new online voting (votes were due by noon on Wednesday, August 13th), or in person at the Annual Meeting. Attorney Denny Puckett (Sullivan & Ward) presided over the mail-in ballot count, reviewed the online submissions, and oversaw the in-person ballot count. At the end of the Annual Meeting, President Tom Stewart reported on the results of the director election, indicating Lee Hein was elected to Region 1, Tom Stewart was re-elected to Region 2, Ron Thielen was re-elected to Region 3, and Billie Zumbach was re-elected to Region 4.
We congratulate Directors Zumbach, Thielen, and Stewart and welcome Director Lee Hein to the Board. We look forward to working with you to serve the members of Maquoketa Valley Electric Cooperative.
During the Board of Directors re-organizational meeting, the following directors were re-elected to officer positions as follows: President, Tom Stewart; Vice President, Charlie Peters; Secretary, Billie Zumbach and Treasurer, Judy Gotto. Scott Minzenmeyer was elected to be the Assistant Secretary.
A list of cash prize winners can be found at mvec.coop/annual-meeting.