Arrowhead Electric Cooperative Inc. General Manager Don Stead has announced his resignation from the electric cooperative. He is accepting a position at Homer Electric Association in Homer, Alaska. Assistant Manager Jeanne Muntean will be the interim manager. The two worked together to earn LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council and are pictured here with the award received in June 2010.
On September 13, 2010, the Arrowhead Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI) issued two pieces of surprising information. First, the cooperative announced that it would be the recipient of $16,137,484 of Recovery Act funding to provide fiber optic service to residential and commercial members of Arrowhead Electric Cooperative. The second news is that Don Stead, general manager/CEO of AECI, was announcing his resignation.
The two pieces of information are not related. Don and his wife, Sherri, lived in Alaska for many years and their son still resides there. The couple planned to retire to Alaska in five years, but on a recent visit, Don was offered a job at his former company, Homer Electric Association in Homer.
Stead said the job offer came at the same time that the AECI board of directors had decided to withdraw its grant application from the Department of Agriculture Recovery Act Broadband Infrastructure Program. He decided it was an appropriate time to move to Alaska. Then at a subsequent meeting, at Stead’s urging, the cooperative board decided to rescind its withdrawal and continue to seek funding for the project.
“The timing is bad,” said Stead in a phone interview. “I really would have liked to have been here for the build-out of the fiber optic project, but that didn’t work out.”
Stead’s last day at Arrowhead Electric is September 24, 2010. TheAECI board of directors said it was with regret that they accepted Stead’s resignation.
Stead has served as general manager/ CEO since June of 2005. During his tenure as general manager/CEO, Arrowhead built a new substation, saw a generating station built in Colvill to better serve the members, and remodeled and added to the cooperative headquarters, earning a LEED Gold Certification for environmental and energy-efficient building standards.
Assistant Manager Jeanne Muntean has been named interim general manager while the board of directors works with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) to conduct a manager search.
Muntean said, “I think it’s great that the board put its faith in me to fill this position—it’s a big job with the upcoming broadband project. I’m going to work very hard to do what’s good for the members.”
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