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2010 Education Menu
Please select a course from the drop-down menu below.

Dealing with Customer Interest in On-Site Renewable Power Communication and Conflict Resolution Communicating for Your Co-op in Challenging Times The Fiduciary Duty of Director and Employee Officers, NRECA #933.1

Email Stress & Give 'Em A Pickle Seminars
Date: July 15, Quality Suites, Jamestown
REC employees are encouraged to register for this three-hour program. Board members are also invited and welcome to attend.

Brochure
Registration Form

Is your e-mail inbox overflowing? Are you wasting too
much time with e-mail? If so, join us for this three-hour
workshop and receive strategies, tips and ideas for
reducing e-mail volume, improving quality, organizing
e-mail and coaching others about the same issues.

Take customer service to the next level in your cooperative, with a unique approach to fostering customer loyalty. This three-hour program is based on the best-selling book, “Give ’em the Pickle!” by Bob Farrell. Explore
how to connect with people, brighten their day and make a difference
with your members.

“Pickles” are those special or extra things you do to make people happy. It's a handwritten thank you note. It's walking the customer to the item they're looking for rather than pointing, or maybe it's simply calling them by name. The trick is figuring out what your customers want and then making sure they get it. That's the message behind “Give ’em the Pickle!” Highly entertaining and motivational, this customer-service training will inspire you to do the most important thing you can do for your cooperative: Take care of the members.

Dealing with Customer Interest in On-Site Renewable Power
Date TBA—Minot (offered in conjunction with the N.D. REC Member Services Association summer meeting)
For member services professionals, customer service staff, key account representatives and interested general managers

NDMS Meeting Brochure
Member Services Reg. Form
Seminar Reg. Form

Ready or not, customers want to generate their own electricity. This half-day seminar will address why utilities are getting questions about residential-size wind and solar; the different interests of customers; the power supplier’s role; and a step-by-step method to educating customers who ask about residential-size wind or solar systems. Using many visuals and case studies, primarily from Midwestern states, participants will learn how to explain the limitations and economics of on-site generation in a straightforward and non-biased manner.

Key Topics

• Three types of customers and what they want out of self-generation: the environmentalist, the tinkerer and the investor
• Basic concepts every customer needs to understand
• Learning from the experiences of other power suppliers and developing a customer education plan
• A checklist of considerations for customers
• Key tips for power suppliers
• Using a decision chart to keep your co-op on track with educating customers

Instructor: Richard Hiatt is president and executive manager of the Rural Electricity Resource Council (RERC), an educational association formed by electric power suppliers in the early 1950s. RERC now works with approximately 165 electric cooperatives and companies in 20 states, helping them to serve rural and agricultural customers.

Hiatt received his bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from Colorado State University. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky, and is a Registered Professional Engineer. Prior to joining RERC in 1985, he worked for the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives in their member services department.

Communication and Conflict Resolution
Oct. 5 and 6—Fargo and Dec. 8 and 9—Mandan For REC employees

Every work environment experiences many kinds of conflict. Conflict is natural. As long as people are different, they will have varying opinions, approaches and perspectives. It’s how people handle conflict that matters. Conflict can be used as an opportunity to solve problems and change things for the better, or it can be misused to destroy projects and people. This two-day workshop will give participants information and hands-on experience to look at conflict differently, handle it better, and achieve positive outcomes.

The workshop will employ the use of lecture, discussion and role plays in an accepting and fast-paced environment. Participants will also be asked to take part in simulated conflicts to practice resolving conflict. The workshop will not only promote skills for handling conflict, but also team building to make the workplace as productive and supportive as possible.

Key Topics

• People’s attitudes, experiences and beliefs about conflict
• Three primary ways of dealing with conflict
• Different styles of dealing with conflict: the advantages and disadvantages
  Five-step process for conflict containment and resolution
• The art of skillful discussion: advocating, listening and reflecting
• The role of anger and how to handle it if it gets out of hand
• How to handle defensiveness
• Creative and innovative problem-solving

Instructor: Rebecca Monley holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a licensed psychologist and certified mediator. She specializes in the fields of communication and conflict resolution, success orientations and strategies, and family and adolescent therapy.

Monley brings expertise and years of experience as a clinician, supervisor and manager, and adult educator to her training programs. She is the senior management associate with Corporate Human Services, based in Bismarck.

Communicating for Your Co-op in Challenging Times
November 18—Mandan
For all REC employees

Rate increases. Global warming. New headquarters. Territorial squabbles. Mergers and consolidations. New power plants and transmission lines. Environmental concerns. These days cooperatives have a lot to communicate. Every co-op employee is on the front line of that communications challenge every day when they talk to members, family, friends and neighbors. Those daily conversations may do more to shape community perception of the co-op than paid media or marketing plans.

This workshop is a hands-on session without long lectures. It begins with an update on current issues facing the electric utility industry. Then that knowledge will be put to work by asking every participant to practice sharpening their communication skills out loud. By the end of the workshop, participants will come away with an improved understanding of the importance of each employee being an effective communicator for their cooperative.

Key Topics

• Understanding current industry issues
• Simple, effective techniques for handling tough questions and bad news
• Communicating the co-op’s message correctly and consistently
• Enlisting member support
• Following the chain of command to keep the co-op informed on what employees are hearing from the membership

Instructors: Jody Severson and Bryan Singletary are two of the co-op world’s most experienced instructors and troubleshooters.

Jody Severson has 25 years of experience as a communications and political troubleshooter for electric cooperatives across the United States, in addition to being an instructor and conference speaker for NRECA. He teaches NRECA’s board governance course on communication policy and planning; the marketing and communication coursework for the Management Internship Program; and helped author NRECA’s Communication Planning Toolkit. He has assisted distribution cooperatives, generation and transmission cooperatives and statewide associations with polling on controversial issues, as well as worked with a number of them on rate-increase issues.

Instructor: Bryan Singletary, Practical Energies.

The Fiduciary Duty of Director and Employee Officers,
NRECA Board Leadership #933.1
Dec. 1—Mandan
For REC board members

Electric cooperative directors have a fiduciary duty to the membership that elected them. Members of the management team, the co-op attorney and auditor have a fiduciary duty as well.

This comprehensive course focuses on the fiduciary duties, responsibilities and expectations of board officers, operating officers and agents of an electric cooperative board.

Key Topics

• Corporate governance and expectations in today’s business environment
• Defining the duties of today’s cooperative officers
• Responsibilities and expectations of every co-op official
• The cooperative leadership team’s role in assuring good governance
  

Instructor: Robert Patton is the senior principal for education programs at NRECA. His job is to provide advice, counsel and consultation on the development, delivery and staffing of educational programs delivered through NRECA regional and annual meetings, conferences, training programs, symposia and other educational venues.

Patton serves as one of the association’s principal contacts on public policy, member relations and management strategies involving sensitive competitive industry and member-relations issues that may endanger the viability of the electric cooperative business and governance model.

He joined NRECA in 1995 after working 25 years in management positions with the statewide electric cooperative associations in Illinois and Ohio. As director of membership services in Illinois and as a manager of the Ohio statewide association, Patton worked extensively with cooperative boards in assessing training needs and facilitated strategic planning with boards and management. His experience in both states included serving as a registered professional lobbyist before state legislators and regulators.