Cooperative Living January 2015 - 5

EDITORIAL
by Jack Reasor
COOPERATIVE RESILIENCY
In these times of ever-encroaching uncertainty, one thing
you can still depend on is your cooperative's dedication to
meeting your ―and your community's - energy needs.
What do Hurricane Sandy and
the major data breach that occurred
at Target last year have in common?
At first glance, probably not much.
But for cooperatives, those two
events illustrate the need for
building increased resiliency into
our organizations.
Every day we face some sort of
risk. Things are going to happen,
whether it's a catastrophic storm
like Sandy, attacks on the electrical
grid, or cyber-crime. The question
that we have to ask ourselves is how
are we going to mitigate those risks
and recover from them? The answer
to that question is why the term
resiliency has become so popular.
It's not just limited to hurricanes
and earthquakes, both of which
ODEC and electric-distribution
cooperatives in Virginia experienced
in August 2011 - resiliency refers
to the ways utilities assess
vulnerabilities to a list of threats
with prevention and mitigation
strategies, and response and restoration
plans for their systems. For
example, what would happen if an
airplane crashed into our
headquarters building? Although
that scenario may seem far-fetched,
other risks like our computer
system being hacked or key
employees becoming incapacitated
are far more likely. So, we spend
time thinking through the worst
possible situations that could
occur, and we try to plan for them.
January 2015/www.co-opliving.com
The world is changing rapidly
- and with our lives more digitally
connected than ever before,
the value of electricity is never
more sharply in focus than when
it's gone. Probably even more
important, the expectations of our
member-owners have increased as
we have become increasingly
reliant on our electrical devices
and less accommodating of
interruption. Sometimes this is
just for the sake of convenience,
but, at other times, it is a
necessity, as in the need to keep
large data centers operating at all
times or providing uninterrupted
power to hospitals. We want,
need, and demand utterly reliable
electrical service - or as close
to it as we can reasonably achieve.
The increased frequency of
natural disasters and cyber-attacks
have made it necessary for us
to acquire an informed understanding
of relevant risks, assess
their priority, and be proactive in
monitoring and attempting to
control them.
As our world becomes
Of course, we could never cover
every contingency, but we're always
thinking ahead. Your local cooperative
plans for a wide variety of possible
emergency scenarios. At ODEC,
we've adopted a risk-management
policy and our risk-management
committee meets at least monthly to
evaluate various factors.
increasingly volatile and unpredictable,
we must cope with
greater uncertainty. However,
what will not change is your
cooperative's mission - and its
dedication to that mission - of
providing you with affordable and
reliable power to meet your needs
and those of your community. 
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Cooperative Living January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living January 2015
