News

1/20/2010

Co-Mo names award after longtime board president

Tipton, Mo (Jan. 20, 2010) — Co-Mo Electric Cooperative has created an employee-of-the-year award named after its longtime board president and the values he espoused.

The O.B. Clark Members First Award will be presented at the cooperative’s annual meeting starting in May 2011. It is named after the man who served the cooperative world for more than three decades, until his retirement in 2009. It will be awarded to the Co-Mo employee who best exemplifies one or more of Co-Mo’s six core values.

•    Place the interest of our Members above all others’
•    Keep our members, the public and ourselves safe
•    Demonstrate integrity and honesty beyond reproach
•    Maintain a high level of financial stewardship
•    Treat everyone with courtesy and respect
•    Adhere to the 7 Cooperative Principles

“Naming this award after O.B. simply made sense,” said Ken Johnson, Co-Mo’s CEO/general manager. “These are the values that he lived by for decades in his work as a cooperative leader.”

The award was unveiled at Co-Mo’s recent All Employee Day on Jan. 18. The annual winner will be chosen from among four quarterly winners, the first of whom will be selected in April. Employees will be nominated by their colleagues and selected by a four-person committee. Co-Mo members may also nominate employees by downloading a nomination form from co-mo.coop or by picking one up at either Co-Mo Electric office.

“Eventually, the committee will be made up of all former winners of the award,” said John Agliata, Co-Mo’s communications, member services and key accounts manager. “The four people we asked to serve on this initial committee are a good cross-section of our cooperative, people who live by the values as well.”

Those four are:
•    Jennifer Mercer, customer service supervisor.
•    Danny Wood, lineman
•    Kim James, Lake District operations coordinator
•    June Nivens, assistant manager

“This program is an important one for Co-Mo,” Nivens said. “A lot of care went into developing our core values, and we didn’t want them to be something that just hung on a piece of paper in the board room. These are things our employees exhibit everyday, and we wanted to recognize those who go above and beyond in exhibiting them.”

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