2025 Roadmap, by Eric Eriksen, CEO
Your SLVREC team has developed a 2025 Roadmap, which describes our key initiatives for the year ahead.
Illustrated in the GOALS section are four focus areas: Workforce, Financial, Reliability and Communications. Under them you’ll find a list of goals that SLVREC plans to accomplish this year. Each one is aligned to drive us toward our Five-Year Strategic Plan. Here is a brief description of each one for you:
Workforce
• Team Service Projects: To develop leadership, teamwork and service to others through team projects
• We CARE employee events: To deliver a leadership educational moment and cultural team-building experience
• Operations Center Evaluation: To improve our main operations and dispatch center, which is central to our daily operations, safety, reliability, and member communication
• New Mapping Software: To improve our asset management, safety and reliability
• Process Improvement Training Phase II: Our goal is constant improvement; we’ve adopted a globally recognized change management process named Lean Six Sigma. Phase II further delivers certification training to employees and process improvement projects to deliver the best value to members.
Financial
• Alamosa Network Operations Center (NOC) Generator: Support exceptional Ciello reliability and financial resiliency
• Powerline Inspection Evaluation: To improve our electrical system equipment inspection process, which is important for safety, reliability and affordability— AI technology will be a consideration
• Develop Wildfire Mitigation Plan: Proactively plan to mitigate national, state and local concerns for potential health, safety and financial impacts of wildfires.
• Microgrid Plan: To study and evaluate the feasibility of adding utility scale battery storage to new solar facilities at Moffat and Creede Substation. Prioritizing affordable rates while improving regional resiliency.
Reliability
• Cyber Security Plan: To mitigate the ever-increasing threat of a cyber-attack— The security of our financial integrity and system reliability depends on our cyber defenses
• Energy Resource Plan: To study and develop a 20-year planning document to evaluate how to provide the most affordable and reliable energy for the future of SLV. This is in response to the newly FERC-approved Tri-State program named Bring Your Own Resource (BYOR), which creates the opportunity for us to develop up to 40 percent local power generation.
• Smart Grid Plan: To develop a 10-year plan aligning our current and future technologies that maximize performance and efficiency for members
• Improve Wireless Service: Implement improved technology to achieve faster speeds and reliability
Communications
• Employee Resource Center: To design a central resource for employees to find and share information more readily— improving employee work experience
• Member Rate Communication: To educate and prepare members for changes to rates in 2025 and ahead
You can find the 2025 Roadmap at the link below. Please reach out to request a “road show” presentation to your business or organization and feel free to walk-in and visit any time.
We’re here whenever you need us. Connect with us online, in person or through our social media channels. However, you choose to connect, please let us know how we can serve you better.
REC received nearly $2 million for high-speed Internet access
In late July 2022 San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) was announced as the recipient of a $1,998,448 grant to deploy fiber-to-the-premises services in rural parts of the San Luis Valley.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Department is investing $401 million to provide access to high-speed Internet for 31,000 rural residents and businesses in 11 states, part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to investing in rural infrastructure and affordable high-speed Internet for all. This announcement includes a group of investments from the ReConnect Program and an award funded through USDA’s Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan and Loan Guarantee program.
REC’s subsidiary, Ciello, will use the grant to connect 129 residences, eight businesses, one public school and 20 farms to high-speed Internet in unserved and underserved parts of Conejos and Alamosa counties.
“We began providing high-speed fiber optic based broadband internet access to rural areas in the San Luis Valley in 2014,” said Loren Howard, CEO of REC/Ciello. “This grant, the second Ciello has received, accelerates Ciello’s commitment to bring this crucial utility service to the Valley residents. REC and Ciello are incredibly grateful for this boost in building our fiber network to difficult-to-serve areas.”
“Connectivity is critical to economic success in rural America,” Vilsack said. “The Internet is vital to our growth and continues to act as a catalyst for our prosperity. From the farm to the school, from households to international markets, connectivity drives positive change in our communities.”
“The investments I am announcing will help 31,000 people and businesses in large and diverse regions across the country access to new and critical opportunities. Under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, USDA knows rural America is America’s backbone, and prosperity here means prosperity for all.”
“Living in the San Luis Valley, I know the need of reliable Internet access and being able to engage in remote work, telehealth, e-commerce, and online schooling,” said Armando Valdez, USDA Rural Development Colorado State Director. “Internet service strengthens community prosperity by providing connections to a vast number of resources and potential markets.
“This grant will change lives and provide quality enhancements to our telecommunication infrastructure in a strong rural community in southern Colorado. I am grateful that SLVREC pursued this opportunity. And I am so happy that residents in Conejos and Alamosa counties will be able to tap into these resources and thrive both economically and socially.”
As a provider for the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program, Ciello will serve these socially vulnerable areas in Conejos and Alamosa counties. REC members that live in the Zapata area, along with some REC members along Highway 15 in Conejos County, will experience a lot of benefits from the availability of high-speed fiber broadband service in their areas.
“We are very grateful to have been awarded these funds from the Reconnect3 program,” said Ciello’s Chief Technology Officer Monroe Johnson. “This is the culmination of a lot of hard work on the part of the management team here at the cooperative, and we look forward to working with everyone involved to bring this project to a successful conclusion.”
“Ciello’s mission is to bring the best broadband service available anywhere to the communities we serve, and this is a logical extension to all the work that has been completed in the last several years.”
