Nine MRES employees receive POWER Award

Nine MRES employees were recently recognized with Peer Ovation With Earned Recognition (POWER) awards. Given once a year, the POWER Award is the highest form of employee recognition at MRES. The awards were presented during a board-employee luncheon Jan. 16 at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Here is a list of this year’s award winners, along with a brief description of why they were chosen for the awards by their co-workers and the MRES board of directors.

Senior Economist Eric Carl was recognized for his work to implement resource planning improvements, including the addition of multi-draw modeling runs and comprehensive documentation on the resource planning process.

Plant Supervisor Vern Cochran was honored for coordinating tours for 150 people at the Red Rock Hydroelectric Project. The tours were part of the National Hydropower Association’s Midwest Regional Meeting held in Des Moines, Iowa, last spring.

Director of Transmission Richard Dahl, Senior Transmission Engineer Brian Zavesky and Senior Regulatory and Contracts Counsel Derek Bertsch were awarded for the leadership and dedication they showed during the submission process for the Big Stone Substation to Alexandria Substation route permit.

Leadership Development and Strategic Planning Manager Marcy Douglas and Member Programs Coordinator Amy Collins were recognized for their exceptional work in coordinating, managing and handling a majority of the tasks involved in developing and submitting numerous state and federal grant applications.

Resource Engineer Supervisor Nick Fanning was awarded for his leadership of the designing, bidding, building and commissioning of the Marshall Solar Plus project.

Director of Rates Tim Miller was recognized for discovering an error in a rate increase proposal from the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) and bringing it to WAPA’s attention. Correcting the error resulted in a lower proposed rate increase.