While his feet were planted firmly on the ground in New Orleans at the 2013 NISC Annual Meeting, NISC President and CEO Vern Dosch couldn’t keep his head out of the cloud.
A major technological innovation over the past fiscal year for NISC, the NISC Cooperative Cloud© is growing faster than anyone imagined, but with good reason.
“It is the most important development in IT, I believe, since we began this process more than 47 years ago,” Dosch told more than 400 NISC Members in attendance at the annual meeting. “This was just a dream. This was just an innovation, and today we have six applications – CalltoOrder, SmartHubTM, ActivTrace, Payment Gateway, Weather and the Meter Data Management System – that are resident in the cloud, and that number will continue to grow every year.”
Along with the Cooperative Cloud, Dosch provided an update of NISC’s latest innovative solutions, including the iVUE® AppSuite and SmartHub mobile and tablet apps.
“When we look at the numbers and see there are one billion smart phones out there – that number will double by 2015 – and the average smart phone has 41 apps on it, we’re saying we better make sure that one of those apps has the logo of your co-op on it,” Dosch said.
NISC Board Chairman Roger Yoder discussed NISC’s financial situation for the past fiscal year, which was one of the best in NISC history.
“You may have heard Vern mention in the past, ‘we live in exciting times,’ and this past fiscal year proved that for NISC, it’s true,” Yoder said. “NISC saw increases in sales and in all business categories during the past fiscal year, and NISC’s membership grew with the addition of 79 new utilities and telecoms – a record number.”
Yoder also helped the NISC Membership finalize the election of NISC’s Board of Directors. Four directors were elected during NISC’s regional meetings last fall:
- Roger Yoder, Union Rural Electric Cooperative, Marysville, Ohio – District 4, Utility
- Wayne Martian, North Central Electric Cooperative, Bottineau, N.D. – District 6, Utility
- Wayne Whitaker, Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative, Texarkana, Ark. – District 8, Utility
- Harry Barnes, 3 Rivers Communication, Fairfield, Mont. – District 14, Telecommunication
Three other directors were elected during special elections to fill vacancies left by retirements and a resignation. These directors are:
- Jim Mangum, Wake Electric, Youngsville, N.C. – District 1, Utility
- Bob Loth, Central Texas Electric Cooperative, Fredericksburg, Tex. – District 10, Utility
- Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications, Bemidji, Mont. – District 13, Telecom
The 2013 NISC Annual Meeting was held in conjunction with the NRECA TechAdvantage Expo. NISC staff was available throughout the conference at exhibit #925 where they were able to showcase several of NISC’s latest innovative solutions.