92 THE POWER OF POSSIBILITY NISC | 50 YEARS OF INNOVATION AND MEMBER SERVICE fold. Grant Evers, a Manager of Research and Development, remembers when Dosch and several NISC vice presidents visited the Cedar Rapids office soon after the acquisition was announced. “Vernhadawayabouthimofputtingyouatease,”hesays.“The concept of servant leadership was introduced at that meeting. He talked about earning our trust. That was good to hear.” Cedar Rapids and Shawano employees learned about the “shared values,” but what mattered most was seeing them in action. For example, the original transition plan called for Quintrex operations to blend into NISC within 18 to 24 months. But the Quintrex employees had much less generous benefits. To equalize that, NISC took on the added expense of onboarding the employees more quickly. “They just did it because it was the right thing to do,” says Evers. “That said to me, ‘They’re really willing to take care of us as employees.’ They treated us like part of the family.” It’s a quiet day at Sawnee Electric Cooperative in Cumming, Georgia, as Dan Wilbanks, Todd Eisenhauer and Keith Jones of NISC walk into the control center. Dispatch Specialist Mark Ridley sits before a bank of screens, managing crews that are upgrading transformers and performing routine mainte- nance as their part of the grid that serves 170,000 customers. Nothing much is happening, and that’s the point. NISC established a special project nicknamed BT2016, or Block- and-Tackle 2016, to reinforce and actively demonstrate its commitment to personalized Member service. Having grown to over 800 Members, NISC wants to ensure that the close relationships it has developed with Members remain strong. Four of the five monitors on Ridley’s desk display NISC software — productivity tools such as SmartTrack® and Mobile WorkForce. One screen shows a list of scheduled tasks. On another, color-coded circles, squares and triangles track employees as they move from job to job. If an outage occurs, Ridley can quickly spot who is closest to the site. Green and yellow blotches drift across a weather radar map of northeast Georgia showing that rain showers will stick around for a few more hours. In a major storm, this room comes alive as dispatchers use the outage “Vern had a way about him of putting you at ease. The concept of servant leadership was introduced at that meeting. He talked about earning our trust. That was good to hear.” — GRANT EVERS NATIONAL INFORMATION SOLUTIONS COOPERATIVE