GVEC Nollkamper, GD - July 24, 1987
Interview with G.D. Nollkamper
Interviewer: Karen Yancy
Transcriber: Karen Yancy
Date of Interview: July 24, 1987
Location: Mr. Nollkamper’s Home, Shiner, TX
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Begin Tape 1, Side 1
Karen Yancy: This is Karen Yancy. Today is July 24, 1987, and I’m conducting an oral interview with Mr. G.D. Nollkamper, director of Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative [GVEC] at Gonzales, Texas.
Why did you become a director?
Nollkamper: I was interested in the services of the Cooperative, and I had an uncle that was a director for quite a few years, and I always felt like there was an opportunity for me if he ever got to the point where he couldn’t serve and that I would like to take his place. That was one of the reasons. So after he became ill, I was appointed to fill his position. He couldn’t serve any more, so I was appointed to fill his position, and I’ve been on ever since.
Yancy: What experience did you bring to the board?
Nollkamper: As a director or in the electrical field?
Yancy: Either one.
Nollkamper: Either one. Nothing in the electrical field. As a director, just having served on a local farm bureau board and local insurance branch board of directors, and just an interest in serving the community mainly. I served on the Shiner Independent School Board for twelve years, two years as president.
Yancy: How many years have you served as a director?
Nollkamper: Since 1968, end of 1968; that’s approximately nineteen years.
Yancy: Quite a few. What kind of time commitment is involved in being a director?
Nollkamper: Well, if we have a lot of bad weather, there’s quite a bit of time involved because people do call you at home and sometimes even in the middle of the night. Other than that, as far as attending seminars, annual meetings, district meetings, and board meetings, I would say average of maybe three or four days a month.
Yancy: What are your responsibilities as a director?
Nollkamper: Well, one of our main responsibilities is to hire a manager to run the Cooperative. In my opinion, that is the obligation that the directors have that they’re entirely responsible for, and, of course, we also have to set up guidelines that management operates under.
Yancy: I know you get a stipend, but what kind of personal satisfaction do you get as a representative of the Co-op members?
Nollkamper: It’s a pleasure to go out and talk to the people and have comments made that our cooperative is a good cooperative, and we hear that quite a bit. Sometimes, we hear that our cooperative isn’t any good, but for every one that we hear like that, we hear 99 [percent] that comment on the service and reliability of the Cooperative. So, it’s the personal satisfaction to be a part of an organization that does believe in taking care of their members.
Yancy: You said earlier that the co-op members contact you. On what matter do they contact you about, and how often?
Nollkamper: When they’ve got problems, that’s when they contact you. Most of the time, they feel like they’re not getting the right kind of service from the Cooperative. That’s when they contact the director now. It doesn’t happen too often, but you do have problems at times that may or may not be the fault of an employee or management, but the member doesn’t see it that way, and so he’ll contact a director.
Yancy: What are the aspirations of the board for GVEC?
Nollkamper: One of the things that this cooperative; of course, we just bought out our loan recently from REA [Rural Electric Administration]. The reason we bought our loan was because we felt like the Cooperative could do a lot more for our area and our people than we were able to do because of the restrictions of REA, and since we’ve bought our loan, we have formed another organization or [are] in the process of forming another organization that we will work with other phases of the community, such as the water supply corporations and down the road some other areas, maybe garbage, sewage, and all these kind of things; whatever may come up. We realize that without water and these other facilities, but particularly water, the Electric Cooperative is not going to be able to grow either. So our goals and aspirations are to serve our communities better.
Yancy: Other co-ops tend to have very argumentative board meetings, but GVEC doesn’t. In your opinion, why doesn’t GVEC experience these problems?
Nollkamper: One of the things that we have at our co-op and have had as long as I’ve been on the board is that the employees themselves are treated as part of a big family, you might say, and the employees are happy there. They’ve got a good medical plan, a good retirement plan, and they get their leave and other fringe benefits that keep the employees happy, and if you have the employees happy, you also have a better relationship between the employees and management. That also goes as far as the board is concerned. Our manager is an extremely strong person, and he’s an innovator; he plans ahead, and he makes his plans work, goes forward with them. I think all those things is what helps keep our cooperative or our board from having problems within itself and with the employees and even with the members themselves. Of course, our rates are competitive. In fact, they’re probably a little better than most of our immediately surrounding area, so with all of this together, it has to work for a smoother operation within the whole system.
Yancy: GVEC has a good consumer relationship. To what do you contribute this good will?
Nollkamper: Well, the consumer relationship is partly due to what I just mentioned is rates. If your rates are extremely high, of course you’re going to have unhappy customers, and our service, our outage time is extremely low. As I said earlier, every once in a while, you’ll get somebody that is unhappy, but they just don’t understand the situation, but as a whole, it’s because of our rates and our service to the members.
Yancy: What do you see as the future of GVEC?
Nollkamper: The future of GVEC is tied to some of the steps that we’ve just taken: buying out our REA loan, making financing available to water supply corporations; that’s our first goal with these new organizations that we’re putting together. They’ll be able to operate their systems better, do a better job for their members, and when they do a better job for their members, that’s also going to help us. We see rural development as part of, in the area that we’re in, as one of the things that’s going to help the Cooperative in the electric end. Without the other, water and other facilities, the electric system can’t go forward either.
Yancy: What are some of your greatest concerns for GVEC?
Nollkamper: Well, one of our biggest concerns right now is that we’ve got a number of employees that are reaching retirement age. And our manager, he just recently was wanting to take early retirement. Like I said a while ago, he’s an innovator and works hard and spends his time, and when you do those kind of things, you get burned out, and he was getting to that state, and he was actually thinking about taking early retirement. Well, we weren’t in any position to—at the time, we weren’t ready for him to take early retirement because we didn’t have anybody to step in and take his place. So we visited with him and did some things that made him reconsider, and he’s saying on a while longer, and we also made it clear with him that we intended for him to help guide us into getting management or getting management to help; get the next person lined up and guide us along those lines and also to get these other positions. Like eight or nine people in the organization are leaving in a short period of time. That is a lot of people, and we do have concerns about their replacements.
Yancy: Well, that’s all the questions I have. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
Nollkamper: I just would like to say that I have enjoyed it, and I just got off of one board that was for an insurance board that wasn’t quite as enjoyable being on, and management—we just didn’t have the fortune of being able to move forward with it like we do with GVEC, and it’s a pleasure to serve with a group of people and a fine organization such as we have over there.
End of interview