Mike Diggs, a veteran lineman for Middle Tennessee Electric, would rather go out in the dead of night to restore power than respond to an outage during the afternoon rush, when commuters driving home from Nashville clog all major routes through the electric cooperative's service territory.

“Those 4 p.m. calls are the ones you dread," Diggs says. “An outage call that would take you 10 minutes to get to at 3 a.m. can take you an hour or more in the late afternoon. And it's even worse in a rainstorm."

Working at MTE—one of the fastest-growing electric co-ops in the nation and NRECA's biggest distribution co-op member—means tackling unique challenges that aren't found at co-ops in remote rural areas. Among them: traffic jams, expensive land, a rising cost of living and new residents who have no idea they're members of a co-op, let alone how one works or the crucial role members play.

But it also brings enormous opportunities, including a large, skilled pool of job applicants to choose from, the ability to keep rates down by spreading costs among many members and a chance to expand into broadband service and employ cutting-edge technology.

In the 13 years that Jones has led the co-op, MTE membership has grown more than 84%, from about 197,000 in 2013 to nearly 363,000 today. The co-op's workforce has swelled to serve those consumers, increasing from 383 to 532. Another 239 work for United Communications, MTE's broadband subsidiary, which began in 2018.

The number of lineworkers alone has increased by 50, from 113 in 2013 to 163 at the end of June.

In addition to an influx of residents spilling out from Nashville about 35 miles away, MTE picked up around 70,000 new members when the co-op acquired the Murfreesboro Electric Department in July 2020 for a little more than $302 million to be paid over 15 years.

The merger benefited all MTE members by increasing co-op revenues and keeping electric rates down, Jones says. For members from Murfreesboro, it has brought additional advantages as the city uses a portion of the proceeds from the sale to build critical infrastructure, including new roads and parks.

City leaders also created the Community Investment Trust, which so far has provided money to 30 nonprofit organizations, including local chapters of Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Clubs, United Way and the Salvation Army.

“The merger has been one of the best decisions that the Murfreesboro City Council has ever made," says Mayor Shane McFarland.

“We would have had to borrow money to keep our utility going. With the merger, we don't have to raise property taxes, the electric rates are the same, and MTE absorbed all of the municipal employees, even the executive leadership team. Everybody won."

One of the biggest benefits for MTE is the ability to take advantage of economies of scale, Jones says.

“You're going to have to build similar infrastructure—distribution poles and lines—whether you're serving one member per mile or 100 members per mile," he says. “But 100 people are going to help your co-op get your money back much faster than one. And spreading out the costs among more people helps keep rates stable."

While many co-ops struggle to attract qualified employees to remote rural communities, MTE can tap into a strong applicant pool from the greater Nashville area, Jones says.

“It's fairly routine for us to get 200 or 300 applicants for entry-level jobs like apprentice groundman," he says, describing an employee who assists lineworkers from the ground. “Thirty years ago, we would hire people off the street and train them up. Now, they typically have done some line work. With so many good candidates to choose from, you have to have experience to get a leg up at MTE."

But there also are challenges to serving such a rapidly growing area. In addition to the traffic jams that Diggs described, land costs are rising fast, making it more expensive for MTE to buy property when it needs to build a new substation to meet demand.

“In some areas of our service territory recently, we've had land prices that are beginning to approach $1 million an acre, which is a far cry from what we paid just five years ago," Jones says.

“Given that this area has become such a popular place to be, land is very much at a premium."

Maintaining MTE's identity as a co-op is also more difficult as new members move into the company's service territory from regions where there are no electric co-ops.

“We have so many people moving to our area from places like California and New York who have no idea what an electric co-op is," says Amy Byers, MTE's marketing and public relations coordinator.

They often come from areas where the rates are high and they don't have a good relationship with their for-profit utilities, Byers says. In contrast, MTE's residential members pay rates that are 30% below the national average.

“We work to educate them that our rates are low, our goal is not about making money, and we're looking out for them," Byers says, adding that every new member receives a welcome packet explaining the co-op model.

Larry Rose, MTE's communications and marketing consultant, said new members often notice the difference as soon as they call or come into the co-op to start service.

“You're more than likely going to get called 'honey'—this is the South—and our member services folks will sit you down and walk you through everything," he says. “New members tell us how amazed they are that someone spent 20 minutes on the phone with them to answer all their questions."

To help spread the word about how the co-op works, MTE has more than 100 community outreach events each year, Rose says.

They include the Electric Griddle, a food trailer that the co-op brings to serve free grilled cheese sandwiches at functions like high school football games, college homecomings and county fairs.

“The success of that has been mind-blowing," Byers said. “People love it."

The co-op also brings an interactive EnergyHub trailer to community events to educate residents about smart-home technology, energy efficiency and electric vehicles.

“If there's any kind of civic gathering, we'll more than likely be there," Rose says.

The message about the co-op model seems to be getting through to at least some of those newly arrived members.

“I have lived in seven states and we are so lucky to have MTE since we moved to Franklin," member Melinda Carroll wrote in a Google review this year.

“Our rates per kWh are so low because of our co-op and it's so easy to reach an actual human when I need help. We own our co-op and it makes all the difference in the world!"

For longtime residents of the Murfreesboro area like Tim Hendrix, the 90-year-old co-op was already an old friend.

“I grew up here, so I have known MTE since I was born," says Hendrix, president of the employee-owned Julia's Homestyle Bakery, which used to get power from the city utility. “As a business owner here in Murfreesboro, they have been my greatest partner."

That was underscored in January, he says, when a devastating ice storm caused massive power outages throughout the area.

“It crippled our middle Tennessee region, and it took weeks—and in some cases months—to restore power in many places," Hendrix recalls. “But, in Murfreesboro, we experienced hardly any disruption and that was because MTE's response was so quick, so strategic and well planned that they were able to get the power back on in less than 24 hours.

“For a small business, that's huge. If my power goes out, I close the doors to my shop, my raw ingredients risk spoilage, my oven goes off and I can't produce delicious cakes and cookies. Not only did MTE keep us up and running, but they kept the lights on for our customers so they could come out and shop rather than dealing with an outage at home. It was exceptional work by the co-op."

Rick Sain, co-owner of Reeves-Sain Drug Store, says the transition in service from Murfreesboro Electric Department to MTE has been seamless.

“What's cool is that as big as MTE is, they still feel small," he says. “There's a hardware store behind our pharmacy, and they did a remodel that required MTE to change out some transformers. The guys from MTE were nice enough to come in and talk to me and tell me that they'd need to turn our power off for a bit."

“I told them I couldn't be down that long in the middle of the day with customers coming in to pick up their medications, have a milkshake at the soda bar or pick up their mail," Sain says. “They were kind enough to do the work at night instead. Who is that accommodating in this day and age? As big as they are, they still have that small town feel."

Jones says MTE works hard to keep that feeling as the co-op looks at the best ways to evolve to satisfy members' needs well into the future.

Co-op leaders have formed a strategy group to support MTE in making wise investments in smart grid technology and establishing a philosophy about how to use artificial intelligence most effectively to benefit its members, he says.

Growth gives MTE resources that many co-ops simply don't have, allowing it to invest in emerging technologies. This year, MTE took a huge step by partnering with Middle Tennessee State University to create the Middle Tennessee Quantum Technology Hub. The hub will use quantum computing and other quantum technologies to build more resilient and efficient energy and fiber infrastructure, develop a high-tech workforce, improve cybersecurity and spur more economic development.

“We're not going to be afraid to be innovative and try new things," Jones says. “We have a good track record, but we're not going to let the fear of failure stop us. We're going to keep striving to be better for our members than we were yesterday."

And MTE will continue to reach out to the wider co-op community for help, Jones says, whether it's relying on NRECA lobbyists to advocate for co-op priorities before Congress or seeking ideas about community outreach from other co-op leaders.

“We have benefited greatly from the examples of other co-ops, whether they are large like us or are small and doing innovative things," he says. “One of the best things about going to NRECA conferences is all the networking we do between sessions. It's invaluable."

The best advice Jones says he can offer other growing co-ops is to be bold.

“As co-ops, we tend to be risk-averse and conservative," he says. “But we should not be overly afraid of making appropriate investments in people and resources to be ready for the growth that's coming."

That's a lesson that MTE learned several times over the years when it built headquarters that it quickly outgrew, Jones says. In recent years, the co-op has been able to expand its central office headquarters by adding onto its existing campus, leaving plenty of unprogrammed office space to grow into.

“We've also been acquiring property around our central office that we might not have an immediate use for," Jones says. “It will give us flexibility for the future and also prevent us from being hemmed in. You don't want to be so frugal and conservative that you don't do enough to stay ahead of the growth."

As MTE designs new substations, it also builds them large enough to allow for the system to expand as membership continues to rise, Jones says.

“Perhaps there is an argument that we don't need that investment for today or tomorrow," he says. “But we're looking past next year to the next 10 years, and the decades after that. We think the wisest investment for us to make is for the longer term. That may seem aggressive to some, but I think it gets us into trouble if we only do just enough. We have to think bigger."