Arkansas electric co-op CEO wins top award

Mel Coleman, CEO of North Arkansas Electric Cooperative, Inc., in Salem, recently received the Clyde T. Ellis Award, the highest honor given to an individual by America’s electric cooperatives, at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) Annual Meeting in Nashville.Arkansas Living magazine reports the award was presented by Phil Carson, NRECA president.

Coleman has served at North Arkansas Electric Cooperative (NRECA) since 1988. He has been an NRECA director since 2004 and served as president from 2015-2016. His cooperative engages with thousands of co-op members at its annual meeting. During his tenure as NRECA president, the association’s CEO suffered a medical emergency. Coleman provided significant leadership during the vacancy by spearheading the replacement search effort and guiding the new CEO’s transition.

The Clyde T. Ellis Award memorializes NRECA’s first general manager, an Arkansas native and pioneer in the nation’s rural electrification movement. NRECA’s board of directors confers the award to honor individuals for exemplary contributions that promote the principles, and progress of rural electrification, and the development and use of national resources.

More than 6,000 representatives from electric co-ops across the U.S. attended the meeting. NRECA is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 42 million people in 47 states.

WebReady^TM Powered by WireReady^® NSI