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Discover how Tri-State and our members are embracing the opportunity to power the West in our new podcast, Western Watts!
We'll dive into the heart of energy issues, from reliability to wildfire mitigation, and share firsthand insights relevant to rural, agricultural and mountain communities across Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
This podcast may contain certain forward looking statements concerning Tri-State's plans, performance, and strategies. Actual results may differ materially because of numerous factors, and Tri-State undertakes no obligation to update these forward looking statements. We urge you to review Tri-State's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of these factors.
Jay Mendoza:I walk in my office every day and the hall that I walk into, there's a sign and it says better together. And I think from the top down, from generation, transmission, delivering the electrons on the distribution side to the end user, I think we're all better together.
Melissa Swinehart:Welcome to Western Watts. I'm Melissa Swinehart. I'm Julia Eshleman. And today we're kicking off October, which is cooperative month. We're really excited to have Jay here because what he does in his role tying the members back to Tri-State is invaluable.
Melissa Swinehart:We're excited to learn a little bit more about his role and how he helps bring everybody together as a cooperative.
Jay Mendoza:Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. As a member relations manager, my team is lucky enough to go out and interact with the 40 members. This October, we'll be headed out just like every other month and visiting with our members, talking strategy, talking all things electricity, all things their member system, and how we can contribute and bring people together.
Melissa Swinehart:That's a lot of territory to cover. We have four states. How many relationship managers do you have?
Jay Mendoza:We're a team of four with Edie in the office doing back office things. She is available all the time when we need her and when we're on the road. It is a lot to cover, with four relationship managers going to from headquarters to Garland, it's 597 miles, driveway to driveway. And then if we go to our most southern member system, that's Columbus Electric, that's 697 miles. If you think of travel time and our outreach, it is critical that we have the right people in the right location to reduce that travel time.
Jay Mendoza:But we have Lonnie in New Mexico. We have Becky in Wyoming in Nebraska. Michelle in Colorado, and I support Colorado, Nebraska.
Julia Eshleman:I snooped on your LinkedIn and discovered that you've actually been in the cooperative world your entire career. And even then, you've been one of Tri-State's members even. So you've been in the co op world over twenty years?
Jay Mendoza:Twenty six years.
Julia Eshleman:Twenty six years. What's been the draw to stay in the cooperative world?
Jay Mendoza:Isn't it crazy? Twenty six years is a blink of an eye. I feel like I was just graduating high school, starting at United. But I think the draw for me was I didn't know what I was getting into. Like a lot of times, employees getting into a co op world, but just having a passion to serve.
Jay Mendoza:I've held multiple job functions throughout my career, throughout the twenty six years. I've been fortunate enough to work for three distribution co ops before coming to Tri-State in a number of roles. And in every role that I've had, whether it was member services starting energy audits, if you unpack the job function, you're serving a member. And whether that's here at Tri-State serving a distribution member, you're still serving. You're still finding a way to solve for a connection.
Jay Mendoza:Member services, going out to do an energy audit, key accounts. Key accounts are probably one of my biggest passions because it's my business to know their business and help them be more efficient. So connect with them. But I also worked on the construction side, which gave me a little bit more technical background. I was able to understand transformers, underground lines, overhead lines, what was needed for, let's just say, a box store or a small subdivision.
Jay Mendoza:You just learn through and are exposed to different things. Twenty six years later, you just have all this background, all this information that you're able to connect on so many different levels through the technical side.
Julia Eshleman:I would say well rounded is an understatement. How has all of these different aspects helped you prepare for TriState and for that relationship between Tri-State and the distribution co-op?
Jay Mendoza:Great question. At the end of the day, it's all about connection. Right? At the distribution level, you were connecting the end user with the member. I spent a lot of time in my career working for the key account program at different utilities.
Jay Mendoza:It allowed me to connect with cities, with city government, with city council members. Coming to Tri-State, it allows me to do that tenfold. At the time I was hired, I got to do that with 12 members in New Mexico. Hadn't been to New Mexico to work in the co op world, didn't know the environment, but I knew the business model. And I knew at the end of the day, the biggest impact is connecting with people and helping people with whatever they need.
Jay Mendoza:We get to interact with the Tri-State board member, with the CEO, with the local board members, and with senior staff or staff at a co-op. So I knew those were my strengths. I knew how to do that. Coming to Tri-State, I just got to do that on a different platform and on a bigger platform. And now, as a manager of member relations, I get to connect with my team, and we get to do that across the 40 member system.
Melissa Swinehart:You know, they say when you've met one member, you've met one member. So the boards and the people in New Mexico are vastly different. I shouldn't say vastly, but there are differences between what maybe a member needs in Wyoming versus a member needs in New Mexico. So how do you train that persona that, like, we're here to serve? That's the challenge.
Jay Mendoza:I don't know that a lot of member systems understand the full scale of Tri-State because I didn't. In each role, I knew I had a contact for Tri-State. I knew if I had a question, I could call this person. They could help. I think what we're trying to do as a team is meet them where they're at.
Jay Mendoza:It's tough to connect with everybody, every personality. Right? It's tough. We all have different strengths. We all have different communication methods.
Jay Mendoza:And every member system is different. You met one co-op. You met one co-op, like you said. But there's opportunity for us to be able to help every member system, no matter where they're at, no matter the size of employees. Wyrulec has 22 employees.
Jay Mendoza:The way I reach out to Ryan is gonna be different. And maybe it's not me reaching out to Ryan, but it's Becky because they have that strong relationship. You just lean in, and those that can connect, you allow that connection. And you just keep working. You keep showing up.
Jay Mendoza:I believe that showing up consistently and really helping, really diving deep, I think that goes a long way to building trust.
Julia Eshleman:For people that are unfamiliar with the member relations team, What's your pitch? Why does Tri-State need a member relations team?
Jay Mendoza:Great question. I walk in my office every day, and the hall that I walk into, there's a sign. And I don't know if it's strategically placed there or not, but it it says better together. And I think from the top down, from generation, transmission, delivering the electrons on the distribution side to the end user, I think we're all better together. So the RM team is there to help facilitate that better together.
Jay Mendoza:Right? Tri-State is big. There's a lot of different departments. There's a lot of different folks that we could work with. The RM role really is for that central point, that central contact.
Jay Mendoza:I always think of us as a point guard on a team. If a CEO has a question, call the RM. There's a lot of communication that goes out from Tri-State. So giving them that central point of connection and having that point guard run with whatever question, I think just helps facilitate that communication from top to bottom.
Julia Eshleman:So you started off as the New Mexico rep, and now you're the member relations manager. What is your take on being an effective manager for the member relations department?
Jay Mendoza:I think I bring a little bit of a different philosophy to the RM role than traditional to Tri-State. When I first started the role, we sat down and just talked about six member visits per year, which is huge. If you think of of 40 members, that's 240 intentional member visits. What does that mean? I don't want it on a cadence to just roll out because Jay says we need six, but there's opportunity to plug into.
Jay Mendoza:Right? Some CEOs want everything to flow through them. Some want board updates, local board updates. When you meet them where they're at, it really depends on the touchpoint. We have a ton of programs here at Tri-State that we offer our member systems, BYOR, high impact load, Doctor programs.
Jay Mendoza:There's a number of things that we can schedule visits and talk about as they are ready.
Julia Eshleman:And I know sometimes on those drives, you're help supporting the Tri-State EV Ride and Drive program. So sometimes you're headed all the way to New Mexico or Wyoming in an electric vehicle and trying to find a charge point somewhere in between there.
Jay Mendoza:EV experience is just one program that TriState offers that the RMs help support and bring to our membership. The positive thing about the EV experience is that we get to learn what the EV charging situation is across our service territory. Where there are opportunities, we get to learn how EVs perform and charging time.
Julia Eshleman:But how's your range anxiety now?
Jay Mendoza:I don't have any range anxiety. I just got back from a trip from Lander, Wyoming. I took the Ford Lightning that's a standard range, two twenty five mile range, and I made it just fine.
Melissa Swinehart:And what is that EV program then for our members? Are we loaning them out a car?
Jay Mendoza:State has had an EV experience program for about five years now. Started with some Teslas, but when you look at our service territory, it's very rural America. Trucks dominate rural America. We've reprogrammed the EV experience to have two pickups. We have a Ford Lightning 225 mile range, and a Chevy Silverado is 505 mile range.
Jay Mendoza:Two totally different uses. But again, it's a program where membership can reach out to us and borrow the EVs for a two week period and find out how they work in their service area. And they're able to have their employees learn about them. Or we can do ride and drive events and help support their membership to learn about EVs. That's just one program that our team is is really up to speed on.
Jay Mendoza:Some are interested in key account development. Some are interested in just getting a rebate program on board. Some want us to come out, like, Saturday, I'm going out to a member engagement, member appreciation day. Those are all touch points. Those all bring value depending on the member system and what they want Tri-State to help promote for their member system.
Melissa Swinehart:I think that it seems, man, for you and your team, the amount of knowledge that you have to carry with you about all the various programs that Tri-State offers, all the different things that Tri-State is working on legally, regulatory, like high impact loads, bring your own resource programs. You're basically channeling all these different business areas that we have into one person, and then you're feeding it back to the membership. I think that's a huge value add for the members themselves.
Jay Mendoza:Yeah. It is. And giving them one point of contact. What I love about my team is they bring different strengths. Lonnie's based in New Mexico.
Jay Mendoza:He has an incredible eye for capturing moments and telling that member's story. Becky, just a connector. She's a people person. Doesn't matter your background. She has a natural gift of just bringing people together and connecting.
Jay Mendoza:Michelle has a passion for education. She loves getting out into the membership, talking with any schools, any leadership group, just about educating and promoting programs or story behind the switch. She just has a natural touch for that. And for me, I think I'm a little bit more behind the scenes, but technically stronger in my background to help support that. As we meet as a team, as we continue our learning individually and together, I just feel like all of our different backgrounds elevate the RM's success.
Julia Eshleman:Circling back to something you said earlier, and we were talking about touch points for you. What is that intentional touch point?
Jay Mendoza:It depends on the members the member co-op. If I'm going out to Otero to meet with Mario, I know his biggest account is dealing with the tribes, understanding what the tribe needs. Is it energy efficiency? Are they looking at a microgrid? It just depends on the member system, and it depends on the need.
Jay Mendoza:If I'm going out to Y W, most of their houses are heated with propane. Do they have opportunity for heat pump promotion, or what's the penetration rate for heat pumps to supplant that heating source and make a house more efficient, but also balance out not just getting an air conditioning load, but getting some heating sales.
Melissa Swinehart:And saving the members money. Always. Those YW members on propane, save them some money with a heat pump.
Julia Eshleman:Pete would be proud. I
Jay Mendoza:love sharing a meal with somebody. I love that because you can talk shop when you're in the shop. It hits home on a different level. I used to do that with key account management because it's important that they know who's working on their behalf.
Julia Eshleman:And it is not a successful co-op event if someone hasn't been fed.
Jay Mendoza:Know no other way after twenty six years.
Melissa Swinehart:Food is important. It builds trust.
Julia Eshleman:I think I see you and your team most frequently when you're getting in and out of vehicles. With so much drive time, it shows you really value that face to face interaction. How important is it to physically be in the member service territory and be able to have in person conversations with them?
Jay Mendoza:It's huge, especially when you're trying to build that trusting relationship, the foundation. You wanna get the foundation. But it's funny that you say that in and out of vehicles because I've heard different employees say, you're in and out of an EV. That's all I see. And there's so much more to that.
Jay Mendoza:My team has traveled 59,000 a 160 miles from January to August. That's road time. Just miles traveled. Think about that. Between 40 members, that's a 166 member visits in person.
Jay Mendoza:These aren't Teams meetings. This is just physically being there. The way we roll out is if a member wants us there, we're gonna do everything possible to make sure that we're there. I've been invited to Central New Mexico team, all employee meetings at their co-op, and we were able to get in front of all of the employees and talk about anything that was going on in Tri State. Just give a Tri State update.
Jay Mendoza:We're able to do that with local board meetings. Wherever they want us, we wanna meet them there.
Melissa Swinehart:This is the value add that Tri-State's bringing to the membership. Do you get a lot of feedback about, it would be great if Tri-State could x y z. It's like you're their member-
Julia Eshleman:Suggestion box. Yeah. Suggestion Suggestion
Melissa Swinehart:do you handle those requests? Or what does that look like?
Jay Mendoza:We get that regularly because we are in their office. We are connecting with them, bringing that back. If it's not something that we offer now, okay, is it something we can grow into? Is it something that we can look at that we haven't in the past?
Melissa Swinehart:That two way communication. Here's what we're doing. How else can we help you?
Jay Mendoza:I think we talk a lot about vertical alignment. I just call it alignment, right? If a member or CEO is struggling in one aspect, let's say it's safety, Bringing safety up to their employees or developing a safety program or a wildfire program. We have talented people here at Tri-State. It's just coordinating those conversations and finding workable solutions.
Julia Eshleman:I think that's a great way too to bridge the difference culturally between Tri-State and the members. It's really about being local. They are rural. They're off the beaten track a lot of times. Being able to see you in person or being able to connect with someone in person, it's really important because they might just say they're in Denver.
Julia Eshleman:They're in Westminster. They don't know about our lifestyle at all. They don't know how we operate. But then when you're able to actually be with them in person, it probably really radically changes the relationship.
Jay Mendoza:And I think understanding that it takes time. Right? If I was new to Wyoming or when I worked in New Mexico I hadn't worked in New Mexico before, so I didn't know the culture between the CEOs. I didn't know the culture in New Mexico. I'm born and raised in Colorado, worked for three bigger distribution co ops in Colorado.
Jay Mendoza:I knew what I knew, but I didn't know that piece of it. And connecting with somebody and building trust, it takes time. I don't force the relationship. I just let it happen organically.
Melissa Swinehart:It's that family extension, celebrating wins and being there when it's when times get tough.
Jay Mendoza:Exactly.
Julia Eshleman:We talked about all the traveling, all of the territory, the face to face interaction. Can you just go into the workload of
Jay Mendoza:being
Julia Eshleman:a relationship manager? And don't cry.
Jay Mendoza:I said I have the best team ever? We're a team of five with four people on the road. This week, all four are on the road Monday through Friday. I have the best team. Workload into just running some quick analysis.
Jay Mendoza:It's been 30% of their workable hours have been just road time, just driving. When I tell the RM story, I don't think I don't think people understand that enough. The members are so important to us that we are committed to being on the road that much. And when you think about what that means for that person being on the road and the life impact, it's heavy. It's a lot.
Jay Mendoza:But they are so important that we are on the road that often meeting with them to make sure that they're successful. Because if they're successful, we're successful. There's a lot to balance. We try and respond to emails within twenty four hours. But if you're traveling and you have a fifteen hour day, it's a lot.
Julia Eshleman:And I know field employees would all get this. But after United left, our closest member is probably forty five minutes away. Yeah. You said 580 some miles up to Garland.
Jay Mendoza:To get to Garland is roughly eleven hours. Yeah. To get to New Mexico to get to Columbus is twelve hours.
Julia Eshleman:It's putting in that effort, not just for the Colorado members, but giving each member that face to face time. Sometimes that just costs twenty four hours of drive time.
Jay Mendoza:I think what we do the team does a great job with trying to coordinate multiple visits, neighboring co-op. If we're going to Columbus, you may wanna hit Sierra. You may wanna hit Socorro. You may wanna hit Otero. We wanna definitely focus on efficiency and maximize that.
Jay Mendoza:It's a juggle with trying to be intentional, deliver value, and hit those members within the same round trip. We're very cognizant of the cost to roll out. And, of course, we work for our members. So that's top of mind, but we wanna be efficient and deliver value.
Julia Eshleman:Do you wanna talk about you mentioned it before, the difference in needs of all of the coops, how someone in Northern Wyoming is gonna have completely different needs than Southern New Mexico, even just weather wise?
Jay Mendoza:As we look across the 40 members, it really is something that we have to take into account. So many member systems just came out of their peaking season with summer, but others are just about to walk into it being a winter peaking season, and some are irrigation heavy. You have different member systems across the geography of the four state region that have different load shapes. And we, as a team, take that into account with how we're interacting with them, what they might be needing, when their construction schedule is, what substations are needing attention, all of those things. It's the RM role to be able to understand that account, that member system, and what that person, that CEO, that operations manager, what they're needing and walking into.
Jay Mendoza:We're walking into October. How is that next quarter gonna affect their member system?
Julia Eshleman:Can you give a recent example of either a program or someone you were able to connect a member with that helped them out?
Jay Mendoza:I was on Facebook just the other day. I think it was two weeks ago. And I seen the city of Socorro celebrating a new event where they had swapped out their ball field lights. And I quickly texted Manny and said, hey. Are you aware of this project?
Jay Mendoza:He said, no. I wasn't. I said, there's a rebate for that. We should connect with him and talk with him. And in fact, they're giving them a $20,000 rebate just by happenstance because I read it on Facebook.
Melissa Swinehart:That's awesome.
Jay Mendoza:It's just it's little things like that. It's our role to not to be in their business in a negative way, but again, we wanna be an extension of them because we're all working together and trying to make the system more efficient.
Melissa Swinehart:And that makes us look good for that ball field or the people. If it was a school, like, here's some money for you for doing the right thing and upgrading your lights.
Jay Mendoza:It helps the member system. It helps Tri-State. It's just a win win.
Julia Eshleman:Yeah. What you said connecting, it's finding connections that aren't obviously there and being able to critically think, oh, I saw an unrelated member event. Oh, Tri-State has something that I can push to support them and then also highlight Tri-State at the same time. Just continue pushing that better together, that collaborative environment. I think it's always awesome to be able to let someone know, hey, there's a resource that's available, especially if they didn't know of, like, if that can solve a problem, that's really awesome.
Jay Mendoza:And we've been spending a lot of time talking about external communication, but there's a huge piece of the RM role that we do internally. And that is exactly that. If we're out meeting with an operations manager and they're saying, hey, we're gonna rebuild this 69 kV line because it feeds an oil and gas load, that's a pretty big deal. Do we need to coordinate anything on our end internally with operations or with dispatch? We're always moving internally and externally, making sure the right people are connected with whatever's going on.
Julia Eshleman:I feel like with how quickly everything is changing in the industry, which also makes Tri-State change a little bit faster, like Melissa said earlier, that's just so much to keep track of. High impact loads is a brand new thing. The bring your own resource program is a relatively new phenomenon where normally Tri-State would maybe roll out one new program a year or every other year that was targeted at the members. Now all of a sudden, there's eight brand new things that you have to be a subject matter expert on or know someone who is and be able to answer questions quickly enough for members to be able to make decisions too, and that just would keep me up at night.
Jay Mendoza:There's definitely a lot going on. Our industry as a whole, it's not just Tri-State, but our industry as a whole has just been slow to go. Just slow to move. The pace of play here recently within the last four years is completely different. Is that bad?
Jay Mendoza:I don't know if it's bad. I think the beauty of working at Tri-State now is all of those programs that we have to offer for our members. They don't have to go outside of the Tri-State family to partake in something. We offer it. If they don't, and it's something they wanna grow into, they have time.
Jay Mendoza:There's nobody pressing one way or the other. But I think the beauty of connection and the beauty of what we're doing now, alignment, is that we offer things that we've not offered before, and we are ready to work with our members and serve our members.
Julia Eshleman:And I think that was a good brainchild too of the department, was that you wanna offer these services before somebody else does, which just fragments that relationship even more.
Jay Mendoza:You're absolutely spot on. Part of the RM role is understanding that load shape. Because once you understand the load shape, you understand what you're trying to solve for from that local board's perspective or the CEO's perspective or the operation manager perspective. Understanding who we serve and how they serve their end user and aligning that, I think we're in such a great spot now.
Melissa Swinehart:So Jay, what was your biggest win this year for 2025?
Jay Mendoza:I think the biggest win for us is having the backing and trust for membership to sign a contract extension or sign a new contract if they didn't extend. I think a lot of the role before that was making sure that we were answering questions. We were connecting the right internal staff with external staff, whether that was discussion with the local board or CEO reaching out and said, hey, I'm not clear on this. How would this work? So again, playing point guard with a lot of connecting the right people to the right conversation at that time.
Jay Mendoza:To me, the RM team was critical in building that trust beforehand. It was really, really cool to see the Better Together movement. We have so many great programs that we're offering. I think the membership finally sees that. And signing the contract extension allows them to implement just better service, more programs for their end users.
Melissa Swinehart:I can't believe that was still this year.
Julia Eshleman:Wow. Was that a big part of the reason why they did sign as they saw what Tri-State was bringing to the table and were interested in that?
Jay Mendoza:I think the majority of them signed because they see what Tri-State is trying to move forward and do, Allowing them to self supply from 5% to 20% is huge. It brings the ability to have local generation. I think that was a big part of that.
Melissa Swinehart:Building new infrastructure and new generation and reliability, the flexibility, kind of the things we've been touting, I think is great that Tri-State can provide our members with that.
Jay Mendoza:And it allows them to bring it on a local level. So many times we I've gone out into the field and met with different members or met with economic development groups, they say, is Tri-State here? Does Tri-State have a generation source here? And it's hard to be in every community. It just is.
Jay Mendoza:But this allows the co op to be able to do that if that's the direction of their board.
Julia Eshleman:What are some of the biggest opportunities in the coming year?
Jay Mendoza:Oh, boy. Opportunities are endless. With all the program implementation, my team could be out on the road every single day.
Julia Eshleman:Of the programs that you're going out on the road and sharing, which one are you the most excited for?
Jay Mendoza:Excited scary or excited positive? Oh, the dealer's choice. I'm really excited about what the Doctor program can do across our system.
Julia Eshleman:And can you just explain what Doctor is? It's a
Jay Mendoza:demand response program that we're offering that we just started 2025. We have different programs within the Doctor program. We have a thermostat program, c and I program, battery storage program. It'll allow us to be able to work with our members and really find out who has opportunity and interest to work in that Doctor space. I love the potential opportunity there system wide.
Jay Mendoza:The scary excited is the high impact load because there's a lot of opportunity to grow sales, to grow load at the local level and then for Tri-State. But the pace of play of which they're expecting this to come on board, it scares me because they're asking for a lot of energy really quick, and we have to get this right.
Melissa Swinehart:And what does demand response mean to a member?
Jay Mendoza:I didn't mention the irrigation program. Irrigators, when there's water, they have to pump. And their load shaped to a coop is very important. It can double a co-op size. We have to build infrastructure to meet that demand.
Jay Mendoza:Whereas if we start a demand response, if we can work with them and coordinate when they're pumping, we can shave a little bit of that peak. We would work with our membership, whether it's irrigators, whether it's a C and I, whether it's a thermostat program. Essentially, what you're doing is you're working to balance out the efficiency of what's running when it's running.
Julia Eshleman:What program would you say the members are the most excited for?
Jay Mendoza:Would say it depends on the member system. I think the high impact load is a program that has everybody's attention right now. The opportunity to grow and land a a pretty big load or a pretty big member end user is desired by almost all the members.
Melissa Swinehart:That's appealing, especially for a lot of these rural co ops that don't have a lot of growth because they're out in the middle of nowhere. But the ability to possibly get a high impact load in their area and increase their revenue would be huge for them. Can be a big change for them.
Julia Eshleman:We talked about how much everything's changing, the landscape of energy, people's roles, even people's relationship with their power provider. Along those lines, how do you envision the role of member relations evolving?
Jay Mendoza:With all the program rollout, I just think the role of the RM is gonna be much more important. Right? Again, we talk about the pace of play of things changing, but we also talk about coordinating, making sure we're all on the same page from the end user that's approaching the distribution co op to Tri-State and how you handled serving that load or a Doctor program, how you handle coordinating what's running when it's running. I think the RM role is gonna have to be a little bit more intimate with that local board's view on things, like how they're gonna approach their member system, how they want to tie in with Tri-State. And right now, have four RMs, including myself.
Jay Mendoza:And I just think with all of the program development, that number is gonna have to increase because of the intentionality and commitment that we're gonna have with each member.
Julia Eshleman:I think that's a good take too because there's so much that all of the co-op employees and member employees are doing. So they're wearing so many hats, even if it's communicated with them once, they might not have the time to devote to investigating it.
Jay Mendoza:I often say, you might not be a subject matter expert in every program that we offer, but you can dial in somebody that is. It's understanding the need, tying the resource and the people to fill that need.
Melissa Swinehart:And highlighting phone a friend frequently.
Jay Mendoza:I love that. Phone a friend.
Julia Eshleman:It's pretty funny because they're gonna be calling you at 7AM. You guys talk about more than just work. Once you have that inroad, you're talking about your kids. You're talking about who graduated. You're talking about vacations you went on.
Julia Eshleman:Like, you just become actual friends with them.
Jay Mendoza:No doubt. And I've experienced that. I see my team experiencing that. I'll just give you a for instance. Last night, I got a call at 08:00.
Jay Mendoza:I'm winding down. I get a call from a board member in New Mexico saying, hey, can you be here tomorrow at 09:00 in the morning? It's a balance. I love that they're doing that. It's just hard.
Jay Mendoza:07:00 this morning, I get a call from YW. You're always on. And I think that's where I come back to. We have four RMs now, but I think the level of service shouldn't suffer. The level of trust that we have shouldn't suffer.
Jay Mendoza:But we definitely need to balance out the work life balance so we can still maintain that high integrity of serving our members with the right amount of staff.
Julia Eshleman:What's something you wish more people understood about the work your team does?
Jay Mendoza:I don't know that Tri State employees understand how small and how rural some of our members are. I don't know that they've correlated. One thing that I'd love to do in my office is have pictures of every member's system and their employees. Because I know who I serve. I know who I work for.
Jay Mendoza:Right? I've worked for three different co ops, so I understand that. But what I'd love to see is Tri-State employees understand who works at Wireleck, who works at Wheatbelt, and see that we're all working for them externally. I think when we roll out to a member system, most of the times, they're excited to see you because you've built these relationships with them. I don't know that they understand the back end office of everything that we do at Tri State, but there's so much more.
Julia Eshleman:Yeah. Having to balance Tri-State and the member, but not being able to spend the majority of your time in either place.
Jay Mendoza:I call my office my vehicle because you're traveling from here to there. Also, understanding the local board's perspective. They may say, I don't want Doctor, but you don't know the program or the benefits that it could help.
Julia Eshleman:It is true that you have to be really careful with the way you pitch some of the things because if they have a really small staff and they're already at capacity, if you bring up a program, they'd just say, sorry, my plate is full.
Melissa Swinehart:Yeah. I can't handle
Jay Mendoza:that. Yeah. I mean, spot on. And credit to Reg, Reg has really worked hard to change that thought process, to not create programs that create hardships for small coops or coops that don't have staff to do that. Trying to create programs that are turnkey.
Jay Mendoza:It's a focal point of how we design a program and how we implement a program because we want the program to be successful for those that do it. How do we help support that member CEO implement this program when he doesn't have the staff to do that. Let us be an extension. Let us help and bring that success to that member system.
Julia Eshleman:Can you give me four examples, one from each state, maybe something unique or something that other people might not know about them.
Jay Mendoza:In Wyoming, it's windy as heck. It always is windy. But know that. People are great. Wyoming is beautiful.
Jay Mendoza:Again, just traveling through Wyoming. Maybe everybody knows this, but I didn't. I just I'm shocked about the beauty and shocked about how great the people of Wyoming are. Nebraska, same thing. Nebraska, just heavy irrigators and how important our role for them growing crop is.
Jay Mendoza:I didn't know that. And you'd think, of course, it is. But it's just until you see it, experience it, hear the stories and the voices. It just it wasn't something on my radar. Colorado is uniquely beautiful, and you have Southwestern Colorado in load to the Eastern Plains and how vastly different it is.
Jay Mendoza:New Mexico people of New Mexico are so welcoming. There's some parts of New Mexico that, you know, are winter peaking systems. But then you have the desert. Columbus. Love Columbus.
Jay Mendoza:The food is great in New Mexico.
Melissa Swinehart:I think we're narrowing in on which one is his favorite. Just kidding.
Jay Mendoza:No. There's great food in Wyoming in Colorado. And Nebraska, I haven't been very often very much, but I'm sure there is great food there.
Julia Eshleman:I'm the Nebraska stan of the food indications group. The most time I've spent with Wheatbelt. I freaking love Wheatbelt. My random thing is whenever we go to these little random restaurants along the way, they all have Rocky Mountain oysters.
Jay Mendoza:That's all
Julia Eshleman:true. They all love Rocky Mountain oysters. I don't know why.
Jay Mendoza:Yeah. Wyoming, their steak. New Mexico, green chile. Colorado, a variety.
Julia Eshleman:Yeah. Nebraska. Great corn. Rocky Mountain oysters are
Melissa Swinehart:so available. The chilies in New Mexico.
Julia Eshleman:Oh, what's the barbecue place?
Melissa Swinehart:Mad Jack's. Yep.
Julia Eshleman:If you're in Cloudcroft, go visit Mad Jack's. Yeah.
Jay Mendoza:Because they sell out.
Melissa Swinehart:Because they sell out.
Julia Eshleman:To wrap it up, for the cooperatives and public power district members of Tri-State, what is the benefit of our business model? What does the cooperative difference mean to you?
Jay Mendoza:Cooperative difference is working together. Hands down. We have in the four state region we cover, we have the best people working in our territory. Hands down. Everybody understands what they do.
Jay Mendoza:They understand the why, which is huge, and they work together. I just love again, better together. I see it every day on my way in, on my way out. Better together. Are there different ways to get your electricity?
Jay Mendoza:Sure. But you know what? At Tri-State, you have a seat at the table. You have somebody you can reach out to. You have a number of people you can reach out to, and we're just available to help each other.
Jay Mendoza:And I love that business model.
Julia Eshleman:And as a co-op guy, do you have a favorite cooperative principle?
Jay Mendoza:Concern for community. I think we move electrons, but I don't think that's the juice of what we do. Concern for community, whether it's a key account, whether it's a member system partaking in fourth of July parade, there's just so much more that the distribution co ops do that Tri State does for the communities we serve. We move electrons. We sell electrons, But that's not really what we do.
Jay Mendoza:We're in the people business, and we're in the service business.
Melissa Swinehart:That's amazing. Good job, Jay. That was great talking to you today.
Jay Mendoza:Yeah. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth Schilling:Thanks for tuning in to Western Watts. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or on our website at tristate.coop/w