During a time of rapid transformation across the utility industry, Mountain View Electric Association remains steadfast in our mission to provide safe, reliable, affordable, and responsible electric service to our co-op members. While safety will always be our top priority, as we look ahead, reliability will take center stage as we work to further strengthen our commitment to deliver dependable service.
As a not-for-profit electric cooperative, we exist to serve the needs of our members. That spirit of service drives everything we do — from enhancing safety and reliability to embracing technologies that modernize and strengthen our system. Amid a shifting regulatory landscape and a growing demand for electricity, we are investing wisely in both innovation and infrastructure to support long-term sustainability and reliability.
One of the most significant ways we’re advancing our mission is through an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) — a powerful tool that will improve how we monitor, manage, and restore power to our electric distribution system. This system enhances situational awareness, increases operational efficiency, and reduces outage response times. It is a cornerstone of our evolving smart grid strategy, allowing us to deliver even greater reliability while preparing for a more complex, dynamic energy landscape.
Another initiative that advances our mission to provide safe and reliable electricity is our wildfire mitigation plan. We have continued to strengthen our wildfire prevention and response strategies — investing in vegetation management, system hardening, and technologies for real-time monitoring. These efforts are critical in safeguarding our communities and reducing the risk of fire-related outages.
While a lot of progress was made in the last year to fully implement our expanded wildfire mitigation plan and to lay the foundation for the ADMS deployment, MVEA’s fiber broadband network expansion experienced a couple of milestones: over 2,200 MVEA members are now connected and receiving high-speed internet through MVEA’s partnership with Conexon Connect and over 20,000 members in portions of Black Forest, Falcon, Limon, and Simla now have access to high-speed internet service through this project.
While MVEA’s fiber broadband network will provide high-speed internet access to all MVEA members, building and owning our own fiber network also plays an important role in implementing ADMS and the deployment of advanced wildfire mitigation technologies.
Guided by our core values and a deep-rooted commitment to be a reliable partner to the communities we serve, we continue to navigate new challenges and opportunities with resilience, vision, and purpose. We are charting a course built with our members in mind — ensuring that even in a time of change, our foundation of being a trusted and reliable partner remains unshakable. At MVEA, everything we do is rooted in reliability and our promise to follow through on the commitments we make to our members and to consistently exceed expectations.
Ruth Marks is the General Manager of Mountain View Electric Association. MVEA’s mission is to provide our members safe, reliable, affordable, and responsible electric service and access to broadband services.
Kevin Paddock has served on MVEA’s board of directors since 2018. He currently serves as board president and advocates for affordable electric and broadband service to ensure that MVEA continues to provide our members with safe, reliable, efficient, affordable energy, while maintaining environmental stewardship.
