YOU ARE HERE: HISTORY (Updated Oct. 2002) 

Over a decade ago, several coop supply management employees recognized an opportunity to provide their peers in rural areas with access to a huge international network of educational and professional opportunities.  During the summer of 1992, these employees attended a meeting in Minneapolis to discuss the idea of forming an affiliate of the National Association of Purchasing Management [now the Institute for Supply Management (ISM)] that would be geared directly to rural electric cooperative supply chain professionals and their unique challenges and goals.  Jim Dedman of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) and Paul Novak, then President of ISM, attended that meeting and helped champion the formation of the affiliate. Jim was committed to providing educational opportunities to coop employees, and quickly recognized affiliation with ISM as a unique opportunity to provide that.  ISM has been in existence since 1915, and is one of the oldest and largest purchasing associations in the United States.  

Susan Brouse, an employee at Great River Energy and a charter member of the about-to-be formed group chaired the effort to get the 45 members required to affiliate. Dick Rich of Seminole Electric, another charter member, helped coordinate the affiliation process with ISM. He remembers numerous follow-up meetings with them and wondering afterwards if the affiliation would ever happen.  Even the affiliate’s first president, Carl Liles of Western Farmers Electric, was skeptical: He says, “I was actually opposed to the idea initially.  I knew it would be a tremendous amount of work and I didn’t want to end my relationship with my “home” affiliate, but Susan’s enthusiasm was contagious and I finally decided that if we were gonna do it, we should do it right!”  And they did. Liles would later serve as the affiliate’s first President. 

The first meeting of NAPM-REU (now ISM-CU) was held July 21, 1993 in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  The affiliate’s charter was presented and 51 members were registered.  By the time of the second annual meeting, which was held in conjunction with the NRECA Materials Management Conference in 1994, in Phoenix, Arizona – the affiliate had grown to 84 members!  Today, the affiliate is 248 members strong and still growing.  

Accomplishments include being awarded ISM’s 1999 “Best in Class” distinction for medium-sized affiliates; being one of the first affiliates to launch a web-site; regularly exceeding membership and certification goals and having members receive district, national and presidential awards for excellence in affiliate leadership.  One of the original charter members excelled to the position of president of the entire 50,000 member ISM.  Additionally, members have benefited from shared information, procedures, policies, and experiences, and have worked to develop a freight program, software concepts, and heavily supported NRECA’s International Project.  The membership has made a difference... to their peers, coops and NRECA by continuing to dedicate themselves to improving the education and professional abilities of the coop employees involved in supply chain management. 

 

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