Every member, every time: YEC members share their experiences with their co-op

York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive is proud to serve a diverse mem­ber­ship across the com­mu­ni­ties in York, Chester, Chero­kee and Lan­cast­er coun­ties. When we first were formed in 1941, YEC brought afford­able pow­er to farm­ers and mem­bers liv­ing in the rur­al parts of our local areas. Eighty-one years lat­er, your co-op now serves a wide array of mem­bers with vary­ing ener­gy needs. From small fam­i­lies and young stu­dents to local busi­ness­es and large indus­tries, York Elec­tric con­tin­ues to look out for all mem­bers big or small. Every mem­ber. Every time.

Your trust­ed ener­gy advi­sor

YEC has served the Wright fam­i­ly in Fort Mill since 2008. Dur­ing this time, they have grown to under­stand and appre­ci­ate the coop­er­a­tive dif­fer­ence. Describ­ing his fam­i­ly’s expe­ri­ence with the co-op, Todd Wright shares, “Since becom­ing a mem­ber of YEC, I can­not imag­ine going back to anoth­er way of doing busi­ness with a for-prof­it util­i­ty that rais­es rates all the time and has to pay div­i­dends to share­hold­ers.”

In addi­tion to being grate­ful for receiv­ing Cap­i­tal Cred­its as a mem­ber, Wright explains he real­ly val­ues the con­cern we show for our mem­bers’ best inter­ests. As an elec­tric vehi­cle own­er and par­tic­i­pant in solar ener­gy efforts, Wright says, “I’ve con­sult­ed YEC’s Ener­gy Ser­vices Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Brent Clin­ton, for advice a lot over the years. It is so refresh­ing to have some­one actu­al­ly on my side and to not have to lis­ten to anoth­er sales pitch when I need guid­ance.”

As your trust­ed ener­gy advi­sor, YEC is your source for pow­er and infor­ma­tion to help you make the right deci­sions for you and your fam­i­ly.

The pow­er of human con­nec­tions

Build­ing con­nec­tions and enrich­ing the lives in our com­mu­ni­ties are val­ues shared by York Elec­tric and local gourmet pop­corn busi­ness Pop­pin’ Sweets. Own­er Melanie Pow­ell and Store Oper­a­tor Kevin Wilk­er­son (pic­tured) have been on YEC’s lines since 2020 and have been form­ing rela­tion­ships through their deli­cious treats ever since. Pow­ell shares, “Many of the fam­i­lies and cus­tomers that vis­it our store often have exist­ing con­nec­tions with our Treat Team staff, and we enjoy being able to spread those con­nec­tions and fam­i­ly cul­ture to every­one around us.”

York Elec­tric is proud to offer local busi­ness­es like Pop­pin’ Sweets the safe, reli­able and afford­able elec­tric­i­ty they need to con­tin­ue reach­ing oth­ers and run­ning a suc­cess­ful oper­a­tion.

A focus on edu­ca­tion

As your Touch­stone Ener­gy Coop­er­a­tive, York Elec­tric firm­ly believes our edu­ca­tion­al efforts can have a far-reach­ing effect not only for the indi­vid­u­als we help but for the com­mu­ni­ty at large. We first saw the poten­tial in mem­ber Cate Ted­ford when she attend­ed our Wash­ing­ton Youth Tour in 2018.

Dur­ing her expe­ri­ence on our six-day trip to the nation’s cap­i­tal, Ted­ford rose to lead her fel­low co-op del­e­gates and learn about the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el by par­tic­i­pat­ing in our Soda-Pop Co-op sim­u­la­tion. A year lat­er, YEC rec­og­nized Ted­ford’s con­tin­ued ded­i­ca­tion and we award­ed her a $1,000 Touch­stone Ener­gy Schol­ar­ship, rep­re­sent­ing Nation Ford High School. Using the schol­ar­ship funds from YEC and lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence gained on our Wash­ing­ton Youth Tour, Ted­ford went on to study Span­ish and Phi­los­o­phy with an empha­sis in Law, Lib­er­ty, and Jus­tice at Clem­son Uni­ver­si­ty’s Hon­ors Col­lege.

Ted­ford shares, “I am so grate­ful for YEC’s role in prepar­ing me for my future and for sup­port­ing my goals of high­er edu­ca­tion.” Ted­ford is cur­rent­ly study­ing abroad at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ali­cante on the South­east coast of Spain and plans to attend law school after grad­u­a­tion.

YEC con­tin­ues to assist stu­dents like Ted­ford in their high­er edu­ca­tion and per­son­al devel­op­ment goals each year through our edu­ca­tion­al trips and schol­ar­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Indus­try and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment

Elkem Sil­i­cones is locat­ed in YEC’s East York Indus­tri­al Park and has been pro­vid­ing local jobs and help­ing hold down pow­er costs for mem­bers for over a decade. As one of York Elec­tric’s largest mem­ber accounts, Elkem Sil­i­cones plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in the rates we pro­vide for all mem­bers. Indus­tries like Elkem Sil­i­cones use pow­er in con­sis­tent amounts and dur­ing off-peak times and serve as an exam­ple of why YEC invests in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in our area. These qual­i­ties enable us to pur­chase pow­er at a low­er cost, which in turn, allows us to pass on the sav­ings to the rest of our mem­ber­ship and pro­vide qual­i­ty jobs for our local mem­bers.

After a 37-year career of serv­ing as an oper­a­tions direc­tor for Elkem Sil­i­cones and pre­de­ces­sor com­pa­nies, Dave Beaty is enter­ing retire­ment next month. As Beaty reflects on his time with Elkem Sil­i­cones and on his rela­tion­ship with YEC, he shares, “York Elec­tric has always been very infor­ma­tive and open for col­lab­o­ra­tion. We’ve ben­e­fit­ted great­ly from YEC’s ener­gy-sav­ing efforts, such as chang­ing our secu­ri­ty lights to LEDs, as well as from incen­tives to assist in capac­i­ty expan­sion.”

Here at YEC, we ensure lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion are always open and assis­tance remains avail­able for all our mem­bers, no mat­ter their size.

YEC would like to con­grat­u­late Beaty on his suc­cess­ful career, wish him the best in retire­ment and thank him for his years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice.

Afford­able, reli­able ser­vice

Herb Smith has been a mem­ber of YEC for near­ly 25 years. Since mov­ing to Rock Hill in 1997, Smith has enjoyed being a co-op mem­ber for our afford­able rates, reli­able pow­er and our com­mu­ni­ty out­reach. Smith explains, “When I lived in New Eng­land, my pow­er cost more than dou­ble what it cur­rent­ly does, and pow­er out­ages were fre­quent. Since becom­ing a mem­ber of YEC, I have thor­ough­ly appre­ci­at­ed the afford­abil­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy York Elec­tric offers.”

Smith has also tak­en advan­tage of YEC’s com­mu­ni­ty events, like our Annu­al Mem­ber Appre­ci­a­tion Shred Day. “I attend YEC’s Mem­ber Appre­ci­a­tion Shred Day event each year and have nev­er missed one,” Smith says. “I look for­ward to min­gling with oth­er mem­bers as well as YEC employ­ees at this event and appre­ci­ate the co-op offer­ing an easy, secure solu­tion for my per­son­al doc­u­ment shred­ding needs.”

Con­cern for com­mu­ni­ty is an impor­tant part of YEC, and we val­ue the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide mem­bers a co-op they can always rely on.