Be sure to read on for an extensive Q&A with York Electric’s new CEO, Craig Spencer, in which he discusses his vision for York Electric, his leadership style, and his thoughts on best practices, all followed by a brief bio.
Although it is my first time connecting with you in the CEO space, I feel privileged to have served you throughout my career, helping to design a robust and reliable electric distribution system. My focus on our members, just as it has been for the previous 32 years, will remain top priority as I grow and learn in my new role. During this transition, it is important that you know our commitment will not waver. Your co-op will remain your trusted source for safe and reliable power and information, a place where employees are our greatest asset and where we’re always looking out for you.
We’ve been hard at work with some exciting updates to increase the resilience of our system. Our new Allison Creek substation will be online by the end of summer, providing more capacity in the Lake Wylie area. This substation is served with a new transmission line, providing more reliable service and opportunities to isolate outages and restore services faster when outages occur. Grading bids for two additional substations in the Fort Mill area are also underway. The substations will add over 40 megawatts of capacity to better serve the growth we are experiencing in this area. Lastly, our road construction for the Spring Lake Business Park is in progress. YEC has partnered with the City of York to spur economic development for increased commercial use in this area as residential development continues to prosper.
We stay busy behind the scenes here at your co-op making continuous improvements to the electrical system, planning for the future and combatting rising prices to hold down the cost of power. However, we are never too busy to listen to you—our members. I want you to know that I’m willing and ready to learn from you as your co-op’s new leader. Gaining wisdom from you is the only way we will succeed in continuing to serve you with excellence. Similarly, to me, it always makes things easier when you get to know someone. I invite you to get to know more about me in the news extra section of this magazine edition.
I’m excited for this new chapter, honored to have been chosen to fill this role and pledge to always work for the good of our members.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Continuing our legacy of members first
YEC’S new President and CEO, Craig Spencer, shares his perspective on leadership, best practices and your co-op’s future. Spencer’s vision for success is not solely his own, but one of all employees, something the Board of Trustees saw as one of his many assets when they selected him to follow in Paul Basha’s footsteps upon his retirement in June.
Q: You’ve worked here 32 years. What makes York Electric special to you, and why have you stayed?
A: We embrace a culture of family at YEC where our employees not only depend on each other, but we learn from one another. Without a doubt, the people are what make this co-op special to me. I’ve dedicated my entire career to this group of people and this community because of the work we have and will continue to accomplish together to take care of our members.
Q: How are we set apart from other cooperatives?
A: While all electric cooperatives seek to minimize accidents, both in the field and in the office, YEC’s culture of safety has remained a significant distinction throughout my career. I feel blessed to work for a co-op with a staff and Board of Directors that will always put employee safety above all else. Prioritizing this, alongside the intense growth our service territory has experienced over the last few decades, allows us to safely provide reliable power at competitive rates.
Q: What do you see as York Electric’s biggest threats?
A: Before I address the challenges, I’d like to assure you that your co-op is in great shape. Working together as a team has allowed us to overcome many obstacles in the past, and this mindset will continue to help us navigate our future. The most significant threats I see that we will face together are the lack of dependable power generation, government regulations and rising power costs. South Carolina has been, and will continue to be, one of the fastest growing states in the country. To guarantee that companies and manufacturers continue to expand into South Carolina, which will keep the economy moving forward, we need to safeguard always available power generation. New government regulations, which involve technologies that are not yet proven to be sustainable, prevent us from expanding our energy generation assets. They also add tremendous additional costs to new generation projects. Lastly, inflation continues to challenge our ability to hold down power costs. Just as the cost of living for our members is on the rise, the cost of equipment continues to increase.
Q: What do you see as our biggest opportunities?
A: Despite our obstacles, YEC can still fulfill its goal of providing affordable, reliable and safe energy to our members. We can still offer competitive rates through excellent member service and new technologies that improve our electric grid. YEC is always researching new ways to improve reliability for our members, while maintaining the personal level of service that our members love.
Q: What is your vision for York Electric?
A: Whatever YEC’s short-term and long-term goals are, we must always prioritize our culture of safety. It helps us go home to our families each day and helps minimize the cost to provide electric service. No vision for this company can be achieved without healthy employees, a mission I’m proud to continue cultivating. Additionally, I hope to expand member education and transparency on individual energy usage. In the midst of the obstacles that I previously described, it is more important than ever to empower our members to not just understand how they use energy, but to manage their use. This empowerment begins with our employees, who will be finding new ways to make this information more user-friendly and readily available. The more information we have, the better we can manage YEC’s electric system and improve reliability.
Q: What is your leadership style?
A: In both my personal and professional life, I always seek to lead by example, with a servant mindset. When encountering a new project, I first ask myself “How can we get this done?” I aim to be a proactive leader that seeks to empower my team. I can’t replace a pole after a storm, splice a cable, or fix a computer issue, but I can work alongside our excellent employees and ensure that they are equipped to not just do the job, but do it well.
Q: Who has had the most influence on your life and why?
A: My parents. From an early age, they instilled in me a strong work ethic that I am proud of. While this meant I had to learn difficult lessons as a child and young adult, I am truly grateful for their sacrifices and teachings.
Q: From what/whom do you draw your inspiration?
A: My faith and family have been, and will always be, my inspiration in life. I realize that I have been blessed beyond measure. I am so fortunate to have a beautiful and loving wife, three wonderful children and a great son-in-law.
Q: In your opinion, what do we do best?
A: We have a members-first mindset here at YEC. We look out for our members by going the extra mile, improving the quality of life in the communities we serve and leaving things better than we found it.
Q: What will be your immediate focus that will impact members?
A: I will direct my immediate attention towards minimizing the potential adverse effects of rising power costs. Alongside this, we must continue to invest in and maintain our electrical grid. I will focus on these two areas so that YEC can continue to provide the reliability and competitive service that our members are used to.
Craig Spencer
Experience: Spencer has worked at York Electric Cooperative for the past 32 years, starting as the purchasing agent for the co-op. He most recently served as Chief Operating Officer after he was selected to become the next CEO. Prior to that he was the Vice President of Engineering for many years.
Education: Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Carolina.
Family: Spencer has been married to his wife, Susan, for 30 years and they have three children. Ben, their eldest, recently graduated from Duke Law School. Their twins, Sarah and Shelby, just graduated from Anderson University. Sarah, who was married last year to Mason Watts, majored in Christian Studies and will be attending graduate school for Christian counseling. Shelby graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and will be working at AnMed in Anderson.
For a guy, who grew up in Mt. Pleasant with a love of the water, and who put himself through school by working on a charter boat, you’d assume I’d be most excited about more time to fish in retirement. Really, I’m most excited to devote more time to helping others. This may include the homeless and widows, but really it may be anything my Lord has in mind and lays on my heart.
