Illinois board member part of national leadership team

Two electric cooperative CEOs and a director will ­comprise the new leadership of the NRECA Board for the next two years. The new NRECA Board leader­ship team is President Mel Coleman, Vice President Phil Carson and Secretary-Treasurer Curtis Wynn. Carson is a board director for Tri-County Electric Cooperative and the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives.

“This is a partnership,” Coleman told the board after his election. “It’s a board of very talented people who represent 47 states.”

Carson has been a director at Tri-County Electric Cooperative in Mt. Vernon, Ill., since 1999. He joined the NRECA board as Illinois Director in 2006.

He is a dairy farmer on a 160-year-old family farm and pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Ill.

Carson joked that the duties of the vice president include toting the president’s luggage. On a serious note, “you have done me a great honor by putting me in this position,” he told the board. “This will be a great oppor­tunity to grow.”

Wynn is the newcomer to the board leadership, though not to the whole board. The CEO of Roanoke Electric Cooperative in Aulander has represented North Carolina on the national board since 2007.