New Lake Region CEO talks plans and perspective

Sara Serrano, Tahlequah Daily Press, Okla.
·2 min read

Aug. 11—HULBERT — The new chief executive officer of Lake Region Electric Cooperative has plans to continue existing projects and increase reliability going forward.

John Lee was named CEO and general manager of LREC at the beginning of April. Prior to this appointment, he held several different positions — including CEO —at Butte Electric Cooperative in Newell, South Dakota, where he worked for 16 years.

Lee is originally from a Spearfish, a city in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He found the LREC job offer through the website for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a service organization that represents electric cooperatives across the United States.

"I applied for the position and was fortunate to get it," said Lee.

A newcomer to Cherokee County, Lee already spends a lot of time on the Illinois River.

"I love the area, the people, the outdoors," said Lee. "That's one of the main reasons I took the job."

Lee is LREC's ninth CEO and general manager. His predecessor, Hamid Vahdatipour, served in the position for 30 years. As CEO, Lee has a couple goals he hopes to accomplish.

"Lake Region has had a very strong desire to provide broadband service to a lot of their members, in fact, all of their members. So what I'm hoping to do is follow the footsteps of Hamid and try to finish that project in a timely manner," said Lee. "That's going to provide better quality of life for our members of Lake Region."

Lee also wants to keep prices stable and provide members with the best service possible. He detailed what he believes he brings to the table.

"What I think I bring is probably a different set of eyes, and through a different lens, my outside perspective — maybe a different view on some of the goals I want to get accomplished," said Lee."

In a May newsletter from LREC, Board Chairman Scott Manes announced Lee's appointment and said the new CEO "shares the same cooperative values that we value and will continue leading LREC towards meeting our members' needs."

In addition to LREC's broadband service, Lee is looking forward to a number of upcoming projects.

"We've got some things in the works to provide better reliability going forward," said Lee. "We've had a lot of storm issues related with outages, so we're doing some corrective actions there. I hope members will see reduced outage times."