The Ending of My EPB Career - A Diary of the Events

I''m just putting this narrative here because it is easier for me to find after the many changes to what is accessible on Facebook.

Although there were two (but now only one) local media outlets that were doing a good job of keeping the community informed on the factual events regarding their Glasgow Electric Plant Board, they have a lot of other work to do, and keeping up is hard. As a result, many questions about the events come to me, and, frankly, there are so many events that even I am losing track of the timeline. This document is furnished, without any sort of opinion or editorial comment, to establish the chronological list of events, and give me a place to refer folks to when they have questions. I will attempt to edit this as the situation continues to unfold.

In the beginning, circa 2013, my team and I began to do big data analyses of the hourly electric power consumption data that was becoming available to us through modernized electric metering devices. We began to compare individual customer consumption data to the retail billing and wholesale billing from TVA. We began to make very big discoveries.

We learned that the century-old electric rate habits of 3000 utilities in the United States, and also used locally in Glasgow, were faulty. We found that actual comparison of retail billing vs. wholesale costs revealed that some classes of customers were being under-charged (when compared to real costs of service) and other classes were being over charged and were being forced to subsidize the below-cost rates of others.

After many months of examining the data and the study results, the EPB Board was ethically driven to ask my team to develop new retail rates that assured no customer is served at a loss, and no customer is over-charged so as to force them to subsidize others.

That sounds simple, but the work was completed, approved by the EPB and TVA, and implemented on 1.1.2016. After that, it wasn't long until those who were formerly being subsidized began to demand my head on a platter...as if that would change the solid scientific and mathematical basis for the changes.

There were many events in this story that happened, in the pursuit of removing my head, beginning in February 2019, but this listing will mainly concentrate on the 2020 events, beginning in May. Going back to the beginning, when D.T. Froedge first presented himself in my office, asking for my resignation and telling me that he and two other board members had already agreed to fire me (a violation of Kentucky Open Meetings law) should I refuse to resign, is just too much research for me to accomplish at this time, and it would be too much for you to read!

May 5, 2020 – This was the first of Froedge’s attempts to convene a Special Meeting with an agenda that had 7 or 8 items, which included electing new Board officers, Hiring consultants and law firms to accomplish reviews of the TVA power supply agreement, and removing me as Superintendent. The call for a meeting was not recognized by the EPB officers, due to their belief that Froedge had resigned from the Board in 2019, so there was no official notice of a Special Meeting of EPB, but three members did meet in the EPB parking lot in an attempt to act on the proposed agenda.

May 14, 2020 – D.T. Froedge engaged counsel and filed a complaint against the Glasgow EPB and the four confirmed Board members, seeking a declaratory judgement on whether he was still a board member.

May 18-20, 2020 – I was not copied on it, but somewhere in this date range, Tag Taylor contacted Cole and Moore, PSC, who had already done litigation work for EPB, and they filed a response, on behalf of the EPB, to the Froedge complaint.

May 19, 2020 – Froedge, through his attorneys at Bell, Orr, Ayers, and Moore, PSC, filed an Emergency Motion for Early Relief relative to his May 14 complaint.

May 26, 2020 – Through my counsel at Broderick and Davenport, PLLC, I filed a Motion to Intervene in the Froedge complaint, and to expand the complaint to also ask for a ruling on the legality of the May 5 meeting.

That evening the regular meeting of Glasgow EPB was held, but no business could be conducted due to the absence of all members except Taylor and Short.

May 28, 2020 – The first hearing before Judge John Alexander in Barren Circuit Court was conducted via Zoom. All motions filed relative to the complaint filed by Froedge were argued.

May 29, 2020 – Judge Alexander issued the first Order relative to the matter, which allowed me to intervene in a limited fashion.

June 3, 2020 – Judge Alexander issues the second Order on the matter, setting June 18 as deadline for briefs to be filed by the parties to the complaint and action.

June 23, 2020 – The June regular meeting of the EPB was held. Again, no business was conducted due to the absence of all members but Taylor and Short.

June 30, 2020 – A Special Meeting of EPB was called and conducted, to accomplish essential business before the end of the 2020 fiscal year.

July 2, 2020 – Judge Alexander issued a ruling based on the original hearing and the briefs filed by counsel for all parties. The ruling concluded that D.T. Froedge remains a member of the EPB, and that the May 5, 2020 Special Meeting was not legally noticed and held, such that all actions taken were moot.

July 7, 2020 – Another Special Meeting was requested by D.T. Froedge, to consider the same agenda items called for in the May 5, 2020 meeting. The meeting was not noticed by an officer of the EPB and was not held.

On the same day, attorneys for Cole and Moore filed a motion on behalf of EPB amend the July 2 ruling and order by Judge Alexander, or to vacate same.

July 10, 2020 – Judge Alexander issues Order for a hearing on motions for July 24, 2020.

July 10-22, 2020 – Lots of motions filed by counsel to all parties in the action.

July 24, 2020 – Second hearing held in front of Judge John Alexander. All motions were argued and considered by the parties. No official Order yet written from that hearing.

July 28, 2020 – The regular meeting of the Glasgow EPB was convened, but even though the proposed agenda had been delivered to the members a week earlier, inviting suggested changes or additions, and none being offered, Froedge attempted to add two agenda items that night. He asked to hold an election of Board officers and he wanted to consider the dismissal of Cole and Moore, PSC, counsel to the EPB. Discussion ensued relative to the legality of such an action. Eventually, after there was no successful vote to approve an agenda, the meeting adjourned without business being conducted.

July 29, 2020 – Motion filed by EPB counsel to stop further attempts by Froedge to call Special Meetings or otherwise circumvent the perceived law on meetings and agendas during the pandemic state of emergency in Kentucky.

August 3, 2020 – Another Special Meeting was called by Froedge, Witcher, and Pritchard, with the agenda items of Board Officer elections and consideration of the dismissal of Cole and Moore as EPB counsel. While the officer election motion was not recognized by Chairman Taylor, the Cole and Moore matter proceeded with a 3-2 vote to dismiss Cole and Moore as counsel.

August 6, 2020 – Hearing in front of Judge John Alexander to consider additional motions since last hearing. Arguments held on all motions, including the motion of Cole and Moore to withdraw its representation of EPB, due to the action of the Board. Cole and Moore informed the court that they would continue to represent Taylor and Short as individuals.

An Order was issued by Judge Alexander granting the motion of Cole and Moore to withdraw, and directing EPB to engage new counsel for their representation within 60 days.

August 7, 2020 – Another call for a Special Meeting was proposed by Froedge, Witcher, and Pritchard, with three agenda items, all related to the intent of removing Taylor as EPB Chairman and replacing him. This call was not noticed by an EPB officer until after the 24-hour minimum notice before the proposed 4:00 pm meeting had elapsed. The meeting was not held.

Judge Alexander issued an Order resulting from the July 24 hearing. He re-confirmed that Froedge is a member, he issued a stay to prevent additional Special Meeting calls unless something of a very large significance materializes, and he directed the parties to go into binding mediation in Executive Session. That mediation was scheduled for October 20, 2020.

August 11, 2020 – Froedge, Witcher, and Pritchard, again requested a Special meeting at 4:00 pm on this date, to consider the same items proposed for the August 7 meeting, however the Order entered as described above caused cancellation and withdrawal of the request.

August 25, 2020 - The regular meeting of EPB was held via Zoom. At this meeting Froedge tried repeatedly to add certain items to the agenda, especially items relating to a new election of board officers. This effort was not allowed by Chairman Taylor, who repeatedly stated his contention that the October 20 scheduled mediation between the parties to the lawsuit filed by Froedge, would be the proper venue to hammer out such matters. Eventually the Board did take up the printed agenda and a relatively normal meeting ensued.

September 22, 2020 - The regular meeting of EPB was held via Zoom. The agenda was approved in a normal fashion. Under the agenda item of considering EPB’s required annual review of retail rate effectiveness, things got bizarre. As I tried to explain why we recommended another annual step toward accomplishing 100% non-volumetric collection of revenue to cover fixed costs, and as I also began to explain another optional approach to this end -- an approach with a dramatically reduced Customer Charge (because that was the request of a member of the Board at the August meeting), Froedge interjected his personal ideas for a rate architecture that would socialize all costs for five tariffs, dividing kWh consumption into the socialized sum and producing a new tariff wherein all costs would be shared volumetrically by nearly 100% of EPB electric customers. He also proposed the dissolution of the variable rate tariffs that are enjoyed by 68% of the residential customers and 80% of the small commercial customers. I also reminded him of the graphic, shared with the Board many times, which shows how volumetric sales are in a continuous and long-lasting slide, making volumetric collection of fixed costs a death spiral for EPB. Undaunted by these facts, they forged ahead and voted to submit Froedge’s rate outline to TVA for approval.

October 20, 2020 - A Special Board meeting was held to facilitate, and make legal, the board assembling to conduct mediation, in compliance with the Order of Judge Alexander. Discussion in closed session lasted for hours, but nothing that could be voted on in open session was found through the process. The meeting was called back in to open session and then adjourned.

October 27, 2020 Regular Meeting - Days before this meeting six different motions seeking different kinds of relief were filed by attorneys representing me, the minority group of the Board, and even one from the majority’s attorney asking to be allowed to withdraw from representing them! Due to time crunch within the Court system, only one of those motions was considered and granted before the meeting. This ruling granted a restraining order to prevent the Board majority from taking employment actions against me during the meeting. The order lasts until the Court can find time to hear and rule on the other five motions.

During the meeting Lanny White with CRI CPAs delivered a stunningly good report on the financial operations of EPB during fiscal 2020. The Board also approved our recommendation for restarting non-payment disconnections of service according to a recent Executive Order from the Governor, and directed me to continue to work with TVA in pursuit of the radical changes to EPB retail electric rates proposed by Froedge and approved by the Board on a 3-2 vote. The Board majority also moved to elect a new Chairperson - DT Froedge.

November 19, 2020 Special Meeting - Just four days prior to the regular meeting for November, Chairman Froedge called a Special Meeting of EPB to consider two motions he wanted to make, relative to Counsel for EPB, and the Long Term Partnership Agreement between TVA and EPB. During the meeting held via Zoom, one member lost connection to the meeting, causing the meeting to be ended without actions taken.

November 24, 2020 Regular Meeting - The meeting proceeded in a normal fashion, with Matt Baker being appointed counsel to the Board relative to the ongoing litigation filed originally by Froedge.

November 30, 2020 - A status conference was held among the parties to the litigation before Judge Alexander via Zoom. After discussion of the issues and how Matt Baker could take over representing EPB in the litigation, even though he had previously filed a motion with the Court on behalf of Froedge, an evidentiary hearing was scheduled for December 11, to discuss and hear testimony on all of the outstanding motions relative to this litigation.

December 18, 2020. Circuit Court Judge John Alexander issued a ruling and order relative to the motions heard on November 30. The ruling found Froedge in Contempt of Court, and directed the parties to resume mediation on the contentious issues. The Court also directed Froedge to personally pay the new costs associated with the resumed mediation.

December 22, 2020. At the regular EPB meeting, Froedge led the board majority to hire a law firm to act against TVA in the matter regarding the Flexibilty Agreement. Copious warnings were given to the three about how this agreement had been a lynchpin in the effort to attract CATL to acquire the old RRD/LSC plant and build their US products in Glasgow. These warnings were clear, factual, and passionate. They voted to go after TVA anyway.

Then they discussed the recent Circuit Court ruling, finding Froedge in contempt of court. They decided to hire Matt Baker to help arrange the mandated mediation...at Froedge's expense.

Luckily, the Board voted to approve my 2021 Pay Plan, but declined to consider my salary. This was no surprise, but the important business was approving the pay plan for the EPB team.

There was discussion of TVA's disapproval of a new retail electric rate architecture imagined by Froedge. The board then voted to have me design a finished rate plan using the very architecture that TVA had already rejected. That was about it.

January 5, 2021. Instead of proceeding with the resumption of mediation, as ordered by Judge Alexander, attorney for the board filed a Writ of Mandamus and/or Prohibition. This is an appeal to Kentucky Court of Appeals, seeking to have Judge Alexander's rulings in this matter overturned. It is unknown how this Writ might impact the process of Justice in this matter.

January 19, 2021. Judge Alexander entered an order, amending his previous order, which stipulated that no Special EPB Meetings could be called to consider anything other than emergency business. The new order removed that restriction.

January 26, 20121. The Regular EPB meeting was held and, well, I cannot really describe it. Just look for yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd70FE2S5J0...

February 8, 2021. At a "special" meeting of Glasgow Common Council, Mayor Armstrong first nominated Mark Lane to a position on EPB Board. The nomination was rejected by a majority of the Council. Next, a joint letter from BCEA and Glasgow Barren County Chamber of Commerce was read aloud. The joint letter urged the elected officials to use their influence to return wisdom and order to EPB decisions as they relate to Glasgow's economy. The letter resulted in a resolution proposed by Terry Bunnell, urging the Mayor to use his powers as requested by the joint letter. This resolution passed unanimously.

February 11, 2021. In a Special Meeting of the EPB, Court-ordered mediation relative to my employment was conducted. A settlement agreement was reached that provided for my stepping down from my position as Superintendent and my assuming a temporary role as Advisor/Consultant to EPB.

February 12, 2021. Another Special Meeting was held with only one thing on the agenda. The board reconsidered its action to authorize Frost Brown Todd to take action against TVA. The previously authorized complaint which sought to dissolve the Long Term Agreement with TVA, was retracted and FBT was directed to immediately withdraw the lawsuit.

 

Chapter Seven of Seven

 Being There

An Autobiographical Account of My Life and Times at Glasgow EPB

William J. Ray

CHAPTER SEVEN - The End

So, I do have regrets, and my departure due to the unpopularity of doing my job by recommending actions to a board, based on the knowledge gained by my team, still stings...a lot. I spent the last 40 years head-over-heels in love with Glasgow. Being spurned by it is the unkindest cut of my life. I regret not being politically savvy enough to recognize the development of a new resentful and angry mentality of some in the community. Further, I am ashamed of being blindsided by the possibility that their discredited ideas and beliefs could be embraced by local elected officials. While this malady did not originate in Glasgow, I should have had my ear to the ground enough to predict its emergence. I am sorry for not setting a better example for my families and my supporters. In my position, it is not enough to talk the talk. I was supposed to make sure that my walk was successful, not just accurate. I cannot help but feel sorry for giving others the assurance that doing the right thing, would always save one from injustice; and that discovery would not always lead to implementation. I learned that being right can sometimes just not be enough. I can only hope that they learn from what I failed to accomplish and move forward with the resolve gained from experience.

I did not mean for this to be so long. But I left out a lot of stuff about those 40 years, so maybe this should become a book. I left out the part where my blood children were born, grew up in Glasgow, and went on to make me the proudest Father ever known. I also left out a lot about the 124 other children – the total that worked with me during those years. I consider them my family too, and I am really going to miss them. I am a committed introvert (true, I swear), so it has always been hard for me to let both of my families know just how dear they are to me. Way back in 1984, when I was new to the EPB job, I discovered it was much easier for me to communicate my feelings to the team in writing. To make those writings personal, I began observing everyone’s employment anniversary by putting my feelings about them into a hand-written note. I guess I chose that method because I am always moved by a hand-written note from a friend, so I hoped the work family would feel the same. During my tenure at EPB, I wrote a lot of those notes – an amount commensurate to the love I have for my team. They are important to me. I believe those notes were important to my precious team, and I am really going to miss that process of making sure they know how much I care for them. 

I do not want to fail to mention a couple of stalwart Board members who, in my mind, qualify for mention like those I have already bestowed upon several other community leaders I got to work with. John “Tag” Taylor and Libby Pruitt Short joined the Board when the battle was already raging. They do not have the years of experience of some of the citizens I mentioned above, but they were quick studies and refused to accept the popular beliefs about me, my team, the rate design we created, or the sustainability discoveries we made. They might have had the toughest job of all of those who came before them, and they did that job with conscience, study, and honor. I salute them.

As mentioned earlier, I was born in Glasgow and came back to Glasgow in 1983, mainly because of the rotten political environment that existed in Bowling Green at the time. I did not intend to stay in Glasgow a long time. Over the years, there were many offers of bigger jobs and equally bigger salaries, but I just never could come up with a complaint about my job at Glasgow EPB that was big enough to give me a reason to leave. I also loved the way Glasgow was growing and changing, and that I was a part of that transformation. All of the friends I have now, and hold dear, came as a result of my time at Glasgow EPB, and the gravity created by those friends held me to Glasgow. Most of all, I loved the team that I worked with, and I still do. While I still have not found a good reason to leave, it seems that my departure is the will of the majority. While I refused to grant their wish without a fight (I’m not throwing away my shot!), sheer numbers and the clear intention of a majority of Glasgow’s voters made it certain they would prevail. So, with this narrative I bid you adieu, with my heartfelt thanks for letting me spend my life trying to make the world, starting right here in Glasgow, better. I know those who befriended me in Glasgow made my world better.

It is neither the calendar, nor the clock, that urges me to depart. Rather, it is the compass – pointing out the direction to destinations I crave – ethics, justice, and respect for science, that directs me to journey away from Glasgow EPB. This narrative should answer a lot of questions about my tenure in Glasgow, but one still remains – what comes next? Tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

Chapter Six of Seven

Being There

An Autobiographical Account of My Life and Times at Glasgow EPB

William J. Ray

CHAPTER SIX

It was with the scars from the battles we already fought, and the losses we incurred therein, that were with us as we trudged into the biggest conflict of my career. We were driven by the injustices we found, and the understanding that someone had to confront the problems we discovered. The creation of a new rate structure for electric power was not a fight we went looking for. Rather, it came looking for us. The rate issue arrived in the data gathered by one of our big research projects that tested the viability of advanced energy meters using our broadband network and allowed us to gather several years-worth of data about how Glasgow customers use the energy we sell. Instead of gathering only 5 digits of data from electric meters, once very thirty days, suddenly we were gathering that data every 15 minutes. As exceedingly bright members of the EPB team began to analyze that data by comparing our sales data for nearly 8,000 customers to the wholesale energy data provided by TVA, a story began to materialize – one that could not be ignored – one that held the key to upending the century-old electric power business.

In 2014, the brave Board that existed then (Norma Redford, Jeff Harned, Cheryl Berry Ambach, Jim Lee, and Karalee Oldenkamp) began to delve into the facts that the team was unveiling in the data we mined.  The findings included many inconvenient truths. We discovered that the existing rate architecture resulted in only those customers using the “average” amount of energy, and the average amount of coincident peak demand each month, were paying an amount directly connected to the wholesale cost of delivering that energy. Our discovery showed that very few real customers actually used the mathematical average amounts for a given rate class. Further, the facts revealed that customers using less than the average volume of energy, paid far less for their electricity than the actual cost of purchasing and delivering that energy. Conversely, we found that customers using more than the average volume of kWh (while using an average amount of coincident peak demand), were being forced to pay much more than the actual cost of the power delivered, and those were only the results within the residential rate class. Over the months, the facts also revealed that customers in the large commercial and industrial rate classes, when actual hourly consumption was compared to actual hourly wholesale cost, were paying much, much more than the cost of serving them. 

There were other previously hidden truths discovered. We found that large companies were being forced to subsidize other classes of customers. Perhaps the biggest discovery, and the one completely ignored by my vocal critics, is that there really is no significant relationship between low energy usage and household income. None. The image of cost-based rates bringing hundreds of older folks into a life of misery is conjured from nothing but misguided imagination. Much more common, and where a direct relationship was found to exist, is that a significant number of customers with low household income find themselves living in substandard housing, and those households were found to use more than the average consumption upon which the old rates were designed. The poor, in substandard housing, were paying more than their fair share of EPB fixed costs under the pre-2016 rate design.

These findings were considered by the EPB Board throughout 2013, 2014 and early 2015. I can assure the reader that no one on that Board wanted to be placed in the position of having to deal with this issue that permeates all 3,500 electric utilities in the U.S. They faced the old energy utility habit of ignoring the fact that the rate architecture, the one in place since the early 1900s, did not accurately produce billing that was connected to actual cost of service. They could have adopted that common industry habit and hoped that their terms on the Board would expire before those facts leaked out to the customers who were being treated unfairly, but they did not do that. Instead, driven by their wisdom, integrity, and ethics, they pursued a course of “good trouble” and followed the words of Martin Luther King from his March 1965 speech in Selma, Alabama, “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.” That EPB Board rose up, and they directed my team to develop a rate that brought accuracy and justice to the way people in Glasgow purchase their supply of energy, because anything else would not be right. My team followed their direction and developed what energy and rate experts who have examined it call, the most simple and elegant solution to electric power retail rate design which exists today. Although that move was largely misunderstood, and although that action of standing up for what is right ultimately caused their departure, and mine, I am proud of what the Board and my team accomplished then, and what they are still accomplishing now. If given the chance to go back and do it all again, I would not change a thing, because it was that new relationship between electric power production and the retail sale of the product that revealed the most powerful truth of my career.

For over a century, the electric power systems have operated on the belief that the daily demand curve for electric power was unalterable. This belief drove the industry to over-build generation capacity and over-mine the fossil fuels that have long been used to burn to produce the steam necessary to create the flow of electrons we hold so dear. But our work in Glasgow began to show that the daily peak demand could be flattened. It showed that off-peak power could be stored in batteries, and that our broadband network could be used to organize electric power production, storage, and consumption, into a shape which could be satisfied using mainly renewable energy sources. Before some very angry and backward voices organized to put the kibosh on research projects in Glasgow, using misunderstanding and a shocking disdain for expertise, we gathered enough data to glimpse a world with dew still on it. We discovered and demonstrated how the ratio of energy usage to peak demand could be drastically improved, using technology and cost-based rates. We saw a way toward a sustainable energy system that stole the ideas of energy conservation and storage from nature. We revealed those things before a few misguided people, promoting their local brew of uninformed populism, killed the appetite for research and discovery in Glasgow. Allowing them to do that is my greatest failure.  

Chapter Five of Seven

Being There

An Autobiographical Account of My Life and Times at Glasgow EPB

William J. Ray

CHAPTER FIVE 

Although we won many of the battles that sought us out during my time at the EPB, we experienced some gut-wrenching casualties in the process. Some of those consisted of cherished members of the team leaving for other jobs. More casualties came in the form of experienced essential members of the team who chose to retire long before their talent diminished, just due to the stress involved in the EPB world. This challenge will continue to be a problem after I am gone. But, by far, the most crushing loss of members of the team came from a couple of untimely deaths. Jama Young was our first Technical Services Manager. I wanted a small group of folks to create a “skunk works” operation to study evolving technologies and bring the deserving ones into our portfolio of products. Jama was designed for the job. Of all the people I have encountered during my long career, Jama was one of the most brilliant and capable. I fully expected her to take my place when I departed. In an unjust twist of fate, she left this world before that could happen. We think so much of her, that we still honor her by naming the building that holds most of Glasgow’s essential technology after her. The wound left by her passing has never healed.

Janice Crenshaw also left us when we were counting on her the most. Janice was much different than Jama. Janice was not a technical wizard. Rather, Janice was a customer relationship expert. She worked in our lobby, where she waited on, and counseled dozens of customers each day. While anyone can learn to talk to customers and fulfill their wishes, I’ve never seen anyone else with Janice’s capacity to make each of those interactions something that made the customers involved feel loved and respected. We are still trying to get over her loss as well.

Continuing the EPB mission is impossible without finding, hiring, and retaining more team members like those who we lost during my years.

Chapter Four of Seven

 Being There

An Autobiographical Account of My Life and Times at Glasgow EPB

William J. Ray

CHAPTER FOUR

With the attention to our accomplishments came a steady increase in the number of companies that wanted to schedule a visit to Glasgow, or they wanted to schedule me to come to their meeting to tell the Glasgow story. I testified before House and Senate Committees relative to proposed legislation to reign in the cable television, telephone, and programming companies, and that notoriety attracted even more interest in Glasgow EPB. One of the companies who repeatedly visited us was a group from MCI. They were a powerhouse telecommunications firm back then. After several visits from MCI executives in the early 90s, I got a call from a very important MCI executive named Vinton Cerf. I did not know it at the time, but Vinton Cerf co-developed the language of the internet, TCP/IP. Cerf wanted me to fly to his office just outside Washington, DC, for lunch and a chat. I accepted that invitation and was quite surprised to learn that Glasgow’s work was being deeply studied by his team at MCI, and he wanted to know if we would be interested in becoming the MCI test site for delivering high-speed internet access via broadband and a yet-to-be-manufactured device called the cable modem. At the time, I had never even seen the internet, nor had anyone on the EPB team, but it seemed like a great opportunity to partner with a very big company with a lot of resources. We accepted the offer, and it became one of the pivotal events in my career, and in the life of Glasgow and Glasgow EPB.

Within a few weeks, MCI had provisioned high speed links to Glasgow, and we connected them to our broadband network. We found about ten friendly customers who already had a PC in their home, and who were willing to allow us to crack that PC open and install an experimental card in the bus, which would interface with our coaxial cable network. The results, even from the beginning, were phenomenal. We knew this was going to be a very big product, yet we were clueless as to what people would pay for it, we also didn’t know what our expense of providing the service would be, and we certainly didn’t know that so many homes and businesses would want the service. As we began to carefully offer the service in 1995, we soon realized that we were holding a tiger by the tail. It also became the firm foundation upon which we stood to see a sustainable future for Glasgow, and the world outside it.

Totally documenting the struggles and the amazing growth of the internet business, after its 1995 inception, would take too many pages. Suffice to say that Glasgow EPB’s involvement in the internet access business via its broadband network became far bigger than Vinton Cerf first suggested at the fateful lunch. Glasgow became famous again, as it was proclaimed the most wired city in America, by several publications. The business changed the EPB team, as our hunger for even more bright young people intensified, but it also changed virtually every home and business in Glasgow. High speed internet became available, and high-expertise support from EPB made the availability usable for everyone, as we continued the democratization of technology. 

The rates we set for the internet products began, and remain, far below what peers charge for similar products. In 25 years, the net income from the booming internet business began to exceed the net income produced by the contracting electric power business. That seems impossible, but such growth and opportunities came to pass from having the right Mayors, appointing the right Board members, who supported EPB management in finding and retaining the right team. All those elements existed, and they combined to produce the greatest results imaginable for the Glasgow citizens. Since the beginning of the cable television and internet services, the low rates offered by EPB have saved the citizens of Glasgow over $70 million and that amount continues to grow.

It is impossible to know just how Glasgow’s early availability of high-speed internet impacted hundreds of other businesses in Glasgow, but we know it did and it enhanced their ability to compete. The availability of high-speed LAN/WAN connectivity also enabled us to create BITS, the community GIS mapping consortium that also gave birth to our Enhanced 911 system. That too came from a now old-fashioned spirit of cooperation between EPB, FRECC, Glasgow Water Company, Barren County Schools, City of Glasgow and Barren County Fiscal Court. No other community had, nor do they have today, anything like it. We have leaders like Jackie Browning, Doc Nichols, Woody Gardner, Charlie Campbell, and Charlie Honeycutt to thank for having this system.  

Chapter Three of Seven

Being There

An Autobiographical Account of My Life and Times at Glasgow EPB

William J. Ray

CHAPTER THREE

A bit later in the 80s, after we had given up on the hydroelectric projects, continued dislike of the cable television company brought us back around to that broadband concept that was included in the hydroelectric plant vision. Telescripps Cable was not winning friends in Glasgow when they provided antiquated technology, normally stuff that was retired from their larger systems in Knoxville and Chattanooga. Eventually, Jeff Herbert and I opened discussion of the idea of Glasgow EPB building its own broadband network for Glasgow’s future. The Board really had only one question about this idea. They wanted to know if the network could be used to offer modern cable television products to Glasgow, in direct competition with Telescripps. My answer was yes…even though I was secretly not actually sure how it might work. That was the answer that the Board wanted. That discussion at an EPB meeting in 1987 turned out to be a very big deal.

A consultant was hired to advise us on whether our vision of implementing cable television, meter reading, telemetry, and LAN/WAN on one consolidated network, was even possible. Of course, we also asked them to make financial projections as well. After a few months, we got the results, and the report said that everything we envisioned was possible. However, the report went on to advise the Board not to embark on such a project. The reason? Well, the consultant apparently was partially owned by a cable television company, so it was no surprise when the Board was advised against building a new competitive network. Those five brave community leaders: William Bryant, Robert Lessenberry, Jack Goodman, Norma Redford, and Don Doty, wasted no time in ignoring that advice and directing me to go forward with the design and construction of the first municipally-owned broadband network in the United States. 

Things happened in rapid succession after that. Telescripps filed a couple of lawsuits against us, attempting to make us stop building the new network. The lawsuits eventually failed and Telescripps settled them. We started hiring more smart people and getting our existing team trained to build and operate a broadband network. Construction went on, nearly around the clock, until finally, in late 1988, we had the right team, we had finished the installation of the head-end electronics in the newly expanded EPB building, and we began connecting customers to the network. It was an exciting, frightening, and gratifying time. My team said they could handle this project, and as usual, they were right. This project moved us toward the aforementioned window to a new world of possibilities.

Building the broadband network was easy compared to operating one and achieving financial success. While I was anxious to get into the more exotic telemetry and meter reading via broadband network, it was the early 90s and Glasgow only wanted its MTv. So, the broadband project mainly consisted of competitive cable television for the first few years. Telescripps made that competition very tough. They gave up in the courtroom, but they declared all-out war on the streets of Glasgow. They lowered their rate for basic cable to only $5.95 per month, street by street, as we completed our network on those streets. So, my group of smart and innovative people got deep into competition mode. They invented ways to customize our installations to meet the needs of a variety of home television setups. They discovered the gold in locally originated programming. We began to videotape and replay every sort of sporting event that took place involving the children of our customers. We even struck a deal with District Judge Bennie Dickinson, to videotape sessions of Small Claim Court, and replayed those mercilessly! The whole concept of locally originated programming began to work for us, and very slowly, throughout the rest of the 90s, our cable subscriber numbers grew. They grew so much that by 2000, after Comcast had acquired the Telescripps properties, they struck a deal with us to sell out their remaining customers, and their network, to us. 

Even though most of the EPB team was committed to the cable television battle, early in the 90s we found some time to dabble in computer networking over the broadband network.  We used that capacity, initially, to connect our substations to a system that allows remote monitoring and control of the equipment at the substations. This capability began to show immediate improvements to the reliability of Glasgow’s electric grid, and we still use it, and improve it, bit-by-bit today. We also began to do little Local Area Network/Wide Area Network projects wherein we learned how to do things like read an encyclopedia off a CD-ROM drive at one of the schools by using a simple PC at one of our homes. Though these were not giant technological leaps, we were quite proud of this capacity and we began to understand just how big this idea of local area networking directly into all homes and businesses might become. In those days we hosted many other utilities and technology companies that had read about our network. You see, the dirty tricks that Telescripps pulled in their attempts to stop our progress, made us famous. There were big feature articles about us on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, as well as dozens of other publications. CNN even ran a feature story about us, and all of that publicity attracted the attention of some companies and individuals who also became a part of my story.

Chapter Two of Seven

                                                                   Being There

An Autobiographical Account of My Life and Times at Glasgow EPB

William J. Ray

CHAPTER TWO

Only a few months after walking into Glasgow EPB for the first time, my daughter, Lauren was born, and for the next 18 years, my family enjoyed the rare pleasure of raising kids and attending hundreds of events at Glasgow Independent Schools with them. I would not trade those years for anything, and the success of Bradley and Lauren is testament to the fine school systems we have in Glasgow. At work, I arrived to find a small team of 22 folks, working hard to grow Glasgow’s power grid, using practically no technology, even though Glasgow’s commercial and industrial customers were growing like topsy. It was a much smaller operation than what I was accustomed to in Bowling Green, but it was friendly and peaceful -- qualities that kept me in Glasgow for many ensuing decades.

The excitement of those hydro projects quickly turned into something far more daunting than I anticipated. TVA didn’t really want Glasgow to build those projects and make its own power. Army Corps of Engineers had a very dim view of Glasgow monkeying around with its lakes and dams. For a young fellow, totally inexperienced with taking on two giant federal entities, it was clear that a friend would be needed -- one with more experience with moving mountains, and willing to tutor and support said young fellow. I found that person in the EPB’s experienced counsel – Jeff Herbert. Jeff became my friend, advisor, instructor, and partner in more than one big idea that became a reality for Glasgow. But it all started with those hydro power licenses that those five board members, those giants of Glasgow’s glory days, pursued and captured. 

Even though the hydro power projects never became a reality (the opposition from TVA and ACOE was just more than we could overcome), those licenses became an essential element of the last 40 years at Glasgow EPB – here is what I mean. If Glasgow EPB was going to find a way to economically build and operate hydroelectric facilities at distant dams, it became clear that finding a way to operate them remotely, would be required. How would EPB receive complex telemetry, video, and other data necessary to satisfy the ACOE, at distant sites? It turned out there was a way, one that might also provide a lot of other functionality for EPB and for the people of Glasgow…a broadband network. Although the hydro projects failed to materialize, that broadband system became something I wanted to learn more about, and that did come to pass. 

A recurring theme throughout this recounting is that we were able to attract phenomenally talented people to join the EPB team. Those people came, nearly exclusively, from our local area, and nearly all of them graduated from Glasgow or Barren County schools. This area has always had a robust vein of talent within it, and that same early Board I mentioned, did something that allowed us to find, recruit, and retain that talent. They considered, deliberated, and ultimately approved a pay plan that is the foundation for EPB’s success over the last several decades. With the rich resource of talent, a Board made up of thoughtful and supportive business folks, and a deep vein of ethics that believed that when these team members earned our respect, we are required to give them that respect, we developed a team of super-heroes.

Approving that pay plan was no small feat, and it likely could not happen in today’s polarized political environment. But in 1985, Don Doty, a certified expert on human resource management, proposed a merit-based pay plan to me, and he and Dan Moody spent countless hours explaining the concept to me. With Don’s backing, I proposed the plan to the Board (remember, that Board included Robert Lessenberry and William Bryant, and they were extreme fiscal conservatives). Instead of going to war with each other, they came together, listened to Don Doty and respected his expertise. They did not cling to their preconceived notions. Instead, they listened to each other and deliberated while fully respecting differing viewpoints. Eventually the plan was approved, unanimously, and it has been reviewed and re-approved for 35 consecutive years, by many different configurations of the Board, since its initial approval. While seldom mentioned, this event is one of the most important in the last 40 years of EPB progress.