NISC Blogcast

The start of a New Year is a time when people make resolutions to make changes or improvements in their life. While I'm mildly successful in following through with these resolutions, I do think about a restart or a new beginning each new year. On my list each year, the usual ones like lose weight, run more and be nicer to Ed Wolff. All three will require focus, concentration and hard work to achieve.  While personal resolutions are important, I've also thought about what resolutions we want for NISC in 2020. After thinking about this for a while, I think I can sum it up in a simple statement. I want NISC to be better at the end of 2020 than at the start. Of course, there are hundreds of ways to make this happen. They all require focus, concentration and hard work to achieve. We are here to serve our members. We're here to find better and innovative ways to serve our members. This might be an improved process in RDQ that results in more throughput of changes and products or the new member value team, both will get NISC to a stronger position.  The most important part of any change is improvement, is talent and employees who have a single focus to better the organization in their everyday jobs. My hope for the new year is the vision is clear and the challenge exciting. Together we will accomplish many things that we will look back on and think, yes, we are in a much better place than this time last year. We are committed to making NISC an exciting, challenging and rewarding place to build our careers.  I thank you for all you've done during 2019 to make NISC successful and I look forward to the New Year with great anticipation of what we can accomplish together.  Happy New Year, Dan

It was June of 1986. At that point in my career, I had gratefully worked in the industry for ten years. And I remember thinking to myself that I had found my calling, and I could see myself retiring from this industry. My phone rang. I picked it up, and I immediately recognized the voice on the other end as Ray Clouse, the CEO of NCDC. I had worked with Ray and his staff over the years as a member of NCDC and often times as a beta test site for their products. My conversation with Ray was short and to the point which was typical for Ray. "Dosch, get your butt over here. I've got a job for you." No interview, no personality test, no background check, no reference checks. He had made up his mind and would not take no for an answer. To be honest, my first reaction was no and heck no. I was comfortable where I was. It was a secure, well-paying job, and the position that Ray was offering was certainly a challenge, but the financial and market position of NCDC at that time was tenuous at best. They were a struggling startup, strapped for cash, struggling to get a foothold in a difficult, undefined, and volatile market. My head was screaming no. But my heart. And my intuition said this is exactly where I needed to be. So much to the disappointment and against the advice of my father. I took the job, and as they say, I have never looked back. In retrospect, next to marrying Lynn, this was the most impactful decision I had made in my life. That unlikely turn in my career has opened up opportunities, allowed me to travel to all 50 states and the world, has stretched me personally, intellectually, and physically. It has taught me important life lessons, allowed me to fail and recover, but, most importantly, has afforded me the opportunity to establish critical, life-changing, and enduring relationships and friendships. In addition, it is provided for my family, made house payments, paid tuition, covered the birth of our children, and broken bones and stitches that go along with raising a young family. But it has also given me the opportunity to retire and to refocus my life when I still have my health and the opportunity to participate in the lives of our children and grandchildren. But back to my story. Ray was a man's man, a marine, a cowboy, an opinionated, hard-drinking, no-nonsense leader who was a bit short in the compassion and empathy realm but excelled in defying the odds and dispelling the naysayers when life presented challenges. His favorite saying was "lead, follow or get the heck out of the way." Some would rightfully say that Ray's management style was authoritarian or autocratic. During those early years, we didn't have time to browse the Community or participate in a virtual employee meeting, attend to Meetup or listen to an NISC minute. We were fighting to survive as an organization. And Ray. Well, Ray was just the man to lead us. His management style was well suited for the years we spent as a struggling startup. All of those memories were running through my head as I headed west on Interstate 94, traveling to a small town of Golva, North Dakota, to the funeral of my friend, my boss, and the person who believed in me when perhaps I didn't believe in myself. Ray Clouse. It had been 26 years since Ray walked out the door of NCDC and headed into Retirement. He was drawn back to the ranch, the beauty and the majesty of the North Dakota badlands where he grew up. It was here herding his cattle on a horse, listening to the quiet of the prairie where he found his peace far away from the hustle, bustle, trials, and tribulations of being CEO of a technology co-operative. The church was full. The service was poignant, and it was comforting to see Ray's kids, who had grown two adults since the last time I had seen them. His wife, Judy, stood stoically surrounded and supported by her children. Ray had lived an amazing life, a life that was full of adventure, laughter, family, and friends. There were few tears on this day. Rather, the air was full with laughter and stories. Ray stories. Everyone who knew him had a few. Ray would not have tolerated any sadness or sniffling, rather. Today was the day that his friends pulled out the good stuff, the Pendleton whiskey, to toast to Ray and his colorful and impactful life. I believe that certain people come into our lives for a reason. And I, for one, am grateful that Ray came into my life to radically change its direction and set me on a course that was most unexpected. We gathered at his gravesite on a cold and blustery North Dakota fall morning. The fall sun warmed our faces and our hearts. The ever-present North Dakota wind gently move the prairie grass that surrounded the gravesite. A military contingent conducted a 21 gun salute. Ray would have liked that a fitting end to a strong and committed soldier who loved his family, his country, and his God. Thanks, Ray Clouse, for what you have done for me and my family. Rest in peace, my friend, and may this final ride into the sunset bring you the joy and assurance of a life well-lived. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

Vern: More than 44 years ago, when I started my career, I never imagined that someday I would have the opportunity to sit in the CEO’s chair.  I was a wet behind the ears, idealistic, naive newbie to the industries.  I knew very little about the Utility and Telecommunication and even less about the cooperative business model. Many of you know that my career began at Capital Electric an NISC Member. And For a young college graduate, capital offered a good wage, excellent benefits and much needed stability in my life after four years in college. I will be forever grateful for the start that Capital Electric Cooperative provided for me, and that experience of being a user of NISC’s technical solutions was one that I would carry with me for my entire career.  Now While I cherished my time at Capital, something was stirring inside of me. Something that told me that there was more out there I should be doing. And with that, I followed my heart and took a giant leap of faith and ventured on.  The rest, they say, is history, the challenges of a struggling start-up technology company, The development of iVUE … The merger of two competitors … Two cultures becoming one … Offers came to buy NISC – name your price, they said … And yet, we embraced our roots our Members and employees and remained a Member-owned cooperative. Our employee base has doubled in the past five years.  Our Membership spans all 50 states and beyond. Today, we offer an enterprise solution that rivals the best of breed solutions offered by Fortune 500 companies. And yet I believe we’re just on the cusp of launching the most revolutionary software solution to ever hit our industries …  we call it iVUE Connect. Now Make no mistake, NISC is not even begun to reach its full potential. Our future projections show a thoughtful and calculated growth. A steady path of improved efficiencies, service and economies of scale. One could say, there’s never been a more critical time for NISC. And a more promising time. … And, a time to reflect on it all, breathe in an overwhelming sense of gratitude, and step back and transition NISC into capable, committed and devoted hands. It seems crazy to transition away from an organization that I love, co-workers that I respect and admire and a Membership base that it is an absolute honor to serve.  NISC family, I have submitted my notice to the NISC Board of directors of my intentions to retire beginning in January of 2020. My wife Lynne and I have been contemplating this decision for several years, and it comes after a great deal of discussions with the NISC leadership team, board and my family. I am so proud of what the NISC family has accomplished, and I leave on an extremely positive note, knowing NISC is in excellent hands, and in a position of strength. The criteria the Board placed for my successor ensured that NISC’s next CEO would: 1) Uphold and strengthen our culture. 2) Be a servant leader and 3) Value, maintain and build upon our relationships – throughout the employee-base, Membership and industry partners. I must underscore that we have been aggressively preparing for this day. The NISC board has been actively developing a CEO Succession Plan for the past 24 months. While the Board was confident in our talent and succession planning pipeline here at NISC, they also took their fiduciary responsibility extremely seriously. As such, they utilized a respected search firm and conducted a nationwide search. After this careful and diligent search, I’m pleased to announce that Dan Wilbanks  NISC VP of RD&Q and our Chief Operating Officer was selected as my successor. To me this board action underscores the belief in and commitment to our employees, and the boards determination to honor our employees and promote from within, too often we have seen organizational cultures destroyed and turned inside out by someone comes in and does not understand the values, culture and mission, but not here at NISC. We have much work ahead of us, so we must not lose sight of our mission and the responsibility we have to serve our Members / Owners and each other as colleagues. As I begin this next chapter in my life, you need to know that I am not going anywhere, my focus will be on being part of a successful and uneventful transition, and I am willing to stay engaged for as long as that takes and as long as Dan deems necessary. One more thing: I feel like the luckiest man in the world, my wife Lynne our kids Zachary, Brittany, Jordan mean the world to me and I’m looking forward to being part of our six grandchildren’s lives, and in my spare time perhaps checking off a few things from my bucket list like hiking the Sangre De Christo  in Spain, the Appalachia Trail on the east coast and the Pacific Crest trail on the west coast.  There are national parks to visit and fish to tame with my flyrod, trails to explore on my mountain bike and rivers and streams to kayak but I will tell you this while all of that might sound fun and fulfilling: My single greatest accomplishment and single greatest joy next to my family is the team that we have assembled here at NISC and the company that we have built together,  a company that we can believe in and be proud of. You have inspired me, you have energized me, question, prodded, coached and admonishments me to do the right thing always and that has, made me a better person, husband, father, grandfather and hopefully CEO.   The memories of my years here at NISC will soon fade, but the culture and quest for excellence will continue and propel this organization to new heights.  I have had an opportunity to work with Dan Wilbanks for the past 19 years. I acknowledge the decades of his service to this organization. In all honesty I have never met a more committed, humble, dedicated and determined individual than Dan, and it has been an absolute privilege to call him friend, colleague and to serve NISC alongside of him. Knowing that NISC is in such trustworthy and experienced hands allows me to feel very good about this transition.  And now, I’d like to welcome your next CEO, Mr. Dan Wilbanks. Dan: Thanks, Vern for the kind words. I am so honored to be sitting here with you today.   BTW this is the first time we talked, and you didn’t ask me about a project deadline. I want to thank the NISC board of directors for the opportunity to take on this role. I look forward to the challenge.   NISC, has accomplished great things under Vern’s leadership. He will be leaving NISC with a bright future.   I will do all I can to continue the path of success and service to our members.  NISC greatest asset is all of you and the work you do for our member each day. The VP team and I are committed to keeping NISC a great place to work and build a career. I assure you my commitment to our culture is a top priority.   Our culture is what we value.   Things like Service to our Members, hard work, and building strong relationships internally and externally.  It’s what makes NISC a special place. Over the next few months I will meet with all the teams and we will have the chance to get to know each other better.  Together we will keep the momentum going and take NISC to exciting places. Our Members will be counting on a smooth transition and Vern and I will do everything we can to make sure that happens.  Vern,  Thanks for all you have done for NISC Thanks for showing us how to lead with integrity. Thanks for your mentorship. Thanks for your friendship. Thanks for being Vern, which in itself is amazing. I  promise that we will take good care of the organization you love.  Vern: Thank you, Dan. It’s been an honor working with you throughout our history, and even more, I treasure your friendship and your commitment to doing the right thing, always. It’s going to be fun although a bit hard be on the sidelines and to watch NISC grow under your leadership. You are surrounded by a very competent and dedicated Vice President group and supported by an engaged Board of Directors, so I am very confident of your success.

For the past 50 years, NISC marketing and industry personnel have been driving down I-94 through Montana. About 150 miles from the North Dakota border is a small town by the name of Forsyth. A rugged Montana town sustained by local farming and ranching. It's a part of Montana where miles upon miles separate farms and ranches. A part of the country where broadband and telecommunications services are vital and literally the critical link between those hearty Montana souls and the rest of the world.  It is a harsh and many times hostile part of the country. Harsh winters, unrelenting heat in the summer, certainly not an easy part of the country to serve an isolated membership with state-of-the-art telecommunication and broadband services.  As you travel down this sparsely populated Main Street, there is a bright spot. A vibrant business a pillar of the community a critical link from this part of the country to the rest of the world. A resilient bridge across the technology divide in rural America. Its Range Telecommunication. A pillar of the community that has been serving eastern Montana for the past 65 years.  This rural telephone co-operative is an excellent example of the typical NISC member, but unfortunately, Range has never been a member of NISC. It has not been for lack of trying as year after year we've made overtures, work to build relationships with one CEO after another to no avail. It was frustrating for us, but we were determined to continue our efforts looking forward to the day where we could welcome Range into the NISC family.  We have always said that this is a relationship business. Doors are open by relationships and kept tightly closed when they are absent. Recently, we saw a glimmer of hope. A relationship with a newly minted CEO who indicated that he may be interested in visiting with us. It was a relationship that opened this door, and we were determined to use this opportunity to present our organization and demonstrate that we were worthy of their consideration. There were several hurdles and roadblocks, but in true fashion, one after another, our employees stepped up and provided solutions that kept the process moving forward.  It was a Friday afternoon, and I was weary from a week of travel that took me to multiple cities in multiple NISC offices. I was in travel mode, laptop open and connected, working through a week of e-mail that had accumulated. I was focused on getting home that Friday evening. My phone rang as I was boarding the plane and after a polite greeting and some small talk we got down to business. Had she talked to the CEO of Range.? Yes. Had they made their decision? Yes. And drum roll...NISC has been selected as their I.T. partner. I wanted to jump up and cheer. We had waited so long. Our patience was wearing thin, and some said it would never happen. But they were wrong.  Relationships and determination and the tenacity of NISC paid off, and it felt very good. No. It felt incredible. I settled into my seat on the final leg of my flight with a smile on my face. It was going to be a great weekend.  Once again, my confidence in this organization had been strengthened. The power of relationships had once again been confirmed.  I love it when a plan comes together even if it takes 50 years.  Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

The year was 1992 and I was given the opportunity by our board of directors to be NCDC CEO.  I was young, inexperienced, and frankly very naive.  As I was sitting in Ray Clouse's office on his last day as CEO. He gave me one final piece of sage advice. "Dosch" he said "this is a damn lonely job." I nodded my head to acknowledge his final words of wisdom but my inner voice was saying well it may be lonely for you Mr. Clouse but not for me.  Today, 27 years later I must admit that Mr. Clouse was absolutely right. Sometimes this is a very lonely job and I don't say that looking for sympathy because there are so many attributes of this job that are wonderful and amazing and engaging and fulfilling. But yes Mr. Clouse was right. There are times this can be a lonely job.  I remember so clearly the first day in this position. I waited until after 5:00 o'clock to begin moving into that corner office so as not to seem too anxious or pretentious. And I finished moving in at about 8 o'clock and that evening I know I was the only one left in the building at that time and I sat in the big chair for the first time. And it is difficult for me to explain the overwhelming sense of responsibility that I felt. In the years working next to Mr. Clouse there were times when I did not agree with his decisions or his strategies but I always kind of brushed those off as knowing that, you know, the CEO was ultimately responsible for the success or failure of this organization, not me.  But today that had changed and I was reminded that it was President Harry Truman who kept a sign with the phrase "The buck stops here" on his desk and that phrase truly became a reality and a not so subtle burden that would become my ever present companion for the next twenty seven plus years.    In those early years I felt the responsibility of having to be knowledgeable about virtually every facet of our business. This perceived requirement was truly overwhelming as I struggled to keep up with what was the growing scope of our business. The reality that I faced in those early years was that I thought in order to be a successful leader of NISC you needed to be strong in accounting and finance. You needed to be a champion and an advocate of our employees. You needed to carry the NISC brand into the marketplace in an unrelenting effort to keep our pipeline of new business full. You needed to be an extraordinary technician always staying abreast of emerging technologies in their application to the NISC enterprise. You needed to have a keen legal mind protecting our organization from undue risk. And a very important responsibility was to have the ability to translate the ever changing requirements of our members into products and services that would expand the NISC enterprise. Managing a complex schedule of implementations being a expert on project management and providing mission critical support to our members were also perceived responsibilities of this job.  They say that wisdom comes with age and the realization that it was impossible for myself or virtually anyone to truly carry out these perceived responsibilities led me to understand that in order to provide the leadership that NISC would require meant building a strong and diverse Vice President group, a competent managers group, an emerging talent represented by our team leads. To be effective these groups would bear much of the burden of this organization. They would bring their subject matter expertise, their strong and diverse opinions, and most importantly a sense of servant leadership to our organization.    Putting this leadership group together is and will be a painstaking process. It was to be a group of Type A personalities driven, committed, and selfless. The reality was that this unique combination of leadership would take years to assemble with several misses along the way. Always looking for the correct seat on the bus for each of these leaders.  Today, when I think of our accomplishments here at NISC. I don't think about the products or our facilities. It's not our membership base or our financial position. Rather I believe our greatest accomplishment is the management team and our base of employees that has been and is being built. The vice presidents, managers, team leads who provide leadership, guidance, mentoring, innovation, discipline, and inspiration to our organization and to the entire group of NISC employees who are focused on serving each other and serving our members. Together each of us with our own unique personalities and skill set share the responsibility of delivering technology and support to over eight hundred members systems across the country.    I am not the smartest person in the room and the burden of leading this organization is not just on the CEO shoulders, thank goodness, but this leadership group and the incredible collection of thirteen hundred and forty eight employees have demonstrated that we are a force to be reckoned with. Competing with some of the largest and most powerful software companies in the world and winning. Yes, winning. Creating a culture that although is not perfect is strong, unique, compassionate, focused, and driven is our most important strategic initiative. If we get that right well then NISC will continue to grow. Continue to improve the level of products and services we deliver to our member owners and continue to nurture and evolve a culture that allows our employees to grow in their skills and abilities and be fully engaged in truly meaningful and impactful work. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern. 

During our 50 year history, we have experienced and successfully navigated through an amazing transformation of the telecommunications industry as they went from plain old telephone service to delivering robust broadband. In the utility industry, we have watched and assisted in the transmission from a sleepy analog industry to a dynamic, smart grid-enabled enterprise powered by fossil fuels as well as renewables like wind and solar. Although NISC is not immune from the global, political, and economic volatility of the industries we serve. We have a great deal to be thankful for as we consider the historical stability of our organization. We are seeing a growing number of companies that we have competed against for 30 plus years simply go out of business or make a last-gasp effort at a merger, consolidation, or a sale. Without a doubt, we are seeing a massive consolidation in this industry, and there will certainly be winners and losers. And make no mistake we are laser focused on being a winner. The deployment to iVUE as well as our recent acquisition of EDD and Affinegy are increasing the scope of the breakthrough innovative products that comprise NISC enterprise solution. In the marketplace, our brand has never been stronger or more relevant. Our commitment to delivering an elevated member experience is unwavering and emphasized by our "Membership Amplified" advertising campaign. While we have our challenges, member expectations, employee expectations, and deadlines to meet, my confidence in our organization has never been greater. We are nearing the end of our fiscal year, which will once again be record setting with highest revenues, margins, and a robust pipeline of new business. The best in our history. How cool is that? While those financial metrics are very important as an organization, we have chosen a different path. We have chosen to embrace a culture that places emphasis on the well-being of our employees both at work and at home. Working to create and build a healthy and productive work environment as well as supporting the work-life balance of our employees at home. It's a tough balance, especially in this 24 by seven world that we operate in and admittedly we don't get this balance right all the time. But we are relentless in working towards that goal. I have come to understand that our ability to continue building and improving the member experience, the robustness of our products, and the strength and consistency of our culture is all based on the quality of the individual contributions of each of our employees. Our People Services Division and the Vice President group is continually questioning if we're doing the right things, If we're doing enough focused on the right things the pay, the benefits, the policies, the employee events, the amenities. Are we focusing on the things that really matter to our employees? Our quarterly Pulse survey gives us a good indication if we're making progress in those areas and where we need to improve. For the past 16 years, we have held our breath when the Computerworld Best Places to Work survey results were released hoping upon hope that we would once again see NISC name on that coveted list. This year's survey did not disappoint as NISC was ranked 19th in the midsize company category. It should be noted that this was the first year that NISC was moved up from the small company category to midsize and we can only expect that as our employee population grows and we move up in the categories, the competition will get stiffer. There are many best of surveys out there. The majority of them require you to purchase advertising or pay a designated amount to be included in the list. As NISC, we have chosen to avoid all of those surveys as we do not believe that they accurately represent the sentiments and perspective of our employees and tend to be biased and not entirely honest. On the other hand, the Computerworld survey directly and independently surveys our employees. NISC has never made any payment to Computerworld and is very confident that the results have a great deal of integrity and credibility. On another note, my thanks to Brett Wetzel. Shannon Bogren, Joe Vonarx and Amy Gietzen for the role that they played in the red letter video that was posted today on the community. If you haven't seen the video, I strongly recommend that you take a look. Their stories are heartfelt and the production by our Communication Division, as we have come to expect, is simply outstanding. So today we celebrate our Computerworld ranking with a traditional red-letter day. Our way of saying thanks for the commitment each of you has made, the contribution of your skills, experience, dedication, and imagination to this organization. We are very grateful. We will never take your contributions for granted, and we will work tirelessly to create a workplace and a culture that is challenging, invigorating, provides career and learning opportunities, and a place that you are proud to work for. A place that treats you with the respect that you deserve. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

At NISC, we have always taken succession planning very seriously. Each January, the Vice President group and I update a comprehensive matrix that identifies at least three possible candidates for every team lead manager senior manager vice president and the CEO of NISC. The succession matrix is presented to the NISC Board of Directors at our January strategic planning session. This valuable exercise helps us to accomplish several objectives. The first, is to identify a successor in the event of a departure or a retirement for every supervisor here at NISC. The second purpose is to identify those areas in our organization where we need to initiate development plans for those designated employees. In other words, the employee identified as a possible successor isn't quite ready. They may be missing certain skills, experience, or the abilities that they need, and they need some assistance to be strengthened in those areas. So we put together a comprehensive development plan for that employee to help them move closer to the next career opportunity. And the final reason we go through succession planning is to identify and coach those employees that are included in the succession plan. We want them to understand the level of confidence that we have in them and the potential we believe that they have to take the next step in their career eventually. Now, with the departure of Jasper, we turn to that succession plan. It was an early morning conversation with Susan Imm, then NISC Manager of Utility Business Development and Sales. In the succession plan, Susan had been designated as the successor for Jasper. When I asked her if she would be willing to assume the responsibilities of the interim Vice President of Member & Industry I was relieved when her response to my request was "Vern, absolutely, If you feel that I can bring value to NISC I'm all in." Susan's reply produced a great deal of relief for the vice president group and me as this is such a critical position in our organization. We knew that we had to act decisively to provide the appropriate leadership for our employees in the division and so as not to disrupt our relationship with both our existing and prospective members. Susan has 25 years of experience in the utility software industry, She has led the utility sales team here at NISC for over six years, and she has demonstrated not only her effectiveness, as an integral part of growing NISC pipeline of new business, but more importantly her actions have demonstrated the effective and sincere way in which she has embraced the values and the culture of our organization. In her interim role, she was quickly and confidently recognized as she became an effective and trusted participant in our Vice President deliberations. In this case, our succession planning efforts identified a candidate in whom we have full confidence that has the required experience, skills, and most important values to step into this position. In her short time as interim Susan has demonstrated why she had been identified as a possible successor. I am so pleased to announce that we have decided to remove the interim part of her title and that she has also been selected as a member not only of our Vice President group but also of NISC's Strategy Committee. At NISC, we have a great tradition of promoting from within and providing career opportunities for our employees. The selection of Susan as Vice President of Member & Industry continues that important tradition. With this decision behind us, we will now begin the process of posting for Susan's former position, the Manager of Utility Sales and will start the interview process shortly. Please help me in congratulating Susan Imm. Thank you. I appreciate you, Vern

For those of you who have been at NISC for a while, you have heard me talk about Jim Collins and the book Good to Great. I first read this book in 2001 the year that it was published and I must say that of all the business books and all the authors I have read, in my career, This one made a profound impact on me and the culture of NISC. Many business books are simply the author's opinion and we all have an opinion including you and I. But what always impresses me with the writings of Jim Collins is that his conclusions were not his opinions, rather, they were the findings of his extensive research. Since this book Good to Great was originally released in 2001 it has sold millions of copies and today, 18 years later, over three hundred thousand copies are sold annually which, to me, makes it a very relevant and impactful book. Now to write this book Collins and his staff of 20 started with 1435 companies. They examined their performance over 40 years and based on that research they identified companies that successfully made the transition from good companies to great companies and in the process distinguish themselves from their competitors. This is where I disagree with Mr. Collins. The majority of the criteria for determining if a company was great or not when compared to their peers, financial measurements. Financial metrics like a stock price, market share, return to the shareholders in terms of dividends which I all agree are important financial measurements but for our culture here at NISC, they are not the only measurements. For us, the satisfaction and engagement of our stakeholders consisting of our member-owners, our board, and our employees are at the top of our list right next to the financial performance of NISC. Being a good corporate citizen, giving back to our communities, creating a healthy and ethical work environment, while building a culture of trust. These are all metrics that we believe are also very important. I do not believe that trading our time and talents just to maximize financial performance is really very motivating. Rather we believe that while financial performance and stability are very important because any business whether for-profit, nonprofit, or cooperative will not be able to deliver on their mission and vision if they are not financially strong and stable and producing a consistent margin. But there just has to be a greater purpose and cause for doing what we do the traveling, the deadlines, the pressure, the stress, our desperate attempts to balance work life, almost lead us to a greater cause or it simply isn't worth it. In the 1960s there was a famous singer named Peggy Lee who is born in Jamestown North Dakota in 1920. Her most notable song was titled "Is That All There Is". So we work ourselves to the bone, we make significant sacrifices for our families for what? A bigger bottom line? More dividends to the shareholders? Really? Is that like Peggy Lee would say all there is? The culture of NISC says "no that is not all there is". There is more to our lives than just financial metrics it's about family, it's about providing for our families, It's about our communities, It's about doing meaningful and impactful work that makes our world a better place to live like delivering electric power to some of the most difficult and remote places in the United States and providing broadband which helps us to bridge the digital divide in our country. That is why we get out of bed in the morning. Our work gives us purpose and meaning beyond just a paycheck. So although I may disagree with the criteria for measuring greatness I am absolutely a student of Jim Collins and his definition of great leadership and great companies is so important to me and to NISC. So imagine my excitement when NISC was recently asked to participate in a small group of about 12 individuals to have a direct conversation with none other than Jim Collins. I felt like a small boy meeting a storybook hero. I don't want to be overly dramatic but seriously this was one of the most important events in my professional career. The atmosphere at this meeting was intense. Mr. Collins peppered us for two hours with questions while he took copious notes. While I would rank the professional stature of Mr. Collins right up there with Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Peter Senge, Ken Blanchard, and Simon Sinek I was absolutely taken back by his humility. his directness, and his intense passion. It was clear to me that this leadership icon achieves that stature because he was passionate and he was a perpetual student of leadership always learning and always asking the hard questions. Now while some of the companies that Jim Collins identified as great companies in 2001 have since gone out of business or disappeared into oblivion, It was clear to me from listening to him that Jim Collins had moved on and his views of leadership and greatness had evolved as well they should. He wrote a sequel to good the great entitled "How the Mighty Fail" which drove home the point of how tenuous greatness is and how difficult it is to maintain your leadership position for an extended period of time in any market. I think there's a lesson there for our organization. So there you have it. A face to face meeting with one of my most influential mentors. Can you see the big smile on my face? And by the way, if you're in the neighborhood, stopped by my office. I would love to show you my brand new copy of good to great with, you guessed it, a coveted signature by none other than the author himself. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you. Vern

NISC is an organization that is dedicated to delivering enterprise technology solutions to our member-owners. These mission-critical components are essential for our member-owners to operate their business in the most efficient manner, improving their customer experience and maintaining their competitiveness and to do that they embrace the power of NISC technologies. Now the best analogy that I could present is that NISC enterprise is the virtual heartbeat of our member-owners organization. As employees, it is for us to understand the significance of our work whether you're designing, developing, implementing, or supporting the various modules of the enterprise or maintaining the infrastructure. We all need to be mindful that these 7 by 24, always on, nature of our business and solutions is all-consuming in its responsibility. Without our solutions, our members are dead in the water. They can't issue a bill, settling accounts payable, pay their employees, or serve the members at the end of the line without the NISC enterprise. Gone are the days, when the system was shut down at 5 o'clock for a four and a half hour backup making the system inaccessible. Today If the systems we provide even begin to slow down it's a crisis. Did I mention to you that the work you do is very important? Now over the years, we have built our enterprise methodically one function, one module at a time. Our board has supported our efforts, year after year, by approving our ever increasing research and development budget and never once, not once, have they not approved our request for building or increasing our staff. As you consider our enterprise arguably 90 percent of our solution has been designed, built, installed, and supported by NISC employees. With each addition to our enterprise, we go through that build versus buy analysis. The question is, is it best long term if we build the solution ourselves or should we buy or partner to secure the intellectual property that would be required? Partnering with ESRI for our geospatial system and Information Builders for our business intelligence tools are examples where we have partnered with a leading provider, and we've taken their solution and embedded that technology seamlessly into our enterprise rather than build it from scratch. For the last ten years we have partnered with Electrical Distribution Design or EDD, as they are known, for critical components to our operational analytics product. EDD is a 20-year-old company closely associated with Virginia Tech and staffed mainly with a group of individuals that have their masters and PhDs in electrical engineering. This staff has largely been devoted to smart grid research, many times funded with grants from the Department of Energy. Several years ago we began our relationship with EDD working closely with their staff developing an understanding of how their products could bring value to our membership. EDD strength is research and solving the evolving challenges in today's modern electrical system. However, they do not have the in-house expertise required to monetize their products like marketing, communications, legal, cyber, software distribution, project management, and educational services. It is those critical skills that NISC, along with our significant national brand recognition, can bring to this partnership. About three years ago we purchased 21% of EDD that transaction gave us a board seat and the availability to develop a better understanding of the organization and its products. Within the last nine months, we received word that several of the original shareholders wanted to liquidate their shares and sell the company. NISC was selected as one of the bidders. Now I'll spare you the emotional ups and downs in negotiating tactics of the last several months only to say that in the end NISC has been selected by the shareholders of EDD as its new owner. Our accounting, legal, people services, and product teams have been working on due diligence for the last several weeks. Last week we conducted an on-site EDD employee meeting in Blacksburg Virginia the location of EDD's office. Our presentation included the history of NISC our culture, present market, and financial positions and in general what it means to be an NISC employee. We also took the time to meet individually with each employee to answer their questions and develop a better understanding of their responsibilities and the role that they play in that organization. Now if all goes according to plan, we should close this transaction on March 1st at which time EDD will become a wholly owned subsidiary of NISC. I cannot express our excitement and our confidence that this bold step will significantly advance the value of NISC enterprise and be a strong differentiating factor between NISC and our competition. Could we have developed these solutions on our own within NISC? Yes, I'm confident that we could, but frankly, we didn't have the knowledge or the staff to develop these solutions in a timely fashion. The need for these products is real and immediate and for NISC to bring them to market very quickly and efficiently by way of this transaction will be a real coup in the marketplace. So stay tuned. I'm confident the acquisition of EDD will be a significant development in NISC continuing efforts to grow our enterprise and increase the value that we deliver to our member-owners. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

Over the years, no doubt, you've heard me use the phrase "only the paranoid survive". It's a popular quote that has been credited to Andy Grove, the first CEO of Intel. But what you may not know is that is only part of the quote the entire quote is "success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive," and it is that entire quote that I'd like to talk about today. At NISC we are on a rather long string of success. Literally, for the past 15 years, we have seen revenues, margins, cash, our employee base, and membership base steadily grow on a methodical climb. We have come to expect and in some cases to take for granted our progress and success. Over the past 15 years, iconic companies like General Electric have seen their share price go from 60 dollars a share to under 10 dollars today. Sears is gone from 115 dollars a share to less than a dollar today, and companies like Compaq, E.F. Hutton, Paine Webber, MCI, WorldCom, Enron, Woolworth, Arthur Andersen, and TWA have all met their demise. Now historically if you started a company in the 1920s, you generally had a 67-year run rate before another company would enter and disrupt your business. Sixty-seven years to ride the wave and enjoy prosperity. Think of how long Sears was successful only to be disrupted by Amazon. Today you start a company and, for example, MySpace is worried about Facebook, Google Plus or Instagram and what it is that will disrupt your proven and successful business model. The fact is that the disruptive cycle has gone from 67 years to 15 and 40 percent of the Fortune 500 companies on the S&P 500 today will no longer exist in 10 years. Well, guess what. NISC is 15 years into our cycle of prosperity. We have come to expect our strong growth in financial improvement and growing market share. We approach every prospect with the confidence and the expectation that we will win the business and more often than not we do. Our success in recruiting smart talented and in many cases experienced employees is at an all-time high, and that factor alone is having a significant impact on our progress, our rate of growth, the efficiency of our operation, and our development. But will we be able to defy the odds and continue our progress beyond that ominous 15-year mark? All in all, I am very confident that we will. And if I had to make a call or a prediction, I would say that we're in about inning two of a nine-inning ball game with plenty of runway for continued progress and growth and that's good. That's great for our members, and as NISC employees it is very good for our careers. But having made that bold, positive prediction, I would qualify those comments by saying we will be able to defy the odds only if we stay focused innovative. Always looking for efficiencies and improvement and never getting complacent and always remaining paranoid in a very good in a vigilant way. If our success breeds complacency and a sense of entitlement or if we start slacking, getting lazy, losing our hunger and our drive, losing our resolve, and our humility we could be heading for a demise like has happened to so many good companies before us. We have worked so hard to get to this place of strength. We simply cannot let it slide away. Today we are at a pivotal place with our iVUE releases. These next six months will determine if iVUE Connect will be a game changer launching us to new levels of success or if it will be mediocre, stumbling, pathetic, a comedy of errors in the launch that will shake the confidence of our members and our prospects. Which will it be? Anyone who thinks we are at a place where we can coast is not paying attention. Honestly, we are in a competitive battle for our lives and for our future as is every one of our competitors. Having said all that I have every confidence that we will be successful beyond our most optimistic projections but it will take an extraordinary amount of focus, passion, innovation, drive, and it will take the contribution and the dedication of every single one of our employees to pull this off. Are you in? Can I count on you? Because remember success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. And only the paranoid survive. And yes I am paranoid, and I hope you are also. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

A couple of weeks ago the vice president group and I spent several days with our Board of Directors for our quarterly board meeting and also our annual strategic planning session. We left those meetings exhausted but encouraged grateful and determined. I can't tell you how thankful I am to have those vice presidents, every one of them, involved with our board meetings and our critical strategic planning sessions. Their confidence, their expertise that allows them to be active participants in this process has built an incredible amount of trust between the executive staff and the Board of Directors which is critical in the effective operation of our organization. Now, these vice presidents have many responsibilities but in my mind where are the most important is that they are tasked with the challenge of executing good leadership within our organization. We expect them to lead by example. We expect them to lead from the front, just like the generals of the medieval War era, and these vice presidents represent every employee of our company no matter what designation they hold or where they are on the organizational chart. In our business, we have come to understand that every phone call or email can be a member in crisis with problems that need to be solved and at times it's our responsibility to pick up the pieces and rebuild the confidence of our employees and our member-owners. Anyone who thinks this is an easy business hasn't worked here. But make no mistake of the incredible sense of achievement and accomplishment when we do solve those problems, when we deliver extraordinary products and provide support and assurance to our members when they are in need. It's a great feeling when we rescue our members from those tenuous positions sometimes created by their own actions or inactions and sometimes we need to fall on our sword when we have created the problem or delivered a disappointing outcome to our members. You know it's hard for me to express in words the pride and the gratitude that I feel when I'm visiting with my members across the country and when I have an opportunity to listen to the things that they say about our employees and their impressions of the culture of our organization. This week was an example as I visited members in Georgia. In conversations with them, they would say things like "where does NISC get these extraordinary employees?" And it's not just one. It's everyone that we interact with. That's just music to my ears when I hear things like that. But many times I hear of the heroic activities when our employees have gone above and beyond the call of duty and typically I hear these stories from our members, not our employees. And I have truly come to appreciate the humility and the dedication of our employees. They don't do these things for pats on the back. They do it because it's the right thing to do, to take care of our members and I couldn't be more proud of them. This Sunday we will leave for our Telecom annual meeting in New Orleans. Soon to be followed by the Utility annual meeting in Orlando. As we approach these annual meetings which are a gathering of Board Members, CEOs and key employees of our member systems, we have made a conscious decision to take a different path with our message this year. Typically our annual meeting has focused on our operational performance including multiple illustrations and charts showing our growth in membership, growth in employees, and the general critical aspects of our financial position. But this year we will focus our message on answering this question, which often is posed by our members and rightfully so when they say, "NISC, what have you done for us lately?". Now we have tasked the vice president group to identify initiatives within their respective divisions that have improved the functionality and stability of our products, strengthened the personal delivery of our support and improved the consistency, timeliness, and quality of our implementations. We will also talk about our efforts to make certain that we are communicating the value and the specifics of each software release and the new learning opportunities which are presented by the many training initiatives launched by our National Learning Center. In general, our annual meeting will be less about us as NISC in our operations and more about our focused efforts to successfully meet the requirements, the wishes, and the expectations of our member-owners. Improving our member experience regarding implementation, support, and the general satisfaction with our products and services is at the very heart of everything we do here at NISC, and we are counting on every employee to keep this objective top of mind with every single member interaction. It's going to be an exciting couple weeks, and when we get through this annual meeting season, I will share my thoughts and experiences with you once again. I want you to know that I truly appreciate your efforts as we work together, all of us, to continually improve our organization. Thanks for listening. Take good care. I appreciate you, Vern

State of the Cooperative - January 2019   Introduction 2018 was a year of success and milestones for our cooperative. It was also a year of celebration as we recognized our 50th Anniversary. Preparations for this event included an extensive effort to digitize and catalog photos, videos and other items accumulated over the past half century. It’s important that this critical material, which documents the legacy of our organization, is preserved for future generations. Throughout the year we experienced strong, calculated growth in our Membership and employee base. Exceptional and accelerated demand for NISC solutions and services resulted in challenges and efforts to increase our capacity to meet this demand. Record investment in research and development continued to advance the NISC enterprise solution. The accelerated deployment of broadband by both the telecommunications and utility industries has allowed NISC to leverage our 50 years of telecommunication expertise for the benefit of our utility Members and their efforts to deploy broadband connectivity to underserved areas of the country. We believe that measuring our progress is the very best way to ensure accountability. As we monitor metrics for Member satisfaction, employee engagement and financial performance, we are encouraged by the progress we are making and determined to advance the journey of continuous improvement in all areas of our organization.             Member/Owners The primary focus of our organization is to meet and exceed the expectations and requirements of our Membership. Rapid advances in emerging technologies and increased competition have required both the telecommunication and utility industries to adapt to an unparalleled pace of change. With much of this transformation being driven by technology, our Members are counting on NISC to leverage these emerging technologies to improve efficiencies and enhance their ability to be competitive and relevant in a rapidly-changing market. In 2018, we made significant progress as we continued enhancing our economies of scale. This year marked the eighth consecutive year in which we were able to “hold the line” on the core rates we charge our Membership. We consider this to be a significant feat considering the increased competition for technical talent which is placing pressure on NISC’s cost of operations, due mainly to increased pressures on technical wages. Tariffs have also increased our cost of doing business as many of the technical components we purchase – as we work to improve and strengthen our infrastructure and Cooperative Cloud environments – have seen considerable price increases. In 2018, we were fortunate to add 14 telecommunications and 17 utility Members to our Membership base. Our combined Membership base presently reached an all-time high of 828.  The addition of these new Members and the resulting revenue stream have enabled NISC to meet our growing operational costs without the need to increase prices to our existing Membership base. At a time when our Members are experiencing increased pressures on their bottom line, NISC’s ability to continue to deliver our products without increasing rates is a key factor in making certain we are not only a good technical partner but also a responsible fiscal partner. While growing our Membership and improving our economies of scale is an important responsibility, making sure that we are maintaining a strong and transparent relationship with our existing Members is also a strategic initiative. Over the years we have built an amazing group of regional business managers (RBMs) whose charge it is to make personal, face-to-face visits to our Member’s sites. We affectionately refer to these visits as blocking and tackling (BT) visits, referring to the fact that these visits are important components of building the basics of the vital business and personal relationships we feel are critical to the way we do business. We have also implemented processes to document these visits, distribute this information to the appropriate NISC staff and coordinate any required follow-up on issues identified during the BT visit. During 2018, we completed 425 of these on-site visits with our Members. As NISC’s enterprise solution continues to become more robust, we are focused on leveraging technology to improve the efficiencies of our Members’ operations. We have seen an increasing number of case studies within our Membership where savings delivered by the NISC enterprise is exceeding the actual fees paid to NISC.  As we move into our 51st year of operations, we understand that never before in our history has a strong, collaborative relationship between our Members and NISC been so critical to fulfill the vision of delivering reliable and low-cost electricity and broadband connectivity to the 85% of the geographical United States that is served by our collective Membership. It is clear, the work we do in partnership with our Members is a key component to strengthening our economy and improving the quality of life of the 13.5 million consumers we serve at the end of the line.           Employees As an intellectual property company, NISC’s most significant risk is our ability to attract and retain the technology talent we require. As the economy continues to improve, we can feel the labor market tighten and pressure on wages increase. In 2018, we saw our attrition rate increase slightly to 7.9% which is a concern, but given the market pressures, somewhat expected. We have expanded our NISC recruiting staff to handle the increased velocity at which we are expanding our employee base. Our efforts to enhance the professional development of our current and future leaders continues to be a major strategic initiative for our organization. Additional coaching tools, educational resources and training sessions have been put in place to strengthen this important undertaking. As our organization continues to grow, we have kept a watchful eye on the span of control for our supervisors. Currently, we are working to address several areas in our organization where we need additional team leads and managers to more adequately provide the supervision, guidance and coaching that is required for our employees. Continued efforts to improve and strengthen our succession planning efforts have been top-of-mind for our Board and vice president group. At NISC, each team lead, manager and vice president, as well as the CEO, has a specific succession plan and potential successors identified.           Financials 2018 once again was a year of strong financial performance for NISC. We ended the year with a margin of $9,048,664 and an increase in top-line revenues of 7.2%. New records were set with an ending cash balance of $35,054,136 and an equity level of $60,946,749 (58%). Appropriately managing our strong balance sheet for the collective benefit of our Membership and the stability of our organization has been a major topic of discussion at our Board meetings and strategic planning sessions. In addition to holding the line on our existing rates, the Board has taken additional action to reduce our automated mailroom charges assessed to the Members and increase the retirement of allocated capital credits from 21% of current year’s margins to 30% for our Members. We are also working on a proposal that would provide for the retirement of prior-year capital, that to this point was allocated but not retired. NISC’s strong financial position has also allowed us to accelerate our investment in research and development to a record $43 million this year, as well as increase the size and scope of our employee base to close the year at 1,280 employees strong.   Products In 2018, our singular strategic initiative was the design, development and deployment of iVUE Connect. Currently, we have 159 Members who have implemented the initial phases of iVUE Connect. By the end of the first quarter of 2019, we will deploy iVUE Connect: Service to a telecommunication Member. This will be a critical milestone for our organization, and a positive step in enhancing our multiservice capabilities as well as unifying our telecommunication Subscriber Information System (SIS) and our utility Consumer Information System (CIS) into a single, customer care and billing platform. This strategic move represents a significant evolution for our organization and will distinguish NISC in the marketplace as a multiservice provider. Product, usability and development resources were also allocated to the personas of billing coordinator, marketing, operations, payroll HR, dispatcher and capital credits. Our research and development efforts to move the NISC enterprise to a web-based technology stack hosted in the Cooperative Cloud will continue through 2021. 2018 also saw an increase in resources assigned to design, development and deployment of our engineering and operations solutions. Major enhancements and advancements in MapWise2.0, Unified Work Management, iVUE AppSuite, Outage Management and Operations Analytics are part of our three-year E&O development pipeline. NISC SwitchTalk2 and NISC’s newly-released business intelligence tool, iVUE Mosaic, have also received significant attention to ensure that these important initiatives will continue moving forward.   Professional Services (Implementations/Project Management) In January 2018, we completed a realignment of our organization. The main objective of this initiative was to combine all NISC product implementation responsibilities into a single division, with the goal of standardizing our implementation practices and processes for all NISC solutions and services. While this was not an easy task, we are seeing significant progress and improved efficiency in moving our organization toward a consistent, enterprise approach of delivering products to our Members.   Support NISC’s 2018 realignment also included the consolidation of all NISC’s service centers into a single div

The other day I was walking through the cafeteria and bumped into an employee that I have long admired. I describe this employee as hardworking, engaged, always grateful. He's an interesting success story. He came to NISC without a degree and began in a very entry level position and without fanfare or much drama. This young man completed his undergraduate degree, got married, started his family, completed his master's at the top of his class, and after a couple of lattice moves had worked himself into a position of responsibility here at NISC. He's a low maintenance, accountable employee who has over time won the respect of his peers and has been identified as a high potential employee by his supervisor. He is just one of the many success stories here at NISC. Although my encounters and conversations with this employee were few and far between. I always sought him out when our paths crossed because I was so impressed with his optimism and his positive demeanor. But today was different. Something was wrong. His eyes were downcast, he was fidgety and noticeably uncomfortable. My heart sank. "Everything okay?", I asked. There was a painful and awkward pause. "Not really," he said. I motioned to a table off in the corner. He followed. We sat down, and I looked at him, and I said: "what's going on?" "Oh, nothing." He said. "Just a bit upset and concerned." "Anything I can do to help?" I responded. Up until that point he had not even made eye contact which was highly unusual. He looked at me, and there was a deep-seated pain in those blue eyes. He spoke slowly with measured words. "There was a termination in my department this week," he said. "No explanation. Just packed up his personal belongings and he was ushered to the door. It really caught me by surprise. I just wish I knew what was going on and it makes me wonder if I might be next. You see, Vern, mine is the only income in our family. My wife is a stay at home mom, and I'll be honest we live paycheck to paycheck, and if I were to get fired from NISC, we would be out of money in less than a month." The pain and the concern of this young man were evident. He was shaken to the core. Concern for his career and his ability to provide for his family. Now I will tell you in all honesty that in my career there is no question that the most difficult and dreaded situation that we deal with is when an employee just does not fit into our organization, and there needs to be a separation. It may be a performance issue or an attitude. It may be a lack of willingness to embrace our shared values or an unwillingness to serve our members or to treat their colleagues with dignity and respect. I remember reading a book entitled "Straight From the Gut" by Jack Welsh. Jack was the former CEO of General Electric, and the part of this book that really bothered me was a practice that was orchestrated and promoted by Jack when he was CEO, whereby every supervisor in that huge organization was required to rank their employees from best to worst each year. Then at the beginning of the new year, they would lop off and terminate the bottom 10 percent of the workforce. Jack said, "it kept the employees on their toes and kept the workforce fresh.". I just can't imagine what it would be like to live in constant fear of losing your job. Everyone at GE knew that if they ended up in that bottom 10 percent they were out, no questions asked. No excuses accepted. Now in contrast at NISC, we have a tradition of being very paternalistic perhaps to a fault. When an employee is in trouble, we go to great lengths to coach, encourage, to perhaps provide a lattice move trying desperately to find the right seat on the bus for this employee. We initiate a performance improvement plan. We tell them what they need to do to improve and then, and only then when all alternatives have been exhausted. For the good of the Organization, for the good of their fellow employees, and many times the employee themselves we have the dreaded separation discussion. Now one thing is certain by the time we work our way through this process and the employee is actually released there should never be a surprise. Never. And in fact many times when the handwriting is on the wall the employee will actually leave the organization on their own. But I will never get over the feeling of failure on NISC's part when there is a termination. I find myself second guessing the process of interviewing, hiring, screening, checking references, onboarding, coaching. WHERE DID WE GO WRONG? What was the root cause of this? For the good of the employee, for the good of the NISC. What are the lessons learned and how can we prevent this from happening again? In the end, I always have this hollow and frightful feeling inside. And the question. Could this happen to me? Could I be on the wrong side of a separation conversation? The most difficult aspect of this dreaded process is when an employee is terminated, you will never hear the rest of the story from NISC. We will never disparage an employee as they leave the organization. It's our goal to let them leave with dignity and the confidence that we would never share the specifics that led to their termination. If there ever was a time where the employees needed to trust management, it is in the case of a separation. You can rest assured that we have done everything possible to salvage that employee, to work with them, to coach them, before there would be a termination. And in the end, we have a responsibility not only to the terminated employee but also those around him and to our members who may be adversely affected by the performance or the demeanor of that employee. While there are no guarantees for any of us as employees, myself included, I am reminded that the average tenure for a CEO is less than 36 months. But our employees should feel comfortable that they can go about their work serving our members without the distraction and the concern of losing their job. If there is a problem, you will know about it months in advance, and you will be given every opportunity to correct the situation and get your career back on track with termination being only the very last resort. The fact is this, with almost 1,300 employees, there are bound to be times that, for whatever reason, there is just not a match between the employee and NISC. And when that happens, we admit that there was a mistake that was made and we allow NISC to get on with our business and the affected employee to get on with their lives. Our employees should rest assured that providing a stable work environment is one of our most important tasks. As I consider our history and how volatile the work environment is in corporate America. I have seen the historic stability here at NISC to be our very best predictor of the future. As we parted, I shook this young employees hand and in my heart I had hoped that our conversation had provided the reassurance to this troubled employee that would allow him to roll up his sleeves and throw himself back into his work with the assurance that his job and his ability to provide for his family was secure. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern.

Recently I received a note from Mary Ellen who drew my attention to a post that we did back in the days when we actually did blog posts rather than these audio BlogCasts as we do today.  It warmed my heart to read this blog that was first posted in September of 2013. Much has changed since that posting over the last five years. We've added about 140 members systems, 350 employees, and have been through 15 versions of our core product offering.  Sometimes the pace of change is a bit dizzying but what is most interesting to me is that some things, like the foundation of our organization and our culture, have remained virtually unchanged. Our statement of shared values, first develop by our employees in 2000, has remained intact as has the fact that although we're a technology company our business remains a relationship business.  I continue to believe that one of the most appealing aspects of our work here at NISC is the fast pace of change, evolution, and the challenge that that change brings. But there is some comfort that amidst all of this change there is a set of values and principles the foundation of our organization that remains constant and provide predictability, stability, and at times a refuge during our frantic days.  During this Thanksgiving season I thought it would be appropriate to share this post once again. Although five years old it is as relevant today. Perhaps even more relevant than it was back then.    What it is, is a relationship The connection is what matters   We listen. We talk. We absorb our Members’ experience. We learn from and teach our Members. When we design new products we ask –  How will this help? Does this product deserve to exist?     If this were my company, what would I do? Is it about the money?   No. It’s about making a difference.  It’s about being a part of something greater than ourselves.     We embrace Member ideas and suggestions,   but we make hard choices.  If you try to do everything, you achieve nothing.    We focus on the important things. We work to make what we do enhance every life we touch.  We focus on our priorities and hold on to our values. At NISC, we do the right thing – always.   We don’t believe in coincidence or dumb luck. The harder we work, the luckier we get. We balance our personal and work lives. We know what has true value – family, Members, colleagues, our  community, and friends.   We’re engineers, accountants, programmers and artists, craftsmen,  communicators, inventors, and researchers.   Most of all, we’re problem solvers.   We sign our work with dedication to each of you. You may rarely look at it, but we hope you feel the “heart” of NISC.. This is our connection to you. And for NISC employees, it means everything.   Thanks for listening.  I appreciate you,  Vern

Over the years we have made a point, as a Vice President group, to periodically select a book that is required reading by the entire group and then discussed what we've learned from the book and try to figure out how it would apply to improve NISC. Some of the great books we've read over the years are "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni, "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek, "Built to Last" by Jim Collins, and "The Ideal Team Player" by Patrick Lencioni. Presently we're reading a book entitled "No Ego" by Cy Wakeman. I need to give Dan Wilbanks the credit for offering this book up and suggesting that we read it as a vice president group and as I make my way through the book it's clear why Dan thought that this book could be important reading for our entire group. Now over the years as we have read these books I can't say that there has been a single book that I would call a silver bullet, a book that has all the answers, a book that we necessarily agreed with every statement or conclusion within the pages of its covers. But I will say that we have learned something from each book and based on our willingness and our hunger to learn we have and are establishing the culture of NISC based on best practices and best ideas of other successful companies characterized in these books and based on our own experience which spans the 50 year history of NISC. Now the single most impactful thing that we learned from the book Good to Great is that the predominant characteristic of a successful leader is humility. Humility. And it would stand to reason that the opposite of humility would be ego. Buddha is quoted as saying ego is the source of all suffering and the book no ego very clearly sets a bullseye on waste, inefficiency, and drama in an organization and, you guessed it, it says the source of all of those negative things is ego. Now the author gets right to the point when he states that facts common sense self-reflection and accountability make Eagle very nervous. For me, the facts of our organization are often delivered by way of the quarterly employee Pulse survey. I want you to know that we read every comment and we share the results of the survey with our management group, The employee base as a whole, and also our Board of Directors. Sometimes the results are encouraging and the trends are positive and the comments affirming. Other times the scores are disappointing and a harsh commentary on the ineffectiveness of our leadership, pointing out areas that we are sorely lacking with comments that are pointed and discouraging. But every survey, good, bad, or indifferent, has helped us construct, evolve, and refine the culture of our organization. There's one thing though that I have noticed over the years of doing these surveys that I believe is the most important thing we've learned from this effort. Often we will specifically ask open-ended questions about how we can improve NISC and the responses from the employees will inevitably fall into two very distinctive but telling categories. The first category of employees I would call the Ego Category and the second category the Accountability Category. Let me tell you what I mean. When asked how we can improve this organization, employees that would fall into the Ego Category make comments like "higher pay, better benefits, more employee activities, larger offices, more paid time, of more holidays, more flexible work schedules, and the list becomes quite extensive. And it's curious to me that with this type of employee every one of the suggestions that they would offer up is all about them, their ego, their comfort, their enrichment, and their development. Now don't get me wrong every one of these topics is very important to each of us as NISC employees and monitoring our competitiveness and market conditions in each of these categories is one of People Services most important responsibilities. Now responses from what I would call the Accountability Group of employees. They offer up a consistently different list of suggestions. Suggestions that are focused on making NISC better, stronger, more efficient, and more effective. Suggestions like additional staff members, balancing the workload in critical areas, better onboarding strategies, better communications at all levels of our organization, suggestions pointing out waste and inefficiencies or frustrations with fellow employees not fully pulling their weight. Suggestions on new technologies new tools or processes which would improve our productivity and consistency throughout our organization. So the question is this. Which suggestions should be given priority? It's a bit of a chicken and egg debate. Shouldn't we concentrate on those things that are not ego-driven first so that NISC is financially strong enough to be able to improve the employee compensation, benefits, and policy considerations? It's clear to me that the accountability group of employees understand the concept of a rising tide raises all ship or in other words, if NISC does well, well then the employees will also do well. I hope that our historic actions regarding pay, benefits, and policies demonstrate that this is true and it's truly something that we aspire to do, It's not just happy talk. So the question is this which employee group do you fit in to? The first that is ego driven, self-centered comfort, and benefit. Or is it the second group that believes in accountability and a selfless servant leadership? We'll be discussing this book and its principles during our November Leadership Forum and also during upcoming employee meetings. I look forward to learning more as I listen to the impressions and observations and opinions of our employee group after they have had a chance to read the book. One thing I know for sure is developing strong leadership and a strong resilient culture in our organization it's hard. It's messy work and getting the right employees in the right position in our organization or in the right seat on the bus, as says Jim Collins would say, requires the active, relentless, egoless, selfless, participation of all of our employees from every discipline. Each of us is impacted by the effectiveness of NISC leadership or lack thereof. So it makes sense that we should all be engaged and take an active role in building an organization that is efficient, fair, accountable, and honors the opinions and perspectives of our employees while at the same time being courageous enough to call out those times when ego-based, unrealistic comments hurt and tear down what we have worked so hard to build. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

Thomas Edison was born in 1847 and died in 1931. He truly was an American inventor and a businessman. He was often described as America's greatest inventor. His inventions included the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting practical electric light bulb which had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was a prolific inventor holding 1093 U.S. patents. His talents eventually led him to found 14 companies including General Electric; still one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. Now let's take a few minutes to look at the history of this American icon of a company, General Electric, and see what lessons that we as NISC may learn. So General Electric is an industrial giant with a storied list of products from appliances, jet engines, marine engines, military engines, locomotive engines, financial services, real estate, power generation and distribution, renewables including solar arrays and wind turbines, Energy storage, Healthcare, Oil and gas production, Software Design and Development, mining, and the list goes on and on and on. The point is this General Electric over the years has become one of the largest and most diversified companies on the planet. Their management training programs are legendary. At least 16 former G.E. management types are now CEOs of U.S. publicly traded companies including huge companies like GM and Home Depot. The unprecedented culture and training program that would produce that many outstanding leaders from just one company is perhaps the most fitting tribute to the culture of G.E. It's fair to say that working at G.E. was one of the most coveted and promising careers in corporate America. Now you could say that G.E. had it all. They were financially strong, they had an amazing market share, they were diversified, they had a strong culture and a very deep bench of talent. At their peak, General Electric was one of the largest valued companies in the world. But today it seems as if General Electric has lost its luster. They have struggled mightily, financially. They have sold off many of their assets and companies. In 1988 their share value was sixty dollars a share placing the value of their company at six hundred billion dollars. But today they are barely a shadow of that company and their value is under 100 billion dollars. The share price is about 12 dollars a share. Ouch. I hope you don't have too much of G.E. stock in your 401k account. So what happened? How did this mighty icon of a company fall so far? And could that happen to NISC? Did G.E. get too comfortable? Did they lose their hunger and their drive? Did large margins allow them to get sloppy and inefficient? Did they take the loyalty of their customers and the engagement of their employees for granted? Did they stop learning and stop innovating? What can we learn from this tragic fall from grace as they have gone from being one of the most admired companies in the world to a bit of a laughing stock? I wonder what Thomas Edison would say? Today as we look at NISC we can say we enjoy a strong financial position, we are leading the industry in market share, we are winning as we compete in the marketplace and our competitive prowess has placed our competitors on their heels, we have a diversified product mix, and have made good progress in developing and strengthening the bench of our talented employees. Does all of that sound familiar or parallel the history of G.E.? While it's taken almost 50 years for us to get NISC to this place I would submit to you that we will have even more challenges to manage our growth, to maintain our culture, and to make the necessary organizational changes that will be required as the scope of NISC continues to grow. Our goal at NISC is simple; to be the best in the industries we serve, to be the most innovative, and have the most robust enterprise solution in the utility and telecommunications space. We want and we're working towards a solid reputation and a 100 percent reference ability among our member-owners. We aspire to be a place where the employees can trust and believe in management and our board of directors. A place where doing the right thing is not only understood but expected. Maintaining a sense of organizational humility and a determination never to be satisfied with our products, our position in the market or the engagement of our employees is something that we must absolutely stay focused on in order to maintain our leadership position. While we have made progress we still have much work to do to achieve those lofty goals. General Electric was once a great and an admired company. Today, not so much. Let that never be said about NISC. We have worked too hard to build this organization into what it is today. Let's keep growing, keep improving, keep learning, keep innovating, and never lose our resolve to be the very best at serving our employees and serving our members. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern.  

My career at NISC has provided many amazing experiences and opportunities and for those milestones, I am very grateful. But at the top of my list, without exception, is the opportunity to represent our organization during the general session of our Member Information Conference. It's hard for me to put into words the emotion of stepping on that stage to represent the hard work and the dedication of our employees. Each year, I am reminded what a privilege and an honor it is for that moment to be the spokesman of our organization. In a very real way, I feel unworthy to have the honor to be in that position. As I approached the stage I am reminded of the dedication and sacrifice of our employees that have been required to build NISC into the organization it has become. My wish would be that each of you would have the opportunity to feel the rush of emotion that I have experienced when I step on that stage. Blinding Lights in your eyes, butterflies in your stomach, The sound of your voice projected over thousands of attendees anxiously listening to every measured word that comes out of your mouth. I'm reminded of an old Kris Kristofferson song that went like this. "Why me? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the blessings that I've known?" Thanks for all you do to make NISC such an amazing organization. I am grateful and humbled to be your spokesperson. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern

There seems to be a constant stream of articles and news stories regarding the current workforce and their sense of entitlement. Rather than appreciating the opportunity to have a job, like our parents and grandparents did, it is said that employees today act as if it is their right to have virtually unlimited choices when it comes to their jobs and the amenities of those jobs. Now in a way this makes sense since they are children of the baby boom, a time of unprecedented prosperity and hope in our country. We all get accustomed to the fact that a search on Google is free and that we enjoy an unlimited amount of information at our fingertips. We can interact with Facebook for free and as an NISC employee our paychecks have magically appeared in our bank account without fail for the last 50 years. There has never been a time when our employees have not been covered by a comprehensive medical plan and there is comfort in watching our retirement plans grow. Today I find myself in the fourth quarter of my career. I think about these blessings often and feel a profound sense of gratitude. But let's be honest, I can't say that I felt that sense of gratitude when I was in my 20s or 30s or 40s or embarrassingly even in my 50s. But today I do so in a very profound way. I think it's unfair to characterize our workforce, the young ones in the workforce, as entitled. Rather I believe that as we make our way through the circle of life we seem to move from a mentality of entitlement to one of being grateful. Recently, as a vice president group, we have talked a lot about the balance of building a culture here at NISC that creates a challenging, fast paced, learning environment that is stable and sustainable, filled with opportunities for our employees. But we have to balance that view with the responsibility that we have to serve our members. The challenge is to balance those sometimes conflicted goals between the employees and the members. The question is this "is NISC in business to serve our employees or are we in business to serve our members?". The answer is yes, we're in business both serve our employees and our members. Now over the last couple of years, I've read some interesting books on topics about this. Titles like "The Customer Comes Second" by Hal Rosenbluth and "Employees First" by Vineet Nayar. The premise of these two books is that you should focus, as an employer, you should focus on the employees, and if you take care of them, they will take care of the customer. Now while that concept listens good, I think everyone who believes that taking care of our members is not our primary focus, is tragically wrong. It goes like this if we take care of our members if we do an exceptional job our business will grow and that business will generate the resources required to take care of our employees. Not the other way around. While the compensation package that NISC provides is very important to all of us, as employees, one of the great things about working here at NISC is the relationships that we have built over the years, and we do not take those relationships for granted. This is not just our co-workers, they are our dear friends, and when they go through challenges and struggles in their life well then we share that pain and we always have their backs. I would say regarding our members we are not just a vendor and they are not just our members rather they're our friends, and we have this sense that we are in this together and that this is so much more than a job it is a dedication to a cause of delivering technology to rural America. I'm not sure why but in the recent months there seems to be a rash of current and retired co-workers and members who are truly dealing with devastating health challenges and when I see their pain, and I hear their stories I find my perspective on life and my priorities changed in a profound way. I feel my attitude moving from entitlement to gratitude. As I think about my daily challenges problems and frustration I would classify many of them as first world problems and this is what I mean, My cell phone battery is running too low too quickly, The lines are too long in security at the airport, My flight is delayed ten minutes, they don't have the right cut of meat at the supermarket that I wanted for our weekend grill out, I'm delayed in traffic, The Internet connectivity is not as fast as I would like, and my GPS has recalculated just one too many times. Those are all first world problems. I have a good friend and mentor who once said to me when you're healthy you have 100 problems, and many of those are these first world problems, but when you're not healthy when you're fighting for your life, you have only one problem. And if you, or someone close to you, is having health issues you know exactly what I mean. Without your health, these first world problems seem small and insignificant. So this morning, I decided that the battery life on my cell phone, the Internet connectivity, lines, traffic, or the grocery store, my paycheck, my health insurance, these are not entitlements. Rather they are indications of the blessings in my life. First and foremost, I am grateful for my health and the relationships that I have with my fellow employees and the members that we serve. Everything else is a minor inconvenience. One of my favorite authors of all times is Charles Krauthammer, a wicked smart political commentator, and author. While in his first year of studying medicine at Harvard Medical School, Krauthammer became permanently paralyzed from the waist down after a diving accident. Now some say how terrible, how cruel, how unfair that such a smart and promising young man within entitled Life would be dealt such an unfair hand. But rather than feel sorry for himself Charles, during his life, was determined never to let his disability be a hindrance or something that garnered sympathy. He went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winner and in my humble opinion one of the most influential authors and political pundits of our time, and it was his sense of gratitude, rather than entitlement, that endeared him to a nation of admirers. In June of 2018 at the young age of 68, it's interesting that what I consider Young has increased dramatically over the years, but anyway at age 68 Charles's life came to an end after a battle with cancer. When you look at his life, you could say that he had reason to be bitter or feel sorry for himself, but it really was the contrary. Weeks before his death he penned the following letter. "I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life full and complete with great loves and great endeavors that made it worth living. Yes, I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I have lived the life that I intended - Charles Krauthammer". I wonder if all of us would be able to write a letter like that at the end of our lives. Thank you, Charles, for your wisdom and inspiration. Thanks for teaching us that entitlement should have no place in our lives, rather we should be filled up, to overflowing, with gratitude for our jobs, and our lives, and our families, and our friends, and the opportunity to serve our members in each other and build relationships that will endure the challenges that the circle of life may bring our way. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you,. Vern

Most of you know that I have a passion for reading and over the years I have learned a great deal from authors like Tom Peters, Jim Collins, and Simon Sinek. From my years here at NISC and what I have learned from my readings I would summarize my entire wisdom, of my career, with the following statement; Hard is soft and soft is hard. Let me explain. Hard. These are the financial reports that we share each month with our board and our employees. It's the supporting budgets, the forecasts, the endless PowerPoints. and projections. Hard includes the surveys and the dashboards that we use to track our performance as an organization and as individuals. Hard is the balance in your bank account, your 401k statement, and the number of candles on your birthday cake. Hard is, for the most part, black and white with little room for interpretation. Soft. Soft as the people of NISC. Now that's not to say that I think you're soft. We actually have to be pretty tough and resilient to survive and thrive here at NISC. What I mean is that our relationships the relationships that we have with one another and our members. It's the culture of our organization. It's understanding what's serving each other and our members really means. It's believing that "do the right thing, always" is more than just a quaint statement. Rather that statement is at the core of how we do business here at NISC. Our shared values may be considered soft but it is how we do what we do. But we all know that soft is hard. It's hard to build relationships and a strong culture and enduring values. It's hard to build, nurture, maintain, and consistently follow these important items. Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic, once said and I quote the capacity to develop close and enduring relationships is the mark of a leader. Unfortunately, many leaders believe their job is to create the strategy, the organizational structure, and the organizational processes and then just delegate the work to the people, remaining removed from those people. I know from experience that that method that disengagement from the employees is not successful over the long term. Here at NISC it's critical that we focus on relationships and building the trust with our members and our colleagues that's so critical. So those soft skills are very important. But as our Vice President of research and development Dan Wilbanks recently said to me "our hard-technical skills are also very important. We are a technology company and every single NISC employee from our most recent hire to the CEO needs to be continually upgrading their technical skills to stay relevant. It's not effective for a supervisor just to be a manager of people rather they need to be technically hands-on." In other words, those hard-technical skills are also important for the progression of your career. Back to the phrase soft is hard. You get things done around here on the basis of your patiently developed network of relationships both inside and outside of NISC. The stronger and the broader your network the more value you bring to our organization. That's why here at NISC our focus is on people not stature, not titles, not things. NISC is nothing more and nothing less than people, our employees, serving people each other as colleagues of NISC are member owners and the communities that we serve. Anyone in leadership or anyone who aspires to leadership here at NISC must understand that when you're in leadership you are in the full-time people business. It's all about people, Leaders serving people our employee members in our communities. Another lesson that I have learned is that developing soft skills takes time and patience. Simply put you cannot speed up the soft stuff to try to do so is a design for disaster. Relationships are built on trust and trust is established over time. Difficult projects, members, and employees’ situations where you have to prove yourself and over time establish and strengthen those relationships based on your proven track record. So in summary I would say that the hard part of NISC is not the numbers, the financial reports, wins and losses, employee recruiting and retention. Rather the hard part is the soft stuff. Relationships, trust, credibility, and consistency. Although this approach to our business may seem a bit unusual it is how we do things around here. It is what has made us successful for the past 50 years and what will make us successful in the future. Because you see, here NISC, we pride ourselves in being Wired Differently and we understand that hard is soft and soft is hard. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern  

One of the most important and impactful quotes I have come across in my career is “only the paranoid survive” a statement by the Andy Grove the first CEO of the Intel Corporation, arguably one of the most successful and impactful technology companies in history.  We have used this quote many times here at NISC as we talk about our strategies and position in the market, and in my humble opinion, this statement and admonition is more relevant here at NISC today than ever in our history. Perhaps some of you are thinking, lighten up Vern, because , t the risk of sounding full of ourselves,  the facts are that NISC is strong financially, our pipeline is full, we have a larger market share than any of our competitors and we have assembled an impressive group of technologists and subject matter experts in both the telecommunications and Utility industries unlike any of our competitors, and we are delivering the most comprehensive enterprise solution in the market … why be paranoid, why now  For the past 50 years, NISC has traditionally been a lean, hungry, focused, and determined organization, those attributes have propelled us on an unrelenting journey to improve and strengthen all the aspects of our organization from the status of our products, to the depth and breadth of our employees’ base, to our financial stability and resources.  This was and is not an easy journey, and I hope that not a single one of our employees feel we are at a place where we can relax, let-up, and coast across the preverbal finish line. If ever there was a time for us to be paranoid, it is now, we have worked so hard to get to this place of success and prominence,  and with that success comes the fact that we have a very large target on our back, every one of our competitors is gunning for us, and there is nothing they would like more than for NISC to stumble, let up, be distracted, or lose our focus, giving them an opportunity to recapture market share that then have lost to us over the past several years. The sense of urgency here at NISC should palpable, we are in a battle every day to win the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of our existing Members and those whom we are working to add to our cooperative family.  And never before have we had such a profound opportunity to meet unmet needs of our Members, to provide technology solutions that enable them to offer new services, and products to their members at the end of the line.  The industry is taking notice of NISC’s growing strength and success in the market and without question, this is our time … the question is, do we embrace the urgency, do we have the intestinal fortitude, the desire, the determination to Capri Diem – to seize the moment.  I am convinced that the only way for us to be successful is for every employee at NISC from the newest employees we hired yesterday to our most tenured employees at 45 years of service to feel this incredible and overwhelming sense of urgency.  We have been very clear that our singular strategy, our focus for this fiscal year is to successfully bring iVUE Connect to market.  This initiative is without a doubt the most complicated and challenging project we have ever tackled in our history, and I have every confidence that we will be successful.  But to be successful will require a sense of urgency on the part of every NISC employee unlike we have ever seen in our history, this is not just happy talk, rather it is the reality we face, the opportunity that has presented itself. The future of our beloved organization, the careers of our employees, and our ability to effectively meet the expectations and requirements of our Members / Owners and our reputation are dependent on whether or not we can pull this off. Make no mistake about the power, capabilities and potential of 1200 NISC employees focused on a single goal a single initiative, with a sense of urgency that cannot be matched by our competitors … are you in … I am, let’s do this, and do this  very, very well. Thanks for listening I appreciate you Vern