Programs
Minnesota Rural Electric Association provides a variety of training to electric cooperatives, collaborates with vendor members to support cooperative needs, and engages with cooperative member-owner families through our annual Youth Tour.
Education
Minnesota Rural Electric Association provides member cooperatives with educational opportunities like new director training, leadership training, and more.
Collaboration
We collaborate with vendors and partners to support our member electric cooperatives.
Youth Tour
Our Youth Tour program, an opportunity for high school students to visit our nation’s capital, is one of many examples of how electric cooperatives support their local communities.
Education
Minnesota Rural Electric Association provides member cooperatives with educational opportunities like new director training, leadership training, and more.
Collaboration
We collaborate with vendors and partners to support our member electric cooperatives.
Youth Tour
Our Youth Tour program, an opportunity for high school students to visit our nation’s capital, is one of many examples of how electric cooperatives support their local communities.
Education
Minnesota Rural Electric Association provides member cooperatives with educational opportunities like new director training, leadership training, and more.
Collaboration
We collaborate with vendors and partners to support our member electric cooperatives.
Youth Tour
Our Youth Tour program, an opportunity for high school students to visit our nation’s capital, is one of many examples of how electric cooperatives support their local communities.
Youth Tour
For more than 50 years, electric cooperatives have sponsored the annual Rural Electric Youth Tour. High school students ages 16-18 are selected for a trip to Washington, D.C. to experience a firsthand look at how government works.
Participating electric cooperatives provide leadership, history, and fun. Youth Tour attendees spend a day on Capitol Hill visiting with our senators and representatives, witnessing the profound grandeur of monuments to our most celebrated leaders, reflecting on the true cost of freedom by eyeing row upon row of white crosses at Arlington Cemetery, and experiencing what life was like on George Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon plantation.
“The Rural Electric Youth Tour is a great avenue for youth to get involved both in the energy production and consumption of their community and in energy policy at a national level. It was a pleasure to meet with the students from southern Minnesota and to hear their thoughts on the renewable energy sources that will come to fruition during their lifetimes. I’m inspired by this future generation of leaders, and I hope to see more students in Washington as part of future Rural Electric Youth Tours.”
To be selected for the Washington D.C. youth tour, you must apply through the electric cooperative that serves your area of the state. Thirty-three of Minnesota’s electric cooperatives participate in the Washington Youth Tour. Each co-op has a unique application process and criteria to select the student or students to be sponsored as delegates. If you are a high school student age 16-18, please contact your local electric cooperative for eligibility requirements.
Member Education
We provide our members extensive training and education opportunities for every role at electric cooperatives. Our areas of training include leadership, management, financial, supervisory, customer service, technical best practices, monthly onsite safety meetings, apprenticeship certification, hands-on technical skills, hotline work, metering and more.
Education is one of the seven cooperative principles, and we strive to support Minnesota’s electric cooperatives with the knowledge they need to provide member-owners with reliable, safe, and affordable electricity.
Members can login to access beat365中文官方网站 event calendar and registration.
Apprenticeship
Our lineworker apprenticeship program is an exciting opportunity to be a part of the solution for long-term grid reliability amid the clean energy transition.
From underground system design to understanding circuit fundamentals, apprentices learn the trade from experienced journeymen in the context of a member-owned, not-for profit electric cooperative.
For apprentices, this means something different than working for an investor-owned or municipal utility— it means being a part of a cooperative business model. Guided by the history of serving a local need, electric cooperatives prioritize community service, education, democratic governance, independence and autonomy.
Designed to meet the federal and state Department of Labor requirements, the beat365中文官方网站 lineworker apprentice program is four years with the potential to test out in 1-2 years. Apprentices get hands-on learning under journeyman supervision. By the end of an apprenticeship, utility personnel are ready to safely construct, operate, and maintain the electric power system.
Those interested in pursuing a career in cooperative utility linework should have a sense of adventure, passion about their community, and no fear of heights. For more information or to enroll apprentices, contact us.
Vendor Members
Supporting Minnesota’s electric cooperatives would not be possible without our vendor members. Our vendor member program provides advertising and marketing opportunities along with conferences, trade shows and events for vendors to network with electric cooperative employees.
Click here to see our Membership Directory & Buyer’s Guide.
To order a copy, click here.
Interested in sponsoring, exhibiting, or advertising? Contact us.