Former Cobb EMC employee challenging incumbent board member in election

Aug. 13—A former longtime Cobb EMC employee is challenging an incumbent director on the EMC's governing board.

Marietta-based Cobb EMC is a nonprofit, member-owned electric cooperative that provides electricity to residential and commercial consumers in Cobb, Bartow, Cherokee, Fulton, and Paulding counties. The company's board is comprised of nine directors elected to three-year terms who are themselves member-customers of the EMC, with three different district director positions up for election annually.

This year, the directors of Districts 4 and 5 are running unopposed, while the District 8 post is contested. Incumbent Bryan Boyd, who has chaired both Cobb EMC's board and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Gas South, faces a challenge from Emory Benson, a former Cobb EMC employee of more than three decades.

Cobb EMC customers elect the board, with the vote by district. There were more than 192,000 customers as of July, according to spokesperson Mike Codichini.

Voting for Cobb EMC elections online or by mail-in ballot began Friday and will be open until September 14 at 5 p.m. There will also be an in-person voting option at the company's annual meeting on September 17 at Jim Miller Park.

Boyd has been a member of the Cobb EMC board since 2012, having previously served as chairman for two years. Boyd said he was part of the 2010 effort to oust former CEO Dwight Brown and the EMC's board of directors at the time, a group that was found to have stolen millions from the company and its member-owners.

Benson, meanwhile, started with Cobb EMC in 1981 and worked his way up to director of safety before retiring from the company in 2018, after which he started his own grading and hauling business, he told the MDJ.

"I have lived on the system basically my entire life," Benson said. "My parents were members, I had one grandparent who was a Cobb EMC member, and Cobb EMC's just been a big part of my life for my whole life."

Cobb EMC's success has been predicated on "dedicated employees providing the very best service for their member-owners," Benson said.

He added that ensuring this level of customer service is maintained would be one of his priorities as a director on the board.

"In this day and time, with customer service in so many corporations falling like it has, I don't want to see Cobb EMC's customer service fall victim to the bottom line," Benson said.

Boyd discussed the work he and other co-plaintiffs in the case against Brown did to remake the leadership of Cobb EMC.

"Through many hours of court proceedings, meetings, we finally were successful in turning the full board over and getting the CEO replaced," Boyd said.

Boyd also explained that when he first ran for the board in 2012, it was on a platform of transparency. During that time, he said, Cobb EMC had some of the most expensive electric rates in Georgia.

"Now we have some of the lowest rates in the state, we have the second best reliability in the country," Boyd said. "Now, that's out of all your utility providers in the country, we have the second best reliability. That's pretty impressive."

Benson agreed that Cobb EMC's rates are already some of the lowest in the state, crediting its ownership of Gas South for those rates. He said continuing Cobb EMC's efficiency will help keep rates low.

"We're going to continue to operate as efficiently as we can, like I said, without sacrificing our service," Benson said. "And we're going to negotiate wholesale power rates to the best of our ability."

Boyd said Cobb EMC has been rated one of the most transparent cooperatives while he has been a member of the board of directors for just over 10 years.

"We are going to try to maintain our controllable costs to keep the rates as low as possible," Boyd said, adding that Georgia Power's rates are probably 20% higher than Cobb EMC's.

Boyd also touted Cobb EMC's reputation for customer service.

"We were rated by J.D. Power as having some of the best customer service and best response times out there last year," Boyd said.

Both Benson and Boyd mentioned renewable energy sources will play increased roles in the future of the company. Boyd said Cobb EMC is already ahead of competition in that respect.

"As far as solar and renewable energies, we're leading the effort in that area for co-ops here in Georgia as well," Boyd said.