OPALCOGRAM 168 5/22/96 NEXT PREVIOUS Doug Bechtel This is an OPALCOGRAM about OPALCOGRAMS. Several weeks ago, I did an OPALCOGRAM about how busy things were here at OPALCO. That OPALCOGRAM prompted a couple of comments from our members who questioned whether I was getting burned out or discouraged or tired of all the changes that are going on. The answer is not at all. The point I was trying to make in that OPALCOGRAM was that this is a time of change in the electric utility industry. The electric utility industry has never seen a period with as much under consideration. Rather than feeling burned out or tired, I am excited, challenged and invigorated about what the future may hold. I know that I have said it many times, but OPALCO is one of the financially strongest cooperatives that I know of. Since we are a financially strong cooperative, we are in a better position than most to take advantage of the opportunities that the future will offer. The challenge that we face is trying to decide which of the options available to us will best serve you in the long run. This is an exciting challenge, and one that I really enjoy facing. I also had a comment from one of our members that suggested that we reduce these OPALCOGRAMS to once a month rather than every two weeks. I talked to many of you to seek your thoughts, and the response that I got was that if the OPALCOGRAMS are a burden on my time, then cutting back was worthwhile. If they are not a burden, then I should keep going on the current every-other-week basis. The conclusion that I have come to after all my discussions is that the problem is not the frequency of the OPALCOGRAMS but, like anything else, the format gets old, the topics get old. Rather than cutting back on the number of OPALCOGRAMS, my challenge is to make these OPALCOGRAMS so interesting and so informative and so necessary for you to read that you look forward to each week's newspaper arrival with anticipation so that you can read the OPALCOGRAM. Quite a task, and I am not certain that I will be able to accomplish it. Nevertheless, there is a large backlog of information that I want to share with you. So let me close this OPALCOGRAM by saying I can't imagine anything that I would rather do than be manager of OPALCO. I appreciate the boredom factor that is setting in in these OPALCOGRAMS, and I promise to redouble my efforts to make them interesting, informative and worthwhile. As usual, the best ideas for OPALCOGRAMS come from discussions that I have with you. If you have ideas or thoughts as to things that I could cover, please give me a call. In the meantime, I am going to try to spruce up the look of these OPALCOGRAMS and improve the content to make them more worthwhile. P.S. Don't tell the board how much I like my job - they might cut my pay.   Doug Bechtel NEXT PREVIOUS