This article is about Nourdine Jensen, with a little OPALCO history thrown in. Nourdine was first appointed to the Orcas Power and Light Company Board of Directors on December 10, 1964. He was then elected by the members on April 24, 1965 and served until April 26, 1969, which was the end of the term (at that time, each director was limited to one term). Nourdine was elected again in May, 1975 and has been on the board ever since. That is a total of almost 33 years!
Nourdine Jensen was born on San Juan Island in 1914. After attending grade school and high school in Friday Harbor, he left for several years to attend the University of Washington, marry and work as a machinist in Seattle. In 1942, he returned home to help his father with some war-related government contracts at Jensen Shipyard (started by Albert Jensen in 1910 at its current location) before serving in the Navy in the Pacific for two years. After his military service, he returned to the island and continues to operate the shipyard to this day. He was joined by his son-in-law, Mike Ahrenius, in 1989, making Jensen Shipyard arguably the longest running family owned business in San Juan County. He married Vera Smethurst in 1938, enjoying 49 years of marriage before her death in 1987, and has one daughter, Jeri Ahrenius and three grandchildren, Alisa, Jensen and David.
When he was a boy, his family had “farm” lighting, or a Delco plant, which was a 32 volt system consisting of a bank of batteries charged with a gasoline or diesel generator. Friday Harbor had a diesel generating plant that supplied power to the town and a very small part of the island which started at 6 am and ended at midnight. When Nourdine went to grade school in the early 20s, he would have lunch with his grandparents in town (they lived where the fire station is today), which was even more special to him because they had a light bulb!
In March of 1937, twelve Orcas Island residents formed the Orcas Electric Association. Two months later, they formed a cooperative, renamed it Orcas Power and Light Company, and approved the first REA loan in the amount of $87,000 to construct generation and distribution facilities on Orcas Island. In August 1938, OPALCO’s lines were energized. OPALCO purchased Friday Harbor Light and Power Company (which was on diesel) in September 1941. In 1942, OPALCO acquired five acres on Lopez and built a new diesel power plant there. Service to Shaw began in 1949. In 1951, the first submarine cable was installed from the mainland to Lopez, and OPALCO began purchasing power from Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).
In the earlier years, board of director meetings were held in the evenings because most of the directors worked during the day. Nourdine started attending these many years before he was a director because he was hired to pick up the directors from their respective islands in a small boat and then return them – often around midnight. Nourdine really enjoyed these early meetings: “the rides between islands in a small boat in the middle of the night – sometimes in storms – were really fun, although for some of the directors, they were white knuckle rides. Normally, Orcas held their meetings at Rosario because it was a good place to land a boat. The meetings were always preceded with a steak dinner and ended with a bottle someone had brought, and everyone had a good drink – those days are gone forever! When I was running the boat, I would get home at 3 or 4 am.”
According to Nourdine, “Although it wasn’t required by our bylaws, OPALCO alternated both its board meetings and its annual meetings between Lopez, Orcas and San Juan Islands so the majority of members would have an opportunity to attend.” This policy still holds for the board meetings, but it didn’t work so well for the annual meetings because it was too difficult to bring in enough members to achieve a quorum. Nourdine remembers one annual meeting which was held at the Friday Harbor fairgrounds: “although enough members signed up to meet the quorum, many of these members disappeared before the meeting started. The meeting was put on hold while several of us went around town trying to find members to come to the meeting. We rounded up a bunch of those guys who had disappeared from the meeting at a local bar. Later, during the meeting, there were some contentious members challenging the board, and I ended up being the only director there to answer questions – the other directors had disappeared for awhile! That was really a lot of fun!”
In the mid-50s, OPALCO began to charter a ferry one evening a year for the annual meeting. This ferry would pick members up at Lopez, Orcas, San Juan and Shaw, dock at one of the islands while the meeting was being held on the ferry, and return everyone afterwards; these meetings generally ran from between 7 or 8 pm until around midnight. These days, the annual meeting is held on a ferry while it is on its regular run. Nourdine likes this a lot, saying it is very convenient and unique – we are the only business that holds its annual meetings on a ferry.
Nourdine says he considers his years as a director to be a great privilege and
is proud to have been a part of the many accomplishments and progression of
the company. When asked about changes, his first response was the number of
members – when he first joined the board, there were about 2,600 members, and
today there are around 11,000. Other changes he recalls include technology and
system reliability. Whatever the changes that have come and gone, however, having
Nourdine as a constant at OPALCO has been vital and integral to OPALCO’s efficiency
and reliability. Everyone at OPALCO is very grateful for his service and hard
work - his common sense, humor and dedication have seen the cooperative through
several decades and still counting.
