Hoosier Energy is organized as a cooperative governed by Board of Directors of member-owners, and recently celebrated its 60th year serving residents, businesses and farms in central and southern Indiana.  Fortunately, the majority of local economic development professionals in Indiana are familiar with cooperative businesses, because rural electric distribution cooperatives are actively engaged in local economic development, supporting growth in hometowns throughout the state.

Hoosier Energy is a generation and transmission power supplier to local distribution cooperatives, is owned by those cooperatives, and provides economic development expertise and resources to Indiana communities on behalf of those cooperatives in forty eight counties across central and southern Indiana, along with eleven counties in southeastern Illinois.

Hoosier Energy has a staff that is heavily involved and experienced in economic development.  Randy Haymaker, a former LEDO who now serves as Hoosier’s Public Affairs Director, exemplified that experience when he received the IEDA “Excellence in Leadership” this past December.  Randy is a past president of the IEDA, as is Harold Gutzwiller, Hoosier Energy’s Manager of Economic Development and Key Accounts.  Harold also served as a LEDO in multiple communities around southern and central Indiana and provides a practitioner’s view that helps Hoosier Energy to keep an informed perspective on how to be a helpful economic development partner.

Another member of Hoosier’s economic development team is Chuck Martindale, who has interacted with LEDOs for parts of four decades.  In his leadership roles with the Indiana Department of Commerce as well as with Hoosier Energy, Chuck has extensive experience in the use of grant funds for economic development as well as financial analytic skills that are a valuable asset for LEDOs.  Hoosier Energy’s economic development team is rounded out by Jeff Quyle, who recently served on the General Assembly’s Interim Study Committee on Economic Development, is a former county commissioner and current county councilman.   Jeff’s experience as a local elected official provides an important perspective to the economic development efforts of Hoosier Energy.

Together, the members of the Hoosier Energy economic development department work with local economic development leaders, offering advice, analysis, and assistance with site development, LEDO organizational resources, site consultant visits, analytic tools, and other valuable enhancements to help LEDOs achieve their goals.

Of course, Hoosier Energy also provides the wholesale electricity that seventeen Indiana electric cooperatives distribute to industrial, commercial and residential customers.  With two coal-fired power plants, three natural gas-fired plants, and a burgeoning array of renewable energy resources, Hoosier generates the electric power used by the Honda assembly plant in Greensburg, OFS plants in Huntingburg, Indiana Live racino in Shelbyville, and many, many other significant employers in the region.

LEDOs in southern and central Indiana know that Hoosier Energy offers one of the most useful economic development websites in the state (HoosierSites.com) as well as in-person assistance.  And with the development of new mobile and TDL website tools in 2011, Hoosier Energy will continue to provide the competitive edge LEDOs need to bring economic development success to their communities.

You may reach the Hoosier Energy economic development department by calling 812.876.0294 or by visiting their website at HoosierSites.com.