VEA names new CEO
After former Valley Electric CEO Mark Stallons announced his impending retirement in June, the company recently named the company’s successor in a monthly meeting on Wednesday.
Valley Electric Association is a member-owner co-op that is controlled by an elected board of members serving the Pahrump Valley. Robby Hamlin, the incoming CEO, is not new to co-ops. For 30 years Hamlin has worked at several levels of electric utility co-ops. Part of his experience was at VEA, where he served as a manager of engineering and operations, and when the opportunity came to get back to Southern Nevada, he took it.
“We raised our kids [in Pahrump] and they still call Nevada home,” said Hamlin, who is currently the Lassen Municipal Utility District general manager in a rural town in California. “It’s been an opportunity to get closer to family and get back to a place we really enjoyed.”
Hamlin will return to the town for his first day as CEO of the co-op on Dec. 9.
As energy rates go up, members have begun to raise concerns in regard to affordability. In a 2024 annual meeting presentation, VEA presented a chart that depicted the rising cost of operations by $4.4 million from 2022 to 2023.
Residents like Beth Borysewich, the owner of the Voices of Nye County account on Facebook, have expressed their concerns.
Recently Borysewich and other members were left unsatisfied after recent ideas have been floating around the board of directors to raise rates during peak hours. The members are not all on board with raising the rates during peak hours, between 5 and 10 p.m., Borysewich said.
“First of all, he should be focused on lowering our rate, that’s number one,” she said when asked what the new CEO should focus on. “This town is made up of a majority of seniors and other low-income individuals.”
The median age in Pahrump is less than 54 years old and over 40 percent of the population is over 60 years old, according to census data.
“I’m on Social Security and all of a sudden you get a bill that’s $500,” she said. “That’s a great impact on whether you’re going to be able to afford food or medication.”
Rebuilding trust
When Hamlin comes back to Pahrump in December he is ready to implement his “open-door” policy and be out in the community.
His first goal is to recover the co-op’s reputation and trust that it once had.
“You only have to make one mistake to lose trust,” Hamlin told the Pahrump Valley Times. “It takes years and years to gain [trust] back. The way you gain that trust back is by doing what you say.”
Hamlin will seek to bring transparency to the co-op, something Borysewich has been asking for years. And he knows that the community will have to see that time after time to rebuild that trust.
As Stallons brought the co-op’s finances back on its feet, the incoming CEO is going to focus on re-establishing relationships internally and in the community, Hamlin said. He’s going to learn the process of what VEA is doing and why, so that he can then plan for what is to come from the utility company.
“To me business is all about relationships,” Hamlin said. “I fully intend to be visible and out in the community.”
Contact Jimmy Romo at jromo@pvtimes.com. Follow @JimmyRomo.News on Instagram.
