John Spencer,
a Yankee turned Sooner by Tory Tedder
Over 30 years ago, a young John Spencer left Watkins
Glen, NY—a small village on the southern tip of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes district of New York—and drove cross country looking for work. Of finding himself in Norman, Okla., he plainly says, "I fell into a town with college football fever and found myself in heaven." [BOOMER SOONER!] "We had Cornell (pronounced "Corn Owl" if you're a
Yankee) and Syracuse, but nothing like the excitement we have here," Spencer relates, in comparing the two collegiate football regions. "Best decision of my life was coming to Norman,"
declares Spencer who will celebrate 33 years at Oklahoma Electric Cooperative this year. "OEC is great—couldn't ask for a better Board [of Trustees] and Max [Meek, general manager], the staff, and all the employees are just great. I'm happy to be here." Spencer started as a laborer working to clear the right-
of-way, but became a lineman within two years. He soon moved into the metering department citing a desire to get into the "tech side of things." He is now Vice President of Metering and Logistics overseeing the warehouse, metering, power quality, equipment testing, and our automated metering infrastructure (AMI). "AMI is the biggest thing to help this co-op that
I've been a part of," Spencer states frankly. "It touches every department. Operations uses it to locate service interruptions, engineering uses it to perform service reliability studies and make system improvements, it has lowered overhead, and it has improved the customer service we're able to give members by providing immediate usage data—it made PrePaid service possible." Spencer spends his spare time—"What's that?"—with
his wife, Jennifer, and their five kids—Tiffany, Sarah, Chase, Katy, and Carter with the three youngest still at home—and five grandchildren. Tey like to travel up to Seneca Lake where they own a family cabin. Spencer grew up loving auto racing—Watkins Glen has
John Spencer, from top to bottom: Dec. 2012 employee portrait; Swinging for the fences at a Western Farmers Electric Cooperative softball tournament, 1980s; Setting the fashion trends in San Diego in his OEC cap, Spencer visits the beach in between electric metering technology meetings.
12 October 2013
a racing history going back to 1948 with Formula 1 and later with NASCAR. He rooted for Geoff Bodine–a local New York boy–until Bodine's retirement. Now he follows Dale Earnhardt Jr. Of course, during college football season, the Spencers are in Norman rooting for the Sooners.
Co-op People
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