Our Path Forward
A new year is a great time to reflect, reset, and plan for the year ahead. While many are making their New Year's resolutions, High West Energy is also preparing for the year to come. We're committed to serving our members and communities with safe, reliable, and reasonably priced energy and services, and we're sharing our strategic plan with you as valued member-owners.
This plan is our roadmap to continue strengthening the cooperative, improving member experiences, and supporting the communities we serve. While there are challenges we will face in the new year, there are many opportunities for High West Energy. Although we have many areas we are focusing on in this plan, some of the key focus areas include:
Safety Culture Enhancement: Safety is our top priority at High West Energy for our employees, our members, and the surrounding communities. Our goal is to continue engaging all staff in safety practices, utilizing common industry metrics to gauge effectiveness. Through this, we will also be able to share safety practices with our members and the community.
Community Engagement: One area we want to continue strengthening is our involvement with the community, not only through volunteerism but also by expanding our educational outreach and partnering with local schools and youth organizations. We recently invested in a tabletop hotline demonstration, where we can further our efforts in educating about electric safety.
Operational Reliability: Our strategic plan focuses on continuing to rebuild and maintain aging infrastructure, planning potential substations, ensuring reliable service through system maintenance and growth, and maintaining proper inventory control.
For more information regarding our full strategic plan, please refer to the information below or visit our Strategic Plan webpage.
We are excited to share this information with you as member-owners because we are here to serve you. Our strategic plan will help us continue to plan responsibly and serve our members better every day.
Our resolution this year is clear: to continue serving our members by providing safe, reliable, and reasonably priced energy and services together. Thank you for being a member of High West Energy.
SAFETY CULTURE ENHANCEMENT
Engage all staff in safety practices through support and empowerment, utilizing metrics including Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) to gauge effectiveness.
HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Leverage employee growth and align training with organizational needs.
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Maintain affordable and reasonably priced rates while strengthening the overall financial health of the cooperative.
OPERATIONAL RELIABILITY
Implement and develop a construction work plan, informed by staff and outage data, to strengthen infrastructure and minimize outages.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Enhance member relations and foster active community involvement.
POWER SUPPLY COLLABORATION
Maintain partnerships with power suppliers to ensure equitable pricing and capacity management, while exploring alternative power supply technologies.
TECHNOLOGY
Strengthen cooperative resilience by embracing innovative technologies that enhance grid reliability, fortify cybersecurity, and enable business agility.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Encourage board members to engage in training and legislative efforts to support the electric utility industry and the cooperative's needs.
2026 Scholarships Now Open
Education powers communities just like electricity does, and we are proud to announce that our 2026 scholarship program is now open for high school seniors and college students. Not interested in going to college? Well, we also have scholarships for students interested in line work. Over the past few years, we've proudly awarded $10,000 each year in scholarships to students who are dependents of High West Energy members. The average cost of college tuition per year is almost $30,000, and trade school tuition can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the type of program and length of the program. Scholarships not only help cover part of the cost of college, but they also ease the stress of pursuing higher education or trade school. Our scholarship program exists to simply give back to our devoted members and their families. We believe that investing in education, whether in the classroom or in the field, helps build brighter futures and stronger communities. Together, we're powering opportunity for the next generation.
Where do I begin?
Our application process is super simple! Head to www.highwest.coop or click the links below for the fillable web form. There are no paper applications. With the application, you will need to submit two recommendation letters, as well as any supporting documents, like a resumé. Please note that our website does not save your progress in the application, so have all supporting documents ready to go before you begin the fillable form.
2026 General Scholarship Program Application | High West Energy Cooperative.
2026 Line Worker Scholarship Program Application | High West Energy Cooperative.
2026 Scholarship Recommendation Letters | High West Energy Cooperative.
When are scholarships due?
Scholarships are due on Monday, February 2, 2026, by 5 PM.
What does the process look like?
Once applications are turned in, each application is sent to a panel of judges outside of High West Energy. The judges panel has about three weeks to review and score each application. All scholarship applicants will be notified of their selection status by mail in March 2026. Recipients will be highlighted at our annual meeting as well as in printed materials.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact our office or email scholarships@highwest.coop. We want to be part of your success, so any questions are welcome!
