July 1st marked the one-year anniversary of the acquisition of Mid-States Energy Works and it is a day of celebration! Despite the pandemic, leaders of both organizations were able to gather together at Mid-States shop in Salina to sign the documents and close on the purchase. KMEA staff, Mid-States staff, KMEA Executive Committee and others were there to celebrate the start of a strategic merger of the two entities with the goal and hopes to bring value to our KMEA membership.

Paul Mahlberg, KMEA General Manager said “I don’t think this past year could have gone any better. Many of the benefits that we believed would be created by the merger of our two entities have been realized. The synergies have been demonstrated on both large and small-scale projects. The recent completion of the Moundridge substation and transmission line project is one fine example. This project was completed on-time and under budget. The Mid-States team performed much of the engineering and design, construction of the substation, commissioning, and managed the overall project from start to finish with great success. Mid-States continues to bring value to many of our members with their service-oriented approach responding to the smallest of issues and problems for our members. This has not changed over the past year.”

He went on to say “and as we thought, the combination of the two entities would challenge us on how to manage the potential growth of services. Over the last year, we have strategically grown the Mid-States crew from 8 employees to 12 employees to meet the existing and added workload. In addition, we are moving into new areas of service including a preventive substation maintenance program that is currently being rolled out to the members. All of this growth has happened and we have still outperformed our financial estimates.”

KMEA continues to strive to bring services to all the members in a cost effective way and add value to your membership!