Richard Fagerlin: I would build an avatar of your ideal board member. And the ideal board member probably doesn't have an age, it has a mindset that has experience, it has willingness, it has curiosity. You know, it'd be great if we had gender diversity, geographic diversity, experience, like all kinds of diversity. I would go find four, five, six people that fit that avatar.
You could go individually and say, all right, this is what we're looking for in the future. We see you as a person who fits this. Yes, we'd love for you to be a board member but more importantly, we'd like for you to tell us what's standing in our way of attracting someone like you.
Teri Viswanath: That’s Richard Fagerlin, he is the founder and president of Peak Solutions and has been recognized as a Top 100 Thought Leader on Trust for past three consecutive years. He also is the very dynamic host of the Build Better Boards podcast, which is really the subject of today’s program.
Hello, I’m Teri Viswanath, and I’m your co-host of Power Plays, a nationally syndicated program where we discuss issues that are important to co-op communities. One of the most pressing contemporary issues in these communities is how do we fill our co-op board positions with the next generation of leaders.
As always, I am joined by my colleague, a CoBank managing director, Tamra Reynolds. Hello Tamra.
Tamra Reynolds: Hey, Teri. Happy New Year.
Viswanath: You as well. January is always a really important month for our podcast. With all of our planning and strategy sessions, we seem to have our highest level of listenership in this month. And Tamra, you felt strongly about talking about the next generation of leadership as we begin our 2026 podcast journey. Why was this topic so important to you?
Reynolds: Yeah, Teri, you know, when you look around the industry and you think about all the changes happening – the rate of change, the types of challenges these utilities are facing, particularly on the co-op side – as you think about the size and scope of what they do, it’s just so important to be thinking about who’s going to be providing guidance and leadership at these organizations. So that the management teams and the leadership teams can go out and execute and bring that value and that reliability and that affordability back to the membership. And so this topic in particular is really important to me and one that I think we have a lot of opportunities to sort focus on and get right over the next several decades.
Viswanath: Alright, so let’s get into this conversation. Tamra, you did the heavy lifting, recording this conversation a few days before Christmas. Thanks for that. For this recording, you will hear Tamra asking questions of Richard and Dr. Keri Jacobs, who is the other co-host of Build Better Boards but also a distinguished associate professor and Robert D. Partridge Chair in Cooperative Leadership at the University of Missouri. You are going to enjoy this conversation….
Reynolds: So glad to speak with both of you today. I have Richard Fagerlin and Dr. Keri Jacobs with us, host of another podcast. So it's kind of fun to be able to do a crossover here, but why don't we do a brief intro for both of you all? Richard, I'll start with you.
Richard Fagerlin: I started my professional career working for a large farmer-owned co-op. Twenty four years ago I started Peak Solutions and worked primarily doing strategic planning and leadership development, coaching, et cetera. But along the way, a lot of the work that we're doing with management teams is so relevant with boards and this transition just started taking place in the last five years where I'm nearly exclusively working with boards as it relates to all these topics.
Reynolds: Keri, how about you? Let's give us a little bit of your background.
Keri Jacobs: My formal background training is as an ag economist. So my PhD work was at NC State. My first job out of NC State as an ag economist was working at Iowa State University. And by happenstance, there was a vacancy in a role that was focused on agricultural cooperatives. That job at Iowa State gave me exposure to cooperative boards and leadership. And now I'm at the University of Missouri and I've been in this role as executive director of the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership since January 2021. And this opportunity to be at the University of Missouri they have a big focus on cooperatives there. And so it's just kind of elevated the work that I get to do and the groups that I get to work with, which is just, it's just an honor. So thank you for having me.
Reynolds: Maybe in the context of electric co-ops, give us some perspective about why attracting younger directors is really mission critical for them and particularly right now.
Jacobs: I was recently having a conversation with the CEO of Yellowstone Valley Electric Co-op and their growth is in where the population center growths are. When we think about what's the future of the REC look like — and therefore what is the role of the directors — it needs to reflect who's moving into those communities, who's choosing to start their families in those communities, who are the thought leaders in those communities.
I'll be honest, I struggle with this topic a little bit because it's always mission critical to have diversity of voices there. This has been the challenge for the last 100 years — or how many years these electric co-ops have been in existence — but it does seem like there's something different now and this is the right time to be talking about this.
Fagerlin: Younger people naturally have less aversion to change because they're less set in the way that things are for them. And so if you look back on the history of electric co-ops, the the year over year change has been so minimal, so minimal for so long that if you take the last 5-10 years and if you look at the next 5-10 years, then you can have kind of a copy paste year over year.
Reynolds: To your point, your getting people into these areas that maybe are first-time folks living in rural communities or they've had some fortunate job opportunities that mean they can be remote, right, in an area that's maybe more affordable for their family or they want to have a different, sort of lifestyle for their kids. And I think you're exactly right, finding a way to sort of align the membership with what the board representation looks like is super important. It just, you know, continues to sort of evolve and really, as you said, a catalyst for exponential change really in a shorter window of time.
Maybe, Richard, I'll start with you. What unique perspectives or skills do you think younger directors bring to the to the equation that maybe co-ops today are missing and how does that translate perhaps to member value?
Fagerlin: There's more people are paying more attention to the costs of their life. And so maybe they took for granted, where's my power come from? I just flip the lights, I pay the bill, it doesn't matter. I think that community members are, you know, maybe paying more attention. Being closer to the folks in the community that are that you're serving, especially in these more urban centers, I think that's an important thing. Also, I just think technology and insight around the way that kind of business evolves today. Again, back to that pace of change, the closer you are to those changes in that technology, the more you're going to understand it.
One of the things we talk about in the boardroom is board members are providing advice and accountability. And so the greater insight that you have in your everyday world may be the likely that translates to the greater value that you can have. And maybe age doesn't matter as much as like relevance to these changes, but there's a correlation to those who are early mid-career versus those who are post-career in terms of that relevance to these changes in the tech and the insight and the politics and everything that goes along with it.
Jacobs: It is about representation, but it's what you're looking for is relevance and relevancy to the decision-making. And so when you think about you know what a younger director might uniquely bring.
Richard mentioned this, this closeness to communities, that legitimacy within the community. They understand the realities within the workforce differently. They're just really closer to how the work-life balance is changing also and what decisions are being made. I think about millennials and GenZ and the situation their families and their households are in compared to the one I was in. The dual income households today, heavy reliance on childcare, different mental loads. So I think they bring that perspective in. And then just of course their digital savviness and the user experience around that and transparency. Co-ops are transparent by nature, they strive to be and it's important part of our value proposition in the cooperative and they bring that as part of what they expect in business.
Reynolds: Where do you think co-ops maybe struggle to really bring younger candidates along from a board perspective? Or what's the barrier to getting them engaged in the process or caring about why it matters?
Jacobs: Historically we viewed the directorship as a service. This is a service, this is a volunteer. And while that is true, I think we've done ourselves a disservice by talking about it in that way and that you're not just a volunteer. What does someone who chooses to spend their time this way get out of it? What do they bring to the table, that feels valuable for them to provide it? What are they going to gather from it?
They expect that it's going to matter to something, and not just like “virtue signaling matter” stuff, it's I want to know how me being in here helps my community, helps me help someone, but we've got to make a better direct tie and we've not really done that.
Fagerlin: You know, it used to be that you could put one energy credit in to serve somewhere and get maybe half of one back out, or you put three in and get one out. Today their expectation is to put one in and get four out. Like I want to do this because it's the right thing to do, but I have so much opportunity for my time. There is no free time. We don't have free time. We don't make space for that. So when we do ask people to serve in this endeavor, they want it to be a really great value.
Last week I was with a board, we're doing a board evaluation and retreat. And the board chair, who has a very, very significant business in their community, said, “the reason why I continue to serve here is because my family and my operation are significantly better because of the role I have on this board.”
Reynolds: I love that. I was talking with a younger director at a co-op in Texas and I said why did you run for the board? She said, “You know, I own the only restaurant and bar in town, and I was tired of paying the electric rates I was paying. So I wanted to understand what it was that I needed to understand how to make this more affordable for people in our community. I live in a small town. People don't move here. I wanted to understand what role I could play in making it a better situation.” And you know, that's what drove her to do it.
Richard, I'll start with you on this one. If you were to, you know, maybe advise a co-op on how to start building a pipeline for younger directors and sort of starting to plan how to get them in there, what are maybe the first few things you would recommend to them to start that process?
Fagerlin: I would take the people that work in my co-op and I would engage them in the community. You know, I people tend to want to hang around folks that are kind of in their same, they perceive as their peers. And so I would encourage my employees to be involved in the community events.
And if we're going to sponsor something, you know, co-ops sponsor a lot of really great things. They put fantastic resources to events and causes. Many of them just write the check and it shows up — what if you attached a person to that? That'd be a first step I would take.
Jacobs: And I'm going to go back to maybe to add on to something I said before. I think some of the very first work has to come from within the board to be really clear about what do we need in this board. So I think being really clear about what development opportunities exist, what skills we're looking for, why this matters.
And then like Richard said, this is about relationships. Developing this kind of cohort pipeline, interested leaders. And the value of that is if you're developing relationships from the boardroom about potential future leaders, you're also just engaging someone with the cooperative in a new way, even if they never become a potential board member. And so I just think there's a lot of work we can do at the board level to get really clear on what it is we do in this board and what we need inside the boardroom, creating a bit of a job description around recruiting and nominations and then build relationships with that in mind but it doesn’t just end there. This is an opportunity to be stewards, and be promoting within the community and letting some of that naturally matriculate in.
Fagerlin: Now all of a sudden your board's talking about, well, what's the culture we're looking for in our board? And what are the things that we value and what are the things that we oppose? And so now within the board, it's creating its own culture that all started with this job description of a board member. And so we're getting really clear on what we're expecting.
Reynolds: You saw this both growing up in a small town where you've got these community leaders that they're on the school board, they're on the co-op board, they do all the things. And those are the ones that really add a ton of value. And it doesn't mean there's only one, but you need to find the ones that are critical to keeping that sort of culture going.
I love the point about that because you have to be intentional with those things and you have to start sooner than you intend. I hear all the time that, “oh, we just don't have anyone interested. We just don't have anyone interested. I hope nobody decides to retire.” And you can say that, but if you're not doing the work to get people interested, I think it's a little bit of a reflection on, you know, the leadership there and what could be happening differently.
Fagerlin: Well, I think one of the things that's important to realize here is that the people we want to run for the board are people who don't have time to run for the board. You know, let's be honest, if someone has all the time in the world to sit on the board. Is that the exact type of person that we want? Do they have the skills? Do they have the experience? As a matter of fact, one of the things we say is that your board should represent past, present and future. And I think there's a time when we've got to start talking about when is it time as a board member to make space for this younger generation. Like part of the process is those board members deciding that it's time for them to move on so they can make space for new generations.
Jacobs: But this brings up for me what's interesting in this one and what I keyed in on is the preponderance of directors in that boardroom were from areas that were stable or shrinking and we weren't getting infusion and insight into the most growing areas of this cooperative and so that can generate a lot of things inside the boardroom that aren't necessarily desirable.
Reynolds: That can be limiting when you're trying to really get the right kind of people in the room or interested in how they can help shape what's in front of them for the next generation in terms of investment, in terms of keeping rural communities vibrant and doing things that make a difference there, you know, locally.
Jacobs: The horizon problem is really this group of directors and the leadership team is responsible for making decisions that have a value horizon, an investment horizon that's longer than most members would ever realize — especially when you have an aging board, the investments they're being asked to make with their capital, with the equity that's been built by the members, they won't see the benefit of that. And what we know is that those decisions, when you haven't got a decision-making team who can see, who can benefit from the horizon that this organization will be investing in, they make different decisions.
Reynolds: Keri, I'll start with you on this one. If you wre to provide maybe some guidance to a co-op on how to how to on-board a new board member, a new younger director, what would that look like to you?
Jacobs: I think we have to get away from the, you know, two days intense onboarding. We're going to shove as much information as you we can at you. Richard and I have talked about this is, how do you how do you give someone authority and confidence enough to feel like they can be a good director in at least some dimensions in terms of their critical thinking and their strategic thinking straight out of the gate? And so some early competence, you know, basics around how does this board think about finances? You don't need to be a financial expert, but how does this board have oversight into finance, for example. What does risk look like inside our organization?
You know, maybe put them on a committee pretty early to be able to dive in to some areas that are if they if you have a committee structure, some areas that they like, let's say you happen to get someone on who is really passionate about education or who is really passionate about finance. Put them on a committee where their passions are, where they have some expertise already and can contribute to the discussions.
And then I would say try to assign—This isn't feasible for all of them, but the extent you can give them someone to anchor them on the board as a mentor, as here's your go-to person. Let them have a say in who that is. They need to match up in terms of personality. But someone who can be a named mentor to give feedback, to answer questions.
Fagerlin: Yeah, I love, I love to say when you have a new board member, you don't have a new board member, you have a new board. One new board member changes the board.
There's a leadership theory called complexity leadership theory. The basic premise of it is that leaders best lead together when they learn together. So development isn't just about understanding power supply, rate structure, governance, capital expenditures. It's about all of the things. And in the governance world, we have an over abundance and emphasis on the fiduciary side of governance and an under abundance in the how we do things and how we actually get it done.
And so we want to understand each other so that so that we can create standards within the board of, we're going to check our egos at the door. We're not going to feel that we need to justify a position. We're not going to take things personally. Like all of those things don't just happen overnight. And so you know these board retreats, these assessments and evaluations of one another, these spending some extra time, you know. You know, what if the goal to get out of your board meeting as quickly as possible actually isn't right? What if there's an effort that, like the board meeting should end and there'd be meaning and value? But what if we have some of these other things that allow the actual meat of the meeting and the agenda to be more effective?
Jacobs: These younger generations, the millennials and Gen. Zs, it's not that they don't trust, but they don't trust straight out of the gate. And so Richard, along your lines of like spend time together, that's how they can develop. Spending time, breaking bread, like you said, it all aligns really well with what we understand, or at least what I think the literature is saying about how this younger generation works, and prefers to work in teams.
Reynolds: One thing that struck me about what you said about the mentorship, I think that's a really great approach to that. I think the other thing that you know sticks out to me is that there's an opportunity for newer or younger people to mentor people that have been on the boards, the expertise that they're bringing to the table.
Fagerlin: The idea there is reverse mentorship or I've also heard it called “mentern-ship.”
Reynolds: Excellent points. Before we wrap up, I thought I might just take a moment to get maybe a highlight or one recommendation you all have for our co-ops that maybe are listening as a take away for one thing they can do differently, perhaps in terms of looking for or trying to engage younger or new populations of directors or director candidates.
Jacobs: I will just start by saying, I think be really clear on what you're looking for on the board and honor that. Don't just put that up as lip service and then revert to old patterns, but be really thoughtful about that. And like Richard said early on, you want to find the people who are leaders, who are busy, who may not have the time and figure out how to make it worth their time. And so reframing that and being really clear on what the value proposition is. And then if you're going to say that this is the value of serving on the board, stick to that. Don't revert to these old habits where we're not going to change. Reconsider what is rigid about board service and what is not.
Our top talent are working differently than our top talent were working 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. So figure out how this top talent of leadership works and meet them where they are.
Viswanath: This discussion highlights the growing importance of recruiting younger directors who bring relevance, technological awareness and a closer connection to rapidly changing communities.
It emphasizes that co‑ops often struggle to attract these candidates because the director role is framed as volunteer service without a clear value proposition or don’t offer flexible structure.
Richard and Keri make a persuasive argument that building an effective pipeline requires intentional relationship‑building, clear articulation of the board’s needs and active community engagement by co‑op staff. Yes to all of that.
Reynolds: Teri, I really enjoyed this conversation and hope it was a great way for everyone to kick off the New Year. I hope all of you have enjoyed listening and will join us next month as we are joined by David Bodek from S&P as he discusses the credit headwinds ahead in 2026.
Viswanath: Goodbye for now.
