Épisodes

  • The Future of Tri-State with Duane Highley
    Feb 17 2025

    If you could do one thing today to improve the lives of your grandchildren, or even great great grandchildren, what would you want it to be? For Tri-State G&T CEO Duane Highley, that thing is providing them with reliable, affordable and responsible power.

    In the final installment of his three-part interview, Duane discusses how the projects and decisions they’re making today will benefit cooperative members into the 2060s. He also lays out the work that goes into keeping prices low, even when the industry is doubling or tripling their rates.

    It’s the cooperative difference in action, from an expert that’s been doing it for nearly four decades.

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    16 min
  • Godzilla, Meteors and Reliability with Duane Highley
    Feb 17 2025

    Join Tri-State's CEO for the second installment of his three-part interview to discuss something near and dear to his heart: reliability planning as it relates to increased demand, extreme weather and prehistoric reptilian monsters.


    All jokes aside, reliability is the driving force behind what Tri-State does for our members. Duane has been at the forefront of reliability planning and figuring out how to keep the lights on, no matter what. Duane also breaks down resource adequacy and how recent major storms have completely changed the model.

    In addition to reliability, cooperatives like Tri-State have to balance cost in order to keep power affordable for our neighbors at the end of the line. Here, Duane dives into how powering communities is personal to him and his team. There is a real sense of authenticity within the co-op model because of the respect for the people he’s doing this work for.

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    11 min
  • Cooperative Roots with Tim Rabon
    Feb 17 2025

    Tim Rabon can do a lot of things well, but retiring is not one of them. Get to know the busiest retired man you’ll ever meet and hear what Tim does as Tri-State's Chairman of the Board. Tim also walks you through an easy-to-understand history of why cooperatives exist and how crucial they are to the rural way of life.

    The son of a World War Two veteran and life-long New Mexico rancher, Tim has seen the powerful effect of people coming together and discusses how that is the foundation of the co-op model.

    Get to know more about Tim, Tri-State, cooperatives, and New Mexican pecans in this new episode.

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    37 min
  • The Why Behind Wildfire Mitigation with Curtis Hartenstine
    Feb 17 2025

    No one wants to hear the word wildfire -- except Curtis Hartenstine because he’s been working to mitigate their risk for most of his career. As the Wildfire Mitigation Program Manager at Tri-State G& T, the w-word has been a part of Curtis’ daily life for decades.

    In this episode of Western Watts, we dive into how Curtis’ deep love of the nature has taken him from working at a shipyard in Martha’s Vineyard, to a field station in the Amazon forest, then the base of the Himalayas, and now to the Rocky Mountains where his daily work is centered around how to protect our members and the grid from wildfires.


    Curtis details the immense effort that goes into managing a mitigation program for Tri-State's 200,000 sq mi territory with all its diverse ecosystems and terrains. Learn about the practices and technologies being used to help with early detection and as always, the brave men and women working year-round to deploy those strategies and keep our rural communities safe.

    Stay tuned till the end for the fire preparedness advice that Curtis himself uses and how to apply that to your own life.

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    33 min
  • Getting To Know Duane Highley
    Feb 13 2025

    Welcome to the first episode of Western Watts, Tri-State's new energy podcast! Who better to kick things off than our CEO Duane Highley?

    Duane joined Tri-State in 2019 and has almost four decades of experience with cooperatives, but this CEO is so much more than his resume. Learn about the French-horn-playing, motorcycle-riding, podcast-binging person behind the title and the beautiful, winding path that brought Duane and his family to Colorado.

    This is part one of a three-part series with Duane where you’ll get to know the CEO, his plans for the cooperative, and maybe even some Godzilla talk.

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    15 min