DEC Joins Efforts to Electrify the Navajo Nation

The Co-op was founded on the belief that everyone deserves access to reliable electricity. That’s why, in 1936, local farmers pooled their resources to bring the benefits of electricity to Delaware’s rural communities. Today, our DEC team works to honor that legacy, and this past summer, we had the privilege to expand that mission beyond our own membership. 

On June 20, DEC lineworkers Joshua Benedict, Harrison Burris, Greg Williamson and Zane Lawson, along with Operations Training Supervisor Philip Collison traveled to the Navajo Nation as part of the Light Up Navajo (LUN) initiative — a mutual aid program that seeks the help of lineworkers and electricians from across the nation to build electrical infrastructure on the Navajo reservation. This year, our DEC crew was proud to join peers from 51 utilities across the country to help bring power to more than 9,000 Navajo families who have never had electricity in their homes.

“We were going out there to turn the lights on for somebody,” Collison said. “It’s
the same as all the storm calls we’ve ever been on. You go to turn the lights back on.”“In this case, to turn them on for the first time,” Williamson added.

As part of their LUN mission, the DEC crew spent a week assigned to areas in both Arizona and Utah, framing and setting poles, as well as stringing wire across difficult terrain that ranged from soft, loosely packed sand to solid rock. At times the team was working at an elevation of 8,000 feet. Heavy wind gusts blew sand, making it difficult to hear or even see each other in some cases. Even in the face of these challenges, our crew was able to electrify roughly five homes by the time their trip was complete — an achievement they said was worth every obstacle.

“Just as our Co-op electrified rural Delaware 90 years ago, I’m proud of our team for bringing the life-changing benefits of electricity to those in need,” President and CEO Rob Book said. “Lineworkers are carrying on our legacy of electrification decades after we energized the first Delaware farm.”