Glover, 59, was presented TVPPA's Richard C. Crawford Distinguished Service Award. The occasion marked the end of Glover's two years as TVPPA's chairman.
“This is a great honor, one I will always cherish,” Glover told an estimated 750 colleagues and guests.
“I hope I can live up to what this award stands for. Thank you for allowing this little country boy to be part of your great organization and for letting me make a little effort to make things a little bit better,” said Glover, who was accompanied by his wife Jo.
TVPPA's members are 159 public-power distributors that get their power from the Tennessee Valley Authority. When Glover became TVPPA's chairman in mid-2006, the relationship between his Association and TVA was chilly.
But on his first full day as chairman, Glover invited TVA's brand-new, nine-member board of directors to dinner in Hopkinsville. That new TVA board was scheduled to hold its first meeting the next day.
“They were very reluctant,” Glover recalled. “They didn't know us, and we didn't know them.”
But during the course of that dinner, minds and attitudes began to change. Before dessert was served, in fact, new TVA Chairman Bill Sansom turned to Glover and asked this question:
“Now, why is it that we're not supposed to get along?”
The histories of TVPPA and TVA changed that night. Sansom and TVA President/CEO Tom Kilgore resolved to meet every four to six weeks with Glover and TVPPA President/CEO Jack Simmons.
Today, the chill between TVPPA and TVA has not only long since thawed, but the power supplier and its distributors are working toward becoming business partners; TVPPA and TVA are in the process of acquiring a power plant near Memphis, Tenn. Such an arrangement would mean that, for the first time ever, TVA distributors would own generation assets.
“Eston has been a real friend to us and the new board,” TVA's Sansom said. “We thank him for all he's done to work with us and grow our relationship.”
Myron Callaham, TVA's general manager for customer service in Kentucky for the last 21 years, said it's impossible to overestimate the import of the new TVA/TVPPA arrangement and Glover's role in bringing it about.
“It's a fundamentally new way of doing business on the generation side,” Callaham said. “It should and will change Congress's view of who the true owners of TVA assets are - the consumers.
Named for a former TVPPA chief executive, the Richard C. Crawford Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to a TVPPA-member distributor manager who has:
Shown exceptional leadership and service contributions to consumer-owned, Tennessee Valley power generally and TVPPA particularly, Demonstrated unusual devotion to duty and Contributed to the betterment of his/her community and the Tennessee Valley.
Mr. Glover is one of only three in the state of Kentucky to receive this award.
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