ODEC keeps interim president and CEO permanently

John C. Lee Jr. will stay on as Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s permanent president and CEO after serving in an interim capacity since Sept. 8, 2023, the Glen Allen-based not-for-profit power cooperative announced Monday.

Lee had also been president and CEO of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative and Empower Broadband, but he will retire from those roles to focus his attention on ODEC, according to a news release. He was CEO of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative since January 2008 and since then has also served on ODEC’s board of directors, including as chair from 2020 to 2023. He will resign from his board position with his new role.

Lee had been with Empower Broadband since 2018, and he held several roles at ODEC beginning in 1992.

“I am honored to be selected as the CEO of one of the nation’s premier generation and transmission cooperatives and will work diligently to maintain ODEC’s powerful legacy of outstanding service to its members,” Lee said in a statement. “ODEC and its dedicated board of directors are focused squarely on the needs of those we serve, and it will be a privilege to work alongside the outstanding team of employees at ODEC as we tackle imposing issues that face our industry, while keeping the electrons reliably flowing to our 11 member electric cooperatives.”

Lee has also served on other electric cooperative boards, including the Virginia, Maryland and Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, National Cooperative Services Corp. and others.

He has a bachelor’s degree in business from Mississippi State University.

“John has served as ODEC’s interim CEO extremely well over the past five months, and the board is completely confident that this continued transition to his full-time service will proceed without the cooperative missing a beat,” ODEC board Chairman Steven Harmon said in a statement. “We are extremely optimistic about the future of the organization due to John’s leadership and ODEC’s talented staff.”

In January, ODEC named Jack Robb its chief legal officer and senior vice president and Chris Cosby its chief operations officer.

ODEC is a not-for-profit. member-owned power supply cooperative that supplies wholesale power requirements to its 11 member electric distribution cooperatives that provide electricity to 1.5 million people in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.