Bill Buchanan named CEO of BARC Electric Co-op

Millboro-based BARC Electric Cooperative has named Bill Buchanan as CEO, replacing Michael Keyser, who left the cooperative in December 2021.

Buchanan will take over as CEO effective May 9. Chief Operations Officer Chris Botulinski has been filling in as interim CEO and will return to his role as COO, the cooperative announced Monday.

BARC is a member-owned utility, providing service to 13,000 residents, farms and businesses across five counties in the Shenandoah Valley: Bath, Allegheny, Augusta, Highland and Rockbridge counties.

Buchanan joins BARC from Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania-based Northwestern Rural Electric Co-operative Association Inc. (Northwestern REC), where he is currently president and CEO. He has also been president and a board member of both the Illinois and Colorado rural telecommunications associations and was part of the Western Telecommunications Alliance, where Buchanan served on the transition committee during the merger of two regional associations.

Buchanan graduated from Western Illinois University, the University of Missouri’s Graduate Institute for Cooperative Leadership and earned Stanford University’s professional certification in energy innovation.