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As a co-op, West Florida Electric Cooperative (WFEC) abides by the Seven Cooperative Principles – one of which is commitment to community. What better time than during the holiday season to do what we can to demonstrate our continued commitment to the communities we serve?

Each year, WFEC hosts a Christmas party and awards banquet for its employees and their families. During this event the past several years, our co-op family has collected canned goods or toys for local organizations. This year, cooperative employees and their families collected two overflowing boxes full of donations for the local Toys for Tots organization. 42629005

“Commitment to community has become more than just a core value of Touchstone Energy Co-ops and one of the cooperative business model principals at West Florida Electric. When planning this year’s company Christmas party and awards banquet it wasn’t a matter of whether or not we should incorporate a way for our employees to demonstrate a spirit of giving, but how to do so - a food drive, a toy drive or collecting blankets or jackets for kids? Having worked with the employees of West Florida Electric for the past 29 years, I can say with confidence that they are much more excited about giving than receiving. They are always more than willing to give of themselves whether it is a community blood drive, a fundraiser for a charitable organization, coworker or member of the community battling cancer or other difficult life changing circumstances,” said Mullen.

“I would like to say, personally, that they may not have given gold, frankincense or myrrh but the spirit behind the giving made this Christmas special to me. Thank you to all of our employees and their families,”
he continued.

Our employees and their families also enjoyed visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus and children wrote letters to Santa telling him what they wished for this Christmas during the event. Since this is the only time of year that our employees are all able to gather together in one room, the co-op uses this opportunity to present awards and recognize those individual employees who go above and beyond the call of duty. The awards presented during the event include service anniversary awards, outstanding service awards and of course, our employee of the year award.

This year, Shane Rustin, a journeyman line worker in the Graceville district was named 2016 West Florida Electric Cooperative’s Employee of the Year by his peers at the event held December 8. Rustin was chosen to receive this award by his co-workers because he best exemplifies the following traits: personality, punctuality, safety habits, team work, flexibility and outstanding performance on the job. 60012003

As a journeyman line worker, Rustin works on a construction crew that maintains the cooperative’s distribution system. His duties include building new electric services, performing work and maintenance on the cooperative’s power lines, often after hours, troubleshooting and working on energized power lines, when needed.

Rustin started his career at WFEC in 1987 in the warehouse, washing trucks and performing other duties while he was still in high school. He was hired as a utility worker in the warehouse in 1989. He and his wife, Marie have been married since 2012 and have seven children together: Cody Rustin, 20; Kasey Rustin Spence, 27; Austin Peters, 18; Ann Marie Peters, 17; Abbie Peters, 14; Kaden Spence, 6 and Kyle Spence, 3. In his limited spare time, Rustin likes to hunt, fish, spend time camping and on the water.

“It was a great honor to be selected as Employee of the Year by my co-workers,” said Rustin.

Will Melton, a line crew leader, from the Sneads district, Tony Howard, journeyman line worker, from the
Bonifay district and Martha Benton, Supervisor, Purchasing, from the Graceville district were each honored
with Outstanding Service Awards.

Dalton Pettis, a contract worker on the right-of-way crew was also recognized as the WFEC Contract Employee of the Year.