Community Pillar For Four Decades

DAYTON - After 37 years with Columbia Rural Electric Association, Glenn Hagfeldt will retired on January 31. He started with the rural energy cooperative on February 1, 1974.

"I'm an engineer and I like book ends - nice even starts and stops," Hagfeldt said in explaining the precise date of retirement. And as he will be 63 this year, he'd like to get busy with projects and traveling plans.

"I restore cars," he said. "It keeps me busy and broke. I must be the only guy from Montana who doesn't hunt and fish. My focus is around cars, car shows and swap meets. And we'd like to sneak in some trips."

Hagfeldt and his wife of 41 years, Terry Sue, have lived in Dayton since 1972. Both are familiar faces in town.

Terry Sue Hagfeldt has worked at Dayton Memorial Library for many years. And through Columbia REA, Glenn Hagfeldt has participated in leadership committees, strategic planning, emergency management workshops and more in and around Columbia County.

In 2008, the Dayton Chamber of Commerce named Glenn Hagfeldt em- ployee of the year. And just last year, in November, Hagfeldt was presented with the first Columbia County Emergency Management Preparedness Award. He is a member of the Columbia County Emergency Management Advisory Council, the Local Emergency Planning Committee and the Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Committee.

"Glenn has attended every meeting while serving on the various committees and also attended every Emergency Management Workshop in 2009 and 2010," according to the emergency management website.

Keeping busy has never been a problem for Hagfeldt. He grew up on a farm in Scobey, Montana. After graduation, he attended Montana State University and studied to be an agricultural engineer.

"I don't know exactly what my plan was," he said. "But I was raised in an ag community. My dad farmed wheat and had cattle. So ag engineering made sense."

When he was 24, he and his young wife moved to Dayton to work for Green Giant.

"Green Giant was a good company," Hagfeldt said. "And we thought this would be a good place to make a home and put down roots."

But Green Giant managers had a habit of moving employees around - and often. This didn't appeal to the young Hagfeldts, who had two children at home and had fallen in love with Columbia County.

"So when a guy I was acquainted with through the Junior Chamber of Commerce, which was a real active club back then, asked if I'd be interested in a job at REA, I looked into it," he said .

Hagfeldt "didn't know squat" about the utility business, he said. "But they knew that, and they gave me the opportunity to learn. Back then, getting hired on was a much simpler process."

Over the near four decades that have passed since then, Hagfeldt has worked in many different departments at the company. His final position, the one from which he will retire this month, is member services engineer.

" I've worked here 37 years and I don't know what the title means," he joked.

As a cooperative, Columbia REA is owned by its members and governed by an elected board of directors. "Members receive friendly service from local employees who care about them and the communities in which we live," according to the company's website, and members receive a share of the revenue over and above the cost of doing business in the form of capital credit refunds.

Hagfeldt's job is to protect and serve REA members with projects granting incentives to members who install new, energy-efficient windows or weatherize their homes to cut down on energy consumption.

"Incentives are a big deal because if we can save on electricity use in one place, we have more for others," Hagfeldt said.

He also serves on the apprenticeship committee and is the safety coordinator for the office's safety program - an important program "given the nature of the work," he said.

But Hagfeldt's term of service at the REA is just about up. He said he's enjoyed the work and the opportunity to serve the community as a representative for the REA on many boards and committees in the county.

"But I probably won't stay on most of them after I retire," he said. "I think I'll stay with the fairgrounds committee and fair board, though. It's just all going to be a big change, a lot of adjustments to make."

Hagfeldt's brother still farms in Montana, and while the Hagfeldts plan to stay in the community where they've raised their children and lived nearly all of their adult lives, Hagfeldt said he plans to return to Montana for short visits to help his family.

"I have the training," he said. "And it's something I like doing."

But mechanics and travel will take up the majority of Hagfeldt's time after this month. Terry Sue Hagfeldt wants to visit the Middle East, "a duck the bullets kind of thing," her good-natured husband called it.

He's like to accompany her to places she's dreamed of visiting - Egypt, Israel, and Iraq.

"For me, I'd like to go do a Civil War battlefield trip. That would be interesting to me," Hagfeldt said.

Terry Sue will stay on at the library after Hagfeldt retires.