Carteret-Craven EC donates a truck to Costa Rica

The staff of the Costa Rica cooperative are proud of “La Carolina,” the name they have given the donated bucket truck

Directors and employees at Cooperativa Electrica de los Santos (Coopesantos), in Costa Rica are more than proud of their “new” bucket truck; they are thankful. The truck, a retired vehicle from Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative’s fleet, not only has a bucket for making repairs atop power poles, but it also has an automatic transmission – a first among trucks used by electric cooperatives in Costa Rica.

Coopesantos and CCEC are “sister” cooperatives in the NRECA International Foundation Sister Cooperative Program. Two employees of the Costa Rican co-op – Engineering Director Ismael López and Information Technology Chief Domingo Umaña – visited CCEC last summer in a learning and cultural exchange. Providing the bucket truck wasn’t a part of the plan. But when CCEC learned of the need for such a vehicle, a deal was struck.

Just over a year later, the truck is in the field, helping Coopesantos line workers perform work far more efficiently than in the past.

“Our coworkers named the truck ’La Carolina,’ “Umaña wrote in an e-mail to CCEC Vice-president of Finance & Accounting Jerry Eborn. “So many thanks to you.”

“We coordinated through NRECA International Foundation to get the truck to Costa Rica aboard a container ship,” Eborn said. “It took a while to get it there, but they are proud of that truck.”

Through the “sister” relationship, Carteret-Craven and Coopesantos share more than ideas and technical advice. Establishing a formal tie to an electric cooperative in a developing country has helped Carteret-Craven enrich its cultural understanding and global knowledge.

NRECA Foundation strives to create appropriate, permanent business cultures and operating environments, in which local electrification institutions are able to achieve independent, self-sustaining internal capacities to survive.