CEO’s Message – January 2024

Putting 2024 into Perspective

Sometimes I find myself consoling friends and family. I tell them the dire challenges facing mankind today need to be remembered in the context of the past. Humans, for some reason, seem to be a pessimistic lot. Some tend to believe we’re living in the most unprecedented, dangerous, perilous, crisis-filled times ever. Everything poses an “existential” threat.

I encourage such friends and family members to harken back to times in the annals of history and to contemplate what it may have been like. Imagine a time when:

• The United States didn’t have a vice president in office.
• For a time, the U.S. Senate was without a majority leader.
• A major sports league made a drastic and unprecedented expansion.
• 1 musician seemed to outshine all the others.
• 1 of the most controversial Americans in history held an office that provided a crucial service to the United States.
• A federal law was enacted that excluded a certain ethnic group from emigrating to the United States and put immigration quotas on other ethnic groups.
• It took 103 ballots at the convention of 1 of the major U.S. political parties to nominate a candidate to run for president.
• A company was founded that promised to inject life-changing and revolutionary technology into society—technology that many feared would threaten humanity.
• New weapons were used against law enforcement by gangs supplying illegal substances.
• A good part of the country—including where Arizona’s rural electric co-cops serve—didn’t have access to electricity.

The time was 100 years ago—1924. Think about the calamity befalling the country when new President Calvin Coolidge didn’t have a vice president. When the Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge died in office and wasn’t immediately replaced. When the all-Canadian National Hockey League expanded into the United States for the first time, and the Boston Bruins became the first American NHL team. When George Gershwin was all the rage. When J. Edgar Hoover became head of the FBI. When Congress enacted a law that said Japanese citizens couldn’t emigrate to the United States, restricted the number of “Eastern” and “Southern” Europeans who could come to the U.S. and created the Border Patrol. When it took Democrats forever to nominate John Davis as its presidential standard-bearer. When IBM was founded. When bootleggers used Thompson machine guns to run alcohol during Prohibition. When America’s and Arizona’s farms and ranches couldn’t rely on electricity to help run their operations.

Taken individually or collectively, some of these events likely led the citizens of the time to believe the end times were nigh. Not to mention everything else that’s transpired during the past 100 years that has caused similar consternation with other generations.

So, my friends—and family—seek peace and pleasure in the many places where they’re abundant. Be nice. Keep perspective. 2024 will be just fine.

Dave Lock
CEO