ON for generations

In 2009 Otter Tail Power Company is celebrating 100 years of serving our customers with reliable, affordable electricity. That's 100 years of keeping the customer at the forefront of our decisions and policies, knowing that our partnership with them helps support each of the 423 communities we serve.

Building and maintaining a reliable electric system in the northern Great Plains posed a backbreaking challenge in the early 1900s. Our employees, then as now, were accustomed to hard work because their pioneer heritage made them a "can-do" lot. Their parents and grandparents wrestled with inhospitable conditions to produce grains and livestock for a hungry nation. Farm kids, used to tinkering with machinery, became the talented engineers and technicians we needed to design our electric system and run our power plants. Our small-town schools educated our workers, who continue to be dedicated to excellence. They keep our company running so that we can keep serving our customers' growing needs.

Concerns about global climate change and energy independence pose new challenges to providing reliable, affordable electric service. It's a challenge we're meeting by investing in renewable wind energy and energy-efficiency measures to augment our low-cost baseload power plants.

Throughout Otter Tail Power Company's 100-year history, our goal has been to keep providing our customers with reliable service in a manner that makes good environmental sense. We're truly no different than any other business owner. Our strength lies squarely in meeting and exceeding our customers' expectations. As long as we continue to provide that service as consistently as we have for the past century, our future as a company and as a community partner looks bright.

Chuck McFarlane, President, Otter Tail Power Company 

 

 

Charles S. MacFarlane

Chuck MacFarlane, the eighth and current president of Otter Tail Power Company, was born on July 11, 1964, at Garrison, North Dakota.  He is the son of John MacFarlane, the company's sixth president.

Chuck MacFarlane also lived at Jamestown and Langdon, North Dakota, and graduated from high school at Fergus Falls, Minnesota, in 1982. He graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1987 with a degree in electrical engineering.

Before joining Otter Tail Power Company, he served as director of electric distribution planning and engineering for Xcel Energy's multi-state service territory. Previously he was director of delivery construction and field operations for Northern States Power Company.

He attended night classes at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, and earned a masters degree in business administration in 1994. He is also a graduate of the Minnesota Executive Program at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

In 2001 MacFarlane came to Otter Tail Power Company as Director of Financial Analysis and Planning.  He was named Vice President of Finance and Business Planning in May 2002, Interim President in August 2002, and president in 2003.

He is on the board of directors for Fergus Area Young Life and Productive Alternatives.  He is also active in the Hockey Association.

Under MacFarlane Otter Tail Power Company has maintained a solid financial position and a good rate of return. His greatest challenges for the future are environmental issues, permitting and construction of major generation and transmission additions, and the upward pressure on rates.