Mark Snowden, chief executive officer of Cimarron Electric Cooperative, invited the Kingfisher Lions Club to take a tour of the cooperative’s new office space.

The Lions got that glimpse Thursday on a field trip in place of their regular weekly luncheon meeting.

The new area that now serves as an office for engineering and operations staff and also houses the dispatch center that doubles as a storm shelter is the former warehouse located in the west half of the cooperative’s headquarters north of town.

CEC built a new warehouse west of that location and began remodeling the old one to provide much needed office space, Snowden said.

The 14,000 square-foot former warehouse space also included a 12-bay garage to house the electric coop’s bucket trucks.

The new 13,000 square-foot building is dedicated exclusively to warehouse use, with bucket trucks finding a new home in a separate 80-by-150-foot truck barn that also was part of the construction project.

“We used to have $50,000 worth of material going out of the warehouse per month,” said Snowden who has been CEO since 2008. “Since 2013, we have had an average of $1 million worth of material leaving the warehouse each month.”

“Before the new warehouse was completed, we could waste up to an hour of each day trying to get material loaded and out the door to the nearly 200 contract linemen that were helping us,” Snowden added.

“Now with the new 13,000 square feet and three covered loading lanes, there is no waiting at all.”

A new dispatch center was also vital, said Snowden.

“We look back and wonder how they ever did it before we had the new space,” he said. “With this space we are set for the long haul; there is nothing there that we will not need.”

He added that similar projects at other energy cooperatives have cost an average of $30 million, but CEC was able to complete the renovation and build the new warehouse and separate truck barn for a total price tag of about $11 million.

The company has grown 182 percent since 2009, according to Snowden.

“We had 64 employees when I began in 2008, but we have reduced that number down to 54,” he said.

“We know that oil comes and goes and we don’t want to increase our numbers just to have to let them go after the oil is gone. That’s not something we want to do, especially not in a small town.”

Snowden also expressed appreciation for the linemen employed by CEC.

“What the linemen have to do today is completely different than it was 20 years ago,” he said.

He also explained that project men can have from 12 to 20 linemen crews under them.

“All the work done by linemen is on an iPad now. They don’t carry around paper anymore,” said Snowden. “Everyone knows where everyone is at and they can electronically pass a ticket from one person to another.”

He also said that his employees hold the contractors accountable.

“They watch the contractors and if they are not good, we have to terminate them,” said Snowden.

He explained the reasoning for this is that someone dying would be the worst case scenario and it is vital to ensure everyone is performing their duties in the safest ways possible.

“We are one of the oldest cooperatives in Oklahoma, but we have the newest grid. We have built a really good core system,” said Snowden.

“It is amazing what the employees here have done and what they are going to do.”