Back in the early 90s, Mark Snowden and his future wife Karen served as student body president and secretary at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

They answered to a Weatherford finance major named Aaron Roark who served as student body president.

And as of Tuesday, Snowden is answering to Roark again as the former Cimarron Electric Cooperative chief financial officer transitions to his new post as CEO.

“Starting March 1, Aaron is lead officer and I’m the janitor or whatever he wants me to do,” Snowden joked on Monday.

“We’ll see where we are at the end of the month to decide whether I need to stay on or whether Aaron is ready to handle things on his own.”

Snowden announced last month that he was ending his 24-year career at Cimarron to serve as senior vice president of the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation in Dulles, Va.

After accepting his resignation, CEC’s board of directors chose to narrow their search for a replacement on current administrators within the cooperative.

Last Monday, the board interviewed three candidates before offering the position to Roark, who’s served the last two years as CFO at Cimarron.

Snowden originally named May 31 as his last day at Cimarron, but said he may leave as early as the end of the month, depending on how the transition progresses.

“Getting Aaron up to speed is important, but when one of your team members is taking over, it’s a lot easier to transition,” Snowden said.

Small Town Values

Roark was born in Enid and grew up in Weatherford, where he graduated high school before earning his undergraduate degree at SWOSU.

He and wife Kristie, a former special education and kindergarten teacher who now serves as preschool director at Covenant Community Church, married after college graduation.

Roark then earned a master’s in business administration from Oklahoma State University and moved with his family to Tulsa, where he worked for American Airlines in the comptroller’s office for seven years.

“We liked Tulsa, but we really wanted to get back to this part of the state,” Roark said. “When the guy that hired me at American left for Devon in Oklahoma City, I followed him to work in the internal audit department.”

Oilfield Experience

Roark rose through the ranks at Devon “doing a bunch of different things,” ultimately serving as manager of expenditure accounting, where he supervised a department of about 80 people overseeing about $1 billion in accounts payable each month at the peak of activity in the STACK and SCOOP plays.

“Devon was a big operation at that time, with international operations and a big Canadian division” he said.

“I worked with some great people and learned so much there but so much of it was outside of your control.

“We had to worry about fluctuating commodity prices and Wall Street’s perception and how that affected stock prices.”

Then in 2019, Roark’s job became even more stressful when the oil market took a dive and he found himself overseeing massive employee layoffs.

“Devon was at a point where they were shedding employees and I would hear about Aaron’s frustration when our families met for dinner,” Snowden said.

“I woud share how we did it differently at Cimarron. We’re financially stable and here for the longterm, which lets us work in a much less stressful environment.

“I played that card pretty hard.”

“I definitely liked the idea of the stability and the family environment and culture that Mark and his team built up here,” Roark said.

Roark joined that team in December 2019, bringing with him not only his financial acumen, but also his insider’s knowledge of the oil industry and how it operates.

“The oilfield is still a big part of our customer base and Aaron could give us a whole different perspective of what we were working with serving that industry,” Snowden said. “We’ve learned a lot since he’s been here.”

Part of the Family

In the last two years, Roark’s responsibilities at Cimarron have expanded to include human resources, which has given him even more insight into the cooperative’s culture and staff.

“One thing that impressed me is how deep the bench is here,” he said. “So many employees have been here a long time and they’ve shared their knowledge and insight with younger people coming up behind them.

“Everyone is family and even though you get the family bickering that goes along with that but at the end of the day everyone pulls together to get the job done.

“It speaks to the culture here that people don’t see this as a temporary job. They come and stay.”

Over the next weeks, Snowden is focused on introducing Roark to the partnerships outside the cooperative that are essential with its success, starting with its power provider, Western Farmers Electric Cooperative.

They also planned a State Capitol visit to meet with State Rep. Mike Dobrinski and State Sen. Darcy Jech.

“That’s another place where relationship is so important,” Snowden said.

“My goal is to continue building on what the cooperative has already started under Mark’s leadership,” Roark said.

“It’s a great foundation.”