Briggs retires after more than 17 years leading Steele-Waseca Electric

When Syd Briggs retires on June 30, he will have spent 17-1/2 years as the general manager of Steele Waseca Cooperative Electric (SWCE) in Owatonna. The company is a member-owned electric utility cooperative serving the surrounding area and providing electricity and energy management programs to its members.

It provides electric service to rural areas in Steele, Waseca and Rice counties as well as portions of several others.

Briggs said he is originally from Texas, growing up in Del Rio. His retirement from Steele-Waseca, he said, is almost 35 years to the day from July 1, 1991, when he started work at the Rio Grande Electric Cooperative in Brackettville, Texas. Besides Texas, Briggs said he also worked at Southwest Arkansas Electric.

His path to Owatonna from Texas and Arkansas was really quite simple, he said. “My daughter married a guy from Minnesota,” he said, and then his son had a job opportunity in the state. And since he had grandchildren in the state it just made sense.

He said he has grown to love Minnesota and plans to stay in Owatonna after he retires. He loves having four seasons, he said, and can put up with the cold because the “summers are amazing.”

In his last column as general manager in the company newsletter for customers, he even admitted that he had the opportunity to try lutefisk for the first time after he arrived here and “believe it or not, I became a fan. It needed a lot of butter, salt and pepper, but I began to look forward to lutefisk suppers at the end of each year.”

He has seen numerous changes over the years, he said, as the need for electricity has increased.

Steele-Waseca, he said, gets its electricity from Great River Energy. When he came to Owatonna, he said, almost 90% of that electricity was generated from coal and gas. Today, he said, the numbers have changed from 90% coal and gas to 50% renewables. Great River, he said, has sold its coal plant and he said he expects they will be 100% carbon free by the mid-2030s. “That’s a big change,” he said.

Coal can be more reliable, he said, but it is good to be moving away from it and reducing the carbon emissions.

Whether the electricity is sourced from coal or renewables, the electricity produced all goes to the electric grid and is directed to where it is needed.

Briggs said he sees a future where most of the members will be buying electric vehicles. Already everyone is using more electricity than in the past and data centers will play a big role in future demand.

Great River and its partners such as Steele-Waseca have plans dealing with an increase in data centers. 

If a data center uses more energy than Great River can supply, he said, they will make the decision that the center has to have their own service to generate electricity.

“We have provisions so no one can make our bills (to customers) go up,” he said.

Data centers are needed, he added, even by the electric company. Steele-Waseca has equipment where meters call in when an area is out of power, for example.

Weather predictions come from data centers and use AI, he said.

AI and data centers are now just a part of life.

Great River, he said, is pro-active and has already been making plans to meet the new demands for electricity.

Steele-Waseca has been considering a consolidation with neighboring Goodhue County Cooperative Electric Association. With Brygg’s retirement, SWCE will being sharing Goodhue General Manager Kelly Hovel starting July 1. Hovel has 18 years of experience at Goodhue and has already been taking part in meetings and activities at Steele-Waseca.