About Cherryland Electric Cooperative

What Is a Cooperative?

Cooperatives are businesses, but they’re not in it for the money. Because they are not-for-profits, cooperatives don’t operate to make shareholders richer. When cooperatives make more money than they spend, and when they’re in a good place financially, that extra money (called “margins”) goes right back into members’ pockets. At Cherryland, we try our hardest every year to keep our costs down and to pass those cost savings on to you in the form of lower rates and better margins.

Member Controlled

When you belong to a cooperative, you decide who’s in charge. You choose the board members and directors, so you have a direct impact on what happens. So vote for people who share the same beliefs as you!

Service Oriented

Typical businesses chase after profits like a horse wearing blinders. Since cooperatives aren’t your typical business, they focus their energy on other things, like member service. We pride ourselves on giving our members more personalized attention.

Community Focused

Cooperatives are known for taking care of their communities. Cherryland—with your incredibly generous help—gives back to northern Michigan in many ways, from donations to local nonprofits to scholarships for local high school students.

Our History

In 1938, three Grand Traverse men were on a mission.

President Roosevelt had just promised to bring electricity to farmers and others living in rural areas, and Max Goin, Frank Burkhart and Eino Lehto were committed to making it happen in northern Michigan.

So they spent a year gathering the information they needed, formed a co-op and submitted a loan application to build a substation and 300 miles of line.

The first lines were energized on May 25, 1939, and 60 people in rural Grand Traverse could now refrigerate their food and more efficiently do their farm chores. Cherryland was in business.

Today, Cherryland is in six counties—Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Kalkaska, Wexford and Manistee—and we have 36,000 members. We’re a community cooperative, and we’re dedicated to serving our members now and in the future.

Annual Meeting

Every June, we get together with our fellow co-op members to celebrate the co-op we all love. We believe our Annual Meeting should be as awesome as our co-op, so there’s plenty of food, fun, and entertainment for free!

It’s not all fun and games, however. You will also hear updates about the co-op’s financials, elect directors to represent you on the board, and learn more about the co-op you own.