Newman Takes Over As Caney Fork Electric Cooperative General Manager

Former Assistant General Manager Ben Newman is taking over as Caney Fork Electric Cooperative’s new General Manager.

Newman replaces Bill Rogers who recently retired. Newman said that his goal is to continue providing affordable electricity reliably.

“We have some things coming up with new developments in technology,” Newman said. “Hopefully our outage management system will become more updated and we can find out about outages faster, even before people call us.”

Newman said he prepared by training directly under Rogers to take over the role. He said that he also has been riding around with linemen, studying old meeting minutes, and going through rate schedules and policies.

Newman said that taking over the role has extra sentimentality because of its connection to his grandfather, who was one of the first managers of the company.

“When I read back through the minutes of the board meetings and it says ‘Mr. Newman gave a presentation on this, or discussed this,’ hearing about that gives me a good feeling inside,” Newman said.

Newman said that he was excited to take the position because it was a way to have a leadership role and represent folks in his community, just as he did during his time as Mayor of McMinnville.