Nolin Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation is guided by a six-member board compromised of representatives who receive electric service from the cooperative. These representatives are called “Directors.” They are democratically elected to three-year terms by the members of Nolin RECC. Although each one represents a district within the Nolin RECC service area, all six directors are elected to serve the best interests of the entire membership, not just their own district within the cooperative.
The boundaries of each district are based on member service location numbers and may be obtained from the Nolin RECC office or viewed on our service area map. Director qualifications and information on member voting can be found in the Nolin RECC Bylaws. The Nolin RECC board of directors typically meets the second Thursday of every month. Members who wish to attend a meeting must submit a request in writing. Contact your director using the form below.
David P. Brown is employed at Irving Materials, Inc. (IMI) in Elizabethtown and he also works on their family farm near Hodgenville. He and his wife, Michelle, have four daughters and three grandchildren. Mr. Brown began serving on the Nolin board in June 1994 and was elected chair of the board in 2003.
David P. Brown
Chair
District 4 Director
Gene Straney was elected by the members to the Nolin RECC Board of Directors in 1986, and currently serves as vice chair. He owns and operates G & P Construction located in Elizabethtown. Originally from Vine Grove, Gene and his wife, Kay, live in Elizabethtown and have two children and five grandchildren.
Gene Straney
Vice Chair
District 2 Director
Mark was born in Hardin County and is a lifetime resident of Rineyville. The son of Bill and Rosie Cochran, Mark is a third-generation farmer who raises cattle and hogs. Mark and his wife, Judy, along with son Toby, are members of St. Brigid Catholic Church in Vine Grove. Mark was elected to the Nolin board by members in June 2023.
Mark Cochran
District 1 Director
Raymond E. “Rick” Thomas is a lifelong resident of Hardin County. He and his wife, Donna live and farm on St. John Road where they operate a diversified farming operation. Rick was chosen in 2004 as a Nolin Board member. In 2020, he was selected by the Nolin Board to represent Nolin as a Director on the East Kentucky Power Cooperative Board.
Raymond E. “Rick” Thomas
Secretary-Treasurer
District 3 Director
Linda Grimes along with her husband, Coleman, and brother-in-law and his wife, own and operate Grimes Farms in LaRue County. Linda and Coleman have two children. Linda was elected by Nolin members to serve as Director of District 5 in June 2009.
Linda Grimes
District 5 Director
Lawrence Ireland was appointed to the Board in 1987 and elected to the Board by the Nolin members in 1989. Mr. Ireland owns and operates Ireland Heating & Cooling in Radcliff. He and his wife, Mayonia, have four sons, eight grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
Lawrence Ireland
District 6 Director
Around The Co-op
District 3 – Whiskey House of Kentucky
The following is a column written by Joe Arnold, Vice-President of Strategic Communications with Kentucky Living and Kentucky Electric Cooperatives. It appeared in the November 2023 issue of Kentucky Living.
AT FIRST GLANCE, the October announcement of a $350 million distillery in Elizabethtown is just the latest drumbeat in Kentucky’s sustained bourbon boom.
Yet the vision of industry veterans David Mandell, John Hargrove and Daniel Linde signals the beginning of a new era for Kentucky’s signature product. The founders of Whiskey House of Kentucky promise it will be the country’s most technically advanced producer of custom bourbon and American whiskey.
“It will be the largest, it will be the most innovative, it will be the most sophisticated custom whiskey production facility in the country that focuses only on great brands,” Mandell says. “Whiskey House will reshape the contract whiskey market in the United States.”
A contract distiller produces the spirit for other companies, such as big-name distillers who have maxed out on their own production capacity or bourbon brands with a great recipe but no distillery of their own.
With 21st century demand for bourbon continuing to surge, Whiskey House aims not only to help meet that demand, but also to push the envelope on technology and manufacturing processes, even using artificial intelligence to improve quality and efficiency.
“We are implementing state-of-the-art instrumentation across the entire manufacturing and aging process to collect all the data, analyze it and make real-time decisions and provide that for our customers,” Hargrove says, “arming them with the knowledge and the data they need to make great, impactful decisions.”
Slated to open in July 2024 at the T.J. Patterson Elizabethtown Hardin County Industrial Park, Whiskey House is served by Nolin RECC.
“Nolin RECC really went above and beyond with our partnership with them,” Hargrove says. “We owe a lot to them with this project—not just providing electricity, but keeping on timeline and really working together to help build this thing. We couldn’t be more proud of that partnership.”
In a fraternity of Kentucky distillers where relationships run as deep as the limestone aquifer 120 feet below the Whiskey House property, the distillery’s team is committed to promoting a healthy bourbon industry.
“The data that we are developing, we believe, is going to not only be very useful for us and our customers,” Mandell says, “but it’s also information that over time we’ll be able to share with the industry and the community and begin to improve manufacturing processes across the board.”
While Whiskey House is closed to the public to focus on production, it does plan on having a tasting room in Elizabethtown and another elsewhere in the state to showcase its customers’ products.