As Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s manager of economic development, Nikki Pfannenstiel is determined to see western Kansas, which she’s called home since her college days, grow and prosper.
“A lot of times in rural communities, progress is more and more difficult,” said Pfannenstiel, who grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and is now “rural by choice.”
“To the extent that we can provide some help and assistance, that’s right up my alley. I love it.”
While steadily climbing the ranks at the Hays-based generation and transmission cooperative, Pfannenstiel and her team have brought jobs and capital investment to the region over the past 20 years, while providing training to member distribution co-ops and promoting their communities to site selectors and developers.
“When people think of Kansas, they don’t often think of western Kansas,” said Pfannenstiel. “They think of Kansas City. The state is much broader than that.”
For her efforts, Pfannenstiel recently received a top leadership award from the National Rural Economic Developers Association for continuing “to improve the quality of life, support new job creation and foster growth and development in rural America,” said Dennis Mingyar, NREDA awards chairperson and director of economic development at Ohio’s Rural Electric Cooperatives in Columbus.
Pfannenstiel’s portfolio includes the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Economic Development Loan & Grant program, which has resulted in 36 projects supporting $60 million in capital investment and more than 260 jobs in the G&T’s member co-op territory. Through the REDLG program, revolving loan funds created by four member co-ops are enabling continuous reinvestment in the region.
Outside of REDLG, an additional 39 prospects are also in the pipeline.
In Pfannenstiel’s efforts to raise Kansas co-ops’ profiles, she spearheaded two regional initiatives: SEED (Sunflower Electric Economic Development) Energy to Grow, which promotes the region to developers and site selectors, and Kansas’ first electric-utility-certified-site program.
Located near major transportation hubs, certified site developments are appealing to investors and site selectors because they’ve completed steps that can delay a project, such as surveys, environmental studies, soil analysis, permitting, zoning and infrastructure work. And for the Sunflower sites, the electric infrastructure is identified and, in many cases, ready to go.
“They’re a helpful tool in recruiting and expanding business,” said Alli Conine, director of member services and corporate communications at Wheatland Electric Cooperative in Scott City, where three of the four sites are based.
“Once certified, developers looking for a location know that a site is shovel ready,” Conine said. “That’s a huge advantage for businesses and communities in this highly competitive marketplace.”
Wheatland EC’s service area is home to Scott City Industrial Park, a 97-acre development, Unified Greeley County Site (24.8 acres) and a pre-engineered site for data centers in Caldwell. Victory Electric Cooperative serves the 245-acre certified Dodge City Business Park. And two others are going through the certification process: a 40-acre site in Ulysses served by Pioneer Electric Cooperative and a 100-acre site in Liberal served by Southern Pioneer Electric Company.
“Kansas is all-in on site preparation and community-readiness for new economic development,” said Joshua Jefferson, deputy secretary of business development for the Kansas Department of Commerce . “We are pleased to continue working with our partners at Sunflower Electric to certify and promote opportunities for businesses to invest and succeed in rural Kansas.”
As they work to attract businesses, Pfannenstiel keeps an eye on the long game by educating and training co-ops and their local economic development partners to engage effectively with site selectors and developers.
“There’s no guarantee that you’ll get someone landing on one of our sites, but it’s just another way to grab a site selector’s attention when they come out for a site visit. We work with communities to be ready for that opportunity.”
Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.