News

Recognizing our summer workforce

Jun 22, 2021

Summer help … GRDA President/CEO Dan Sullivan (standing) visits with GRDA summer employees and interns during a past year’s luncheon at the GRDA Ecosystems and Education Center in Langley. Each year the GRDA summer workforce plays an important supporting role in helping GRDA meet its mission.

Power for Progress… a weekly column from the Grand River Dam Authority.

Each summer, the ranks of the Grand River Dam Authority swell slightly with the arrival of a valuable temporary workforce. These summer employees come from several different backgrounds, bring along several different career goals and spend several weeks doing several different jobs.

However, the members of this seasonal, temporary workforce are an important part of the overall GRDA mission. While they paint, mow, answer phones, make copies, run errands and put their skills and education to work for GRDA in many other ways, they are gaining valuable experience and lending a valuable hand during the busy summer months.

Not only is it a summer paycheck, but it is also a preview of what may be a future career path. While that is important to the students, it is also important to GRDA, which places a high priority on a skilled, diverse and experienced workforce.  After all, our employees are our greatest asset in meeting our mission to be an Oklahoma Agency of Excellence.

Plus, the impact of GRDA’s summer employees also stretches into the surrounding communities. Like the permanent workforce of 500-plus Oklahomans, the seasonal workforce earns important wages that are also circulated throughout the state’s economy, in the communities where they live work and play.

Whether the focus is on the job, the dollars or the work experience, Team GRDA’s summer force is an important component of the GRDA economic engine that facilitates over $450 million in economic activity in our state on an annual basis.

GRDA is Oklahoma’s largest public power utility; fully funded by revenues from electric and water sales instead of taxes. Each day, GRDA strives to be an “Oklahoma agency of excellence” by focusing on the 5 E’s: electricity, economic development, environmental stewardship, employees and efficiency.