S6 Ep1 SLEMCO CEO and General Manager Katherine Domingue | Powering Louisiana's Future
Season 6 of FUELED opens with Katherine Domingue, CEO and General Manager of SLEMCO, for a conversation about community power, member ownership, and the cooperative model. Serving more than 120,000 meters across Acadiana, SLEMCO is one of Louisiana’s largest electric cooperatives — a not-for-profit utility owned by the members it serves.Domingue traces SLEMCO’s roots to the rural electrification movement of the 1930s, when communities came together to bring power to homes, farms, and businesses that investor-owned utilities were not positioned to serve. Today, that cooperative structure still shapes how SLEMCO operates: dollars are reinvested into the system, capital credits are allocated to members, and decisions are made with the end user in mind.The conversation explores how SLEMCO purchases wholesale power as a distribution cooperative, why affordability and flexibility guide long-term power contracts, and how the organization is preparing for the future through integrated resource planning. Domingue also discusses SLEMCO’s recent power agreement with NextEra, its long-term solar agreement, and the evolving questions surrounding capacity, reliability, and emerging technologies.Throughout the episode, Domingue returns to the human side of power delivery. She shares how trust begins inside the walls of an organization, why clear communication matters when circumstances are difficult, and how SLEMCO’s employees serve members through storms, outages, mutual aid, and everyday operations. From vegetation management and smart meters to flooded marshes, saltwater corrosion, snakes, and bucket trucks, the conversation brings a deeper appreciation to the labor-intensive work behind reliable power.At its heart, this episode is about more than electricity. It is about stewardship, service, and the people who keep communities connected.




