About Us
Here to serve you...
Wellsboro Electric Company is an investor-owned electric utility and consequentially falls under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). To date, Wellsboro service area encompasses roughly 200 square miles and has approximately 425 miles of power lines, both overhead and underground. Wellsboro Electric operates a 115,000 volt substation that was upgraded in the Fall of 2020. Consumer density averages 15 customers per mile of line. Wellsboro Electric Company serves approximately 6380 accounts in the Wellsboro Borough and surrounding Townships of Charleston, Delmar and Middlebury.
The customer base breaks down as follows:
Residential……….. 5125
Commercial……… 1244
Industrial…………. 12
We’re members of:
PJM Interconnection L.L.C.
Energy Association of Pennsylvania (EAPA)
Wellsboro Chamber of Commerce
Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce
United States Chamber of Commerce
About Our Management Team
WECO's management team has extensive utility experience
Barney Farnsworth
President & CEO
Mr. Farnsworth came to Wellsboro Electric in July 2018 as the COO and was promoted to President/CEO in January 2020. He started with RG&E in 1988 and has over 23 years in varying levels of management with regulated and unregulated businesses. He started as a lineman and worked into engineering for several years before transitioning to the Energy Control Center and managed the regulated supply. In 1996, he helped form the unregulated supply arm of RG&E and later managed the unregulated Electric and Gas functions for RG&E and NYSEG. In 2008, he managed the Supply, Risk and Pricing areas for unregulated Electric and Natural Gas companies located around the US until coming to Wellsboro.
Mr. Farnsworth pursued his education nights before receiving his BS in Electrical/Mechanical Engineering Technology from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2002 and then received a Masters Degree in Finance and Management from RIT in 2005.
Mr. Farnsworth has extensive knowledge of the PJM, NYISO, ISO-NE, CAISO and ERCOT markets, multiple EDC’s across the Eastern US, Pipelines and State RPS rules to go with his many years on the regulated side of the utilities.
Jill Campbell
Vice President of Finance & Administration
Jill was hired in 2014 as a customer service specialist and later transferred to the Accounting Assistant position before assuming her current role as Vice President of Finance and Administration in 2019. A native of Potter County, Jill holds a bachelor’s degree from Penn State University and a master’s degree in business administration from Keller Graduate School of Management. Jill has several years of accounting experience with local municipalities in the area prior to coming to Wellsboro Electric.
Tyler Mead
Director of Operations
Tyler is a graduate of the utility line training program at Northeast Community College in Nebraska. Tyler has touched several areas of the Operations side of the business starting in 2004 as a second-year apprentice lineman and working through the ranks to Journeyman. He later moved inside as a Field Planner for a few years and then in February 2019, Tyler was promoted to line supervisor/field planner then promoted to Director of Operations in December 2019. Tyler oversees the day-to-day operational needs of Wellsboro Electric along with designing work orders. He manages the line personnel, oversees field planning, the scheduling of construction work and coordinating vehicles and equipment.
- Wellsboro Electric Company has been an electric service provider since 1894
- Office hours are from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Monday through Friday
- Our service area is approximately 200 square miles
- All of our generation is currently purchased from NextEra Energy Marketing, Inc.
- We are a voting member of PJM Interconnection L.L.C.
- We serve approximately 6,380 residential, commercial and industrial customers
- We have 16-full time highly skilled employees
- 8 line/operations support employees
- 8 office/support employees
- All employees are local
- Our emergency response service is available 24/7
- Crews work 24 hours per day during emergencies
- We utilize modern equipment, vehicles and systems such as SCADA, Automatic Meter Reading and GPS Mapping
- We also utilize a state-of-the-art outage management system and customer information system
- We have confidential envelope billing with a return envelope
- We also have the following for your convenience:
- 24-hour payment
- Automatic bill payment program
- Budget Billing payment program
- Energy gift certificates
- Safety is our number one concern
WECo employees oversee day-to-day operations including construction, line maintenance, administrative and clerical obligations. WECO’s management team includes three officers with extensive utility experience. Complimenting WECO’s management team is specialty support from C & T Enterprises – including Information Technology, Key Accounts, Call Center operations, Communications support and Human Resources.
Thomas L. Rudy, (Chairman)
Alfred Calkins, (Vice Chairman)
Charles Bullock, (Secretary)
Dr. James Davis, (Director at Large)
Ronald Gilbert
Erick J. Coolidge
Lowell Geiser
Charles McNamara
Robert Fearnley
The original board consisted of five businessmen from the local community.
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At the time of incorporation, Wellsboro Electric was granted the right to be the sole supplier of electricity to the residents of the Borough of Wellsboro. As the demand for electricity grew, the grant was extended to include Middlebury, Delmar and Charlestown Townships.
Wellsboro Electric generated its own electricity until the early 1960s. Increasing fuel and maintenance costs led WECo to cease generation operations. Since then all power requirements have been filled through wholesale power contracts.
WECo’s Original Building
