Central Rural Electric Cooperative’s Director of Energy Services, Cortney Branham, was recently honored as a Co-op Rising Star in Rural Electric Magazine for her work in making better-informed decisions with the use of dashboards, data and analytics.

Since coming to Central in 2013 as a facilities laborer, Branham has risen through the ranks, first becoming an energy services and business development representative and finally her current director job, where she oversees a staff of nine.

“In that role, Branham has led the co-op in our transition to the utilization of dashboards, data and analytics, which has helped us improve processes and make better-informed decisions,” writes Central’s CEO Hunter Robinson.

For Branham, using data to justify business decisions is a “cool process.”

“Data adds so much value to the co-op, for us to be able to have a gut feeling about something and then go look at the data and be able to verify, ‘Yes, that’s what the data’s telling us.’”

Branham taught herself Tableau, an interactive data visualization software, and is skilled enough to teach others. That fluency has been invaluable in diagnosing potential staking and line designs.

Software proficiency also has resulted in quicker installations of new orders and more balanced workloads for staking technicians and other crews.

“I’m here to provide a service or improve the quality of life for co-workers and members and empower them to do whatever they want to do… build a house or start a business. I just love to be able to help.”