Jim Stewart, general manager at Marshall DeKalb EC, Boaz, AL, retired May 16, closing the book on a 43-year career in the electric-utility industry.
Stewart, who’d been the cooperative’s chief executive since 1988, was succeeded by Scott Bobo, himself a veteran of 18 years at Marshall-DeKalb EC.
Stewart’s father, Everett, was the cooperative’s operations superintendent for nearly 40 years. After graduating from Auburn University in 1965 and serving six years in the U.S. Air Force, the younger Stewart started at Marshall-Dekalb EC in 1973.
After a decade at Marshall-DeKalb EC, Stewart left to become general manager at Albertville, AL, MUB. Five years later, he returned to the cooperative as general manager. Stewart is a past chairman of the Alabama Rural Electric Association and the North Alabama Public Power Association, a former member of the TVPPA Board of Directors and a retired colonel in the Air National Guard.
A graduate of the University of West Alabama, Bobo signed on in 1999 as Marshall DeKalb EC’s manager of loss control and communications. The Crossville, AL, native had served as Stewart’s assistant general manager for the past four years.