BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Clay Electric Cooperative’s leader for the last 17 years is retiring, and another co-op lifer is taking over Florida’s largest electric cooperative this month.
Ricky Davis started his career with the Keystone Heights-based utility in September 1973 as a pole inspector trainee. For the next three years, he worked his way up the utility until he decided to pursue an engineering degree at the University of Florida.
In 1984, Davis returned to the co-op and served as chief of operations support, Orange Park district manager, and director of operations before Clay’s board of trustees selected him as general manager and CEO in 2009.
Davis guided the utility through Clay County’s growth, beginning in the 2000s with Fleming Island and Oakleaf Plantation, and now with Lake Asbury and Green Cove Springs. He also shepherded the co-op through the federal government’s policy changes on fuel for generating power, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Hurricane Irma, which was the most severe storm the co-op’s service area endured.
Taking over for Davis is Andy Chaff, a 1984 Bradford High School graduate and 34-year co-op veteran.
Chaff started his career as an engineering technician, was promoted to district engineer, and then to district manager in Orange Park, far and away the co-op’s largest district.
Never talked about college
Davis was raised in Keystone Heights and graduated from Keystone Heights High School in 1973. Before graduation, he applied to Clay Electric along with his brother.
He said that growing up, he knew many co-op employees, which he added probably helped him get the job.
College tuition always seemed out of reach for his family, and the possibility was never discussed at home.
As a line worker, Davis learned to appreciate hard work. Sweat. Heat. The satisfaction of coming home tired, knowing that you worked hard all day.
In the 1970s, there were far fewer bucket trucks and far more pole climbing.
But the co-op also opened other possibilities. Some of his co-workers spent the day indoors, in air conditioning.
He also said that he had always aspired to be an engineer, and working with engineers Lew Chaff and Buddy Packham at the co-op strengthened that desire.
“I resigned from Clay and went to school full‑time,” he said of his decision to get an engineering degree. “During that period, I worked at the Community Church, cleaning buildings and maintaining the grounds.”
Impossible to please everyone
However, even after he earned his engineering degree and returned to the co-op in management, he never lost his appreciation for outdoor labor and the people who do it.
Chaff said Davis’s broad background within the co-op helped him to understand and mediate differences between the utility’s departments.
“He brought a lot of employees together,” Chaff said. “A lot of departments used to be at odds with each other. With him having a diverse background between departments, I think that really kind of helped him understand to see the other side of some of these problems.”
Davis said that one of the realizations he had to struggle with is that, as a manager, and especially as an executive, it was impossible to please everyone.
“But I also learned that if you are honest and you’re consistent, that people will always respect you, even if they don’t agree with you,” he said.
Technology, Round Up, Renovations
Davis guided the co-op through unprecedented technological upgrades.
In 2012, the co-op installed GPS mapping technology.
“We had some challenges with the transition with the mapping system to a second version, and things weren’t going very well,” recalled retiree Frank Holmes. “But I think throughout that process, and we did have a lot of meetings, a lot of discussions. I think he showed a lot of patience and trust that in the end we would get through that.”
In 2019, Davis green-lighted advanced metering infrastructure, a technology that allowed the co-op to remotely monitor members’ power usage and remotely terminate service when necessary.
“We talked about AMI for years before Ricky aptly pulled the trigger to go with the AMI process,” Chaff said. “There was a lot of hesitation. There were a lot of things out there that we were worried about, and as I said then, it did exactly what it was supposed to do, and that was a real relief for Ricky, and it was a relief for us as far as the district as well.”
Davis also pushed through the co-op’s Operation Round Up, a feature that allows members to round up their bills to the next whole dollar, which funds contributions to community groups. So far, the initiative has donated over $8 million to nonprofits in Clay’s service area.
Kathy Barrow, who now serves as the co-op foundation’s vice president, said the idea had been proposed several times but faced opposition from some managers.
“They weren’t in favor of it,” she recalled, “so it was good when it was finally instituted here.”
In 2020, Davis oversaw the most extensive renovation project in co-op history, which included new headquarters, district offices, a data center, a call center, and a print shop.
Davis’s co-workers say that throughout his time at the co-op, he never forgot those first four years, climbing poles in the summer heat. As a result, they said, he is approachable, humble, and compassionate.
Chaff summarized Davis’s impact on the co-op in a retirement video when he said, “You have a good guy making good decisions, and you get in a good place. So, I think that’s how we’ll remember Ricky. He has led Clay Electric into a really good place, and hopefully I can continue down that same path.”
Dad’s friends kept an eye on him
Chaff’s roots with Clay Electric reach back to his father, Lew Chaff.
Lew was an underground utilities supervisor and was responsible for Clay Electric’s role in building the Orange Park Mall in the mid-1970s.
Chaff said he remembers his father talking about the project at the dinner table. The electric utilities at the mall were all underground, and the co-op had never before taken on a job that big and that unique.
When Chaff was in the fifth grade at Starke’s Southside Elementary School, a messenger from the front office told him to report up front. He was being sent home.
“I remember that day like it was yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t really understand why I was leaving. But I could tell just walking on my way to the office, I could see people kind of looking at me in a way that made me think, I’ve got a problem. I thought maybe my granddad had died.”
His mother, Bobbie Faye, picked up the 10-year-old, got him in her car, and broke the news. Lew was dead, killed in a hunting accident earlier that morning.
“I saw him that morning and talked to him before he went to work,” Chaff remembered. “He was standing there shaving. He said, ‘I’m going to go turkey hunting, and I’m going to work after I get through turkey hunting.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ or something. I don’t remember the whole conversation.”
Chaff said the loss of his father at age 10 was overwhelming, but so was the support the family received from Lew’s co-workers.
Chaff added that what he didn’t know as a 10-year-old, but later realized, is that long after the funeral, Lew’s pals at the co-op were keeping an eye on him: Jim Beeler, Buddy Packham, Bill Phillips, Sonny Douglass, Ricky Davis.
Chaff earned a bachelor’s in industrial engineering at the University of North Florida in 1991 and landed a job with JEA soon after.
However, a few days before he was to report to the Jacksonville-based utility, one of Lew’s buddies at the co-op, Jim Beeler, called.
There was an opening for an engineering tech in the Orange Park district. Was he interested?
The role was that of a field engineer who plans connections for new homes.
Holding your own with developers
Chaff’s entire career has been in the Orange Park district, from which he was in on the co-op’s most significant projects: Fleming Island, Oakleaf Plantation, Lake Asbury, and now Governor’s Park, Agricola, and Saratoga Springs surrounding Green Cove Springs.
After serving as Orange Park’s District engineer for a dozen years, he was promoted to district manager, the same post Davis held. There he remained for 15 years until now.
He said one of his biggest challenges has been representing and defending the co-op’s interests against high-powered, assertive developers.
“When you’re young, you don’t have the confidence that you have after performing different jobs for many years,” he said. “I’d say the most difficult thing, especially working in this environment, working with developers and people here in Orange Park…is being able to hold your own, talk to these people in a professional way, and get Clay’s point across. At first, you’re a little intimidated, and you have to grow into it.”
Chaff said that, as he has been shadowing Davis over the past few months, the biggest eye-opener has been the boss’s role on the boards of Seminole Electric and the Florida Electrical Cooperatives Association.
“I was not familiar at all with the people that he dealt with or what our responsibilities were with those boards,” he said. “So, for the past five months, I’ve been going to the board meetings with Ricky, seeing how the boards operate, seeing what our role is with these different boards, and that’s been the biggest learning challenge for me.”
Top priority
Chaff said his top priority will be keeping rates affordable for the co-op’s members.
“Fuel costs drive that, and we are heavily dependent on natural gas right now,” he said. “The war in Ukraine, these types of things, drive up the price of natural gas, and we have zero control over it. I mean, there’s no other way to put it.”
“Coal was pretty reliable and pretty stable, and produced in the United States,” he continued. “But the government has, over the years, pushed us off coal.”
Chaff’s wife, Wendy, is a retired Clay County school teacher, and his two daughters, ShiAnn and Cassidy, now teach in Clay County. ShiAnn has two children.
Son Hunter is a real estate investor who recently got married.
