RENEW Energy recently partnered with the South Dakota Wind Energy Association (SDWEA) for an open
house event for their facility, featuring a golf tournament and a sporting clay tournament to benefit multiple local organizations.

This industry-wide event that promoted workforce development, wind development, and sustainable
community change, benefitted the Mitchell Technical College (MTC), Lake Area Technical College (LATC),
SDWEA, and South Dakota 4-H.

Altogether, the event raised $20,000 for these local organizations.

“RENEW appreciates our partnership with the South Dakota Wind Energy Association,” said Sarah Kreyer, the Vice President of Human Resources and Marketing for RENEW Energy. “And the reason we partner with them is because we wanted to make this event more of an industry event. In the past, it was called the RENEW Customer Appreciation Event, where we wanted to get people together and ‘thank’ them. It started small; we did an open house and a baseball game. We did some golfing too, but now we’ve evolved to this industry event where hundreds of people come from all over the nation.”

She said that the event brings people from all across the country, and even internationally as well.

The golf tournament took place at the Elmwood Golf Course, while the sporting clay tournament took place at the Hunters Pointe Shooting Complex. Following both tournaments, the awards social and dinner took place on the Elmwood property.

Kreyer said that they had approximately 100 golfers, 50 shooters, and multiple attendees of the baseball game and open house. In total, she said that between 250 and 275 people participated in and/or attended the event.

“The purpose of making it more of an industry event is to get people from the wind sector together to
network,” Kreyer said. “It’s a huge networking opportunity for all attendees. It’s exciting to be told, the
RENEW event is ‘the event’ of the year.”

Expanding the event not only brought more people together, it actually saved on costs as well. Whereas
before, RENEW would cover one hundred percent of the costs associated with this event, now various
companies and organizations could sponsor a hole or a station or a number of golfers or a number of
shooters.

“Through sponsorships from these key customers and vendors, this year we helped raise $20,000 for local
organizations,” Kreyer revealed. “We select the technical colleges from the area to give back to, and we give back to the South Dakota Wind Energy Association as well, so they can continue to promote wind within our state.”

There’s one more beneficiary, however, that RENEW leaves up to a vote. RENEW employees complete a
survey of who they think is the most deserving, and each year that rotates.

“In the past we’ve had Special Olympics, we’ve had ‘Feeding South Dakota,’ we’ve had LifeScape,
she shared. “But this year the organization that was picked was South Dakota 4-H.”

While this was a RENEW event, it also included all of its sister companies as well.

“There was good participation from RENEW, and then we had participation from TP&L, AIRWAY, TAKKION, and some people in the GSS sector as well,” Kreyer stated. “So, all of our sister companies showed great support too and it was really nice to have all of our brands out there. So, from a Takkion company, they’re not only seeing RENEW. RENEW is the host, but all of our sister companies were well recognized, and they helped support the event as well.”

This event was an opportunity to gather, to network, to have some fun, and to raise money for some
incredible organizations. It was a chance for RENEW to really show what they do but, maybe more
importantly, it was a chance for RENEW to really show who they are; as a company, as a brand, and as a
partner.

“The neat thing, what makes this so special is that a lot of the times, the main opportunities that we have to get in front of our customers are at the Clean Power events or at other industry events, but we go there,” she offered. “We meet, we talk conceptual or this, that, and the other, but some of these customers or vendors don’t actually visit our location. So, putting on an event that does have a donation opportunity that goes to a good cause will help prompt people to come to beautiful South Dakota, and they can see our facility. And people are blown away by the magnitude of our remanufacturing facility, our training center, and all the services we offer. It’s a great opportunity for them to see up close and personal what we do day-in and day-out!”