PGE Retirees Inc. History
PGE Retirees Inc. is a 501 (c) 4 non-profit organization of volunteers and has been active for more than 40 years, providing our membership of approximately 900 PGE retirees with opportunities to Stay Connected, Stay Active and Stay Informed. Up until 2020, the structure of our organization was embedded within PGE Corporate and leveraged PGE resources and systems to achieve our mission. Since then, we have separated our resources and systems and our volunteer Board members have stepped up to play a greater role in learning and using these new resources while we continue to pursue, and even expand, our mission.
PGE Corporate continues to provide financial support that enables the PGE retirees group to function and we remain committed to a healthy and supporting relationship with PGE Corporate that is built on mutual advocacy.
The working world continues to change rapidly, and we are evolving with the times as well. While COVID-19 remains with us, and now perhaps always will, the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Just as many employers, including PGE Corporate, have adopted a hybrid model of in-office and remote work, we too have embraced the opportunities to get together in person again for events such as the holiday party and summer picnic while also continuing to leverage technology for remote Board meetings and some retiree meet-ups. This allows the Board to continue our efforts even with out of state Board members. Further, workforce demographics continue to change with larger proportion of younger, less tenured, members making up the working population including at PGE. Further, today’s workforce is more likely to work at multiple organizations for significant periods of time rather than 25, 30 and 40 years with the same employer. With these changes, and in service to our continued pursuit of mutual advocacy, the PGE Retiree group has begun to offer opportunities for joint PGE employee and retiree events. We expect this to continue to be a focal point in the future.
A New Era in our History
Year 2021 is having a rough start with the peak of the pandemic still in front of us, but hope is growing for a vaccine and a return to greeting each other with hugs and handshakes instead of digital Zoom greetings such as “unmute yourself so I can hear you”. Our retiree organization has high hopes for a better year. With the systems and services built last year, our communications committee of volunteers plans on a busy year:
NEWS: via email (90% of members) at least every two months, and a printed version every four months (USMail for about 10% of members)
WEBSITE: a resource for finding news, networking, activities and advocacy opportunities
FACEBOOK: a closed private group of over 400 current and retireed employees and their families
YOUTUBE: Videos of retirees’ events
EDUCATIONAL WEBINARS: in each quarter of 2021 we will host one or more Zoom webinar sessions on topics of interest to retirees: technology for retirees, changes coming in benefit options, community advocacy opportunities.
ZOOM: our summer and Christmas events will likely utilize Zoom again. We are currently hosting the Maplewood Neighborhood get-togethers, and consider hosting other requests from retirees for Zoom support.
Perhaps Dickens would agree with us regarding 2021 – while we were in a in a “winter of despair”, we were confident and optimistic that “the spring of hope” was assured and will bring us a “season of light” in future years. It’s year 2025, and thanks to a small group of volunteers, this organization certainly seems on the road to “the best of times”.
May happiness and health find their way to your door,
The Volunteers of PGE Retirees Inc.
Judy Francis, one of our volunteers, is researching the history of PGE Retirees Inc. This will be a brief history of the various organizations of PGE retirees (i.e., PGE Pastimers) up to and including PGE Retirees Inc. 2020 If possible, it will include links to articles in archived PGE company newsletters, such as PGE Bullseye. If anyone has any contributions to this page, please contact Judy via PGERetirees@gmail.com.
History of Portland General Electric (PGE Corporate)
There will also be a summary of Portland General Electric history, with links to PGE Corporate, the Oregon Historical Society, and other sources. For example:
https://ohs.org/museum/exhibits/harnessing-the-power-of-photography.cfm
