In Episode 3 of FUELED Season 6, Kathryn Fenstermaker sits down with Mike Heinen, Chief Executive Officer of Jeff Davis Electric Cooperative, for a conversation that moves beyond storm restoration to examine what true resilience demands.
Serving one of the most hurricane-prone regions in the country, Heinen has spent decades leading through crisis. After Hurricanes Laura and Delta devastated Southwest Louisiana, JDEC faced a choice: rebuild the system exactly as it had existed or use the disaster as an opportunity to fundamentally redesign it. The cooperative chose the latter.
Heinen shares the remarkable story of working alongside FEMA, GOHSEP, engineers, contractors, neighboring cooperatives, and local leaders to transform recovery into one of Louisiana’s most ambitious grid-hardening initiatives. The discussion explores the realities of restoring electricity across hundreds of miles of rural territory, the importance of mutual aid, and the lessons learned from decades of responding to increasingly severe storms.
The conversation also widens beyond infrastructure. Heinen explains why Southwest Louisiana represents critical national energy infrastructure, supporting pipelines, LNG facilities, refineries, and the movement of natural gas across the country. Reliable electricity has become essential not only for residents but for billions of dollars in industrial investment, making resilience an economic development strategy as much as an engineering challenge.
Throughout the episode, Heinen returns to a simple philosophy: every storm should leave the system stronger than before. Whether discussing elevated substations, hardened transmission, wider rights-of-way, or the new 230-kV transmission loop, his focus remains on building confidence—for members, businesses, and future generations.
At its heart, this episode is about leadership under pressure, learning from experience, and choosing long-term stewardship over short-term recovery.
