CoServ mourns passing of Bill McGinnis, ‘the best CEO this cooperative has ever had’

CORINTH, Texas – January 9, 2023 – Former CoServ CEO Bill McGinnis passed away Sunday after a courageous battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 77.

CoServ President and CEO Donnie Clary attributed much of CoServ’s current success, including having 400,000 combined electric and gas meters and being one of the fastest-growing co-ops in the country, to Bill’s amazing leadership. If anyone asks Donnie where his passion and dedication to CoServ stems from, he says it came from Bill’s example.

“Bill is by far the best CEO this cooperative has ever had,” Donnie said. “Our culture is absolutely and directly tied to the ethics and integrity that Bill instilled in all of us and demanded from us. Bill walked the walk – he was a living example of our core values.”

CoServ, then known as Denton County Electric Cooperative (DCEC), was a small, struggling co-op with 11,000 meters when Bill took over as CEO in 1980. Some tried to discourage him from taking the job. On his first day he borrowed money from a bank to make payroll.

But Bill was undeterred.

“Bill was a visionary and saw the potential in our service area,” Donnie said. “DCEC successfully competed for new meters and built a reputation for quality service among builders and developers. During the 1980s and 1990s, our success led to many years of double-digit meter growth rates and we were one of the fastest-growing electricity cooperatives in the nation.”

Under Bill’s leadership, DCEC also added a natural gas distribution subsidiary in 1998 and led the transition to a new name, CoServ, in 1999.

Even after Bill retired from CoServ in 2003, he remained a staunch ally of CoServ and he was proud of everything the co-op accomplished.

“It is not often you are blessed to have a boss that you not only respect but love. Bill McGinnis was that kind of leader,” Donnie said. “Though there are no plaques or monuments to honor Bill (and he wouldn’t want all the fuss or attention), his DNA is all over CoServ. Our monument to Bill, our way of honoring his legacy is a living legacy – to continue to execute on our mission of delivering excellent service and living our core values. We honor him by maintaining our commitment to make CoServ a respected leader.”

ABOUT COSERV

Established in 1937 as Denton County Electric Cooperative Inc., CoServ Electric is based in Corinth, Texas and delivers electricity and natural gas to more than 400,000 meters in North Texas.