Noah Futrell believes in self-sufficiency. As a matter of fact, Community Electric’s newly hired RECORE Operations Technician already has made one career of it.
Fresh out of a 12-year enlistment in the Navy (his service officially ends in December), Futrell for several years was Chief Fire Controlman on the recently decommissioned USS San Jacinto – responsible for all aspects of the cruiser’s missile defense systems. He and his team excelled at their responsibilities, as evidenced by their receipt of the Navy’s Close-In Weapon System (CWIS) Excellence Award in 2020 – a top award for superior performance.
The pursuit of excellence – which included Futrell earning qualifications that allowed him to resolve system issues more readily rather than wait on others' authorization – was rooted in the recognition that CWIS is the ship’s last line of defense.
“We knew that if something were to hit the ship, we were doomed,” he says. “Our attitude was ‘We are going to be the best on this ship, because we are the last resort.’”
In this regard, Futrell sees a parallel because his Navy experience and RECORE’s mission helping the co-op’s member-owners and other customers withstand energy emergencies. Noting the growth of CEC’s RECORE subsidiary, Futrell says he looks forward to applying the same skill sets that helped him achieve success in the Navy.
“My biggest attribute was just caring, and understanding the mission of what we were doing,” he says. “I was very interested in these systems; they are very humbling and very complex, but you understand that, if everything goes haywire, this is what gets us home safely.”
Futrell says that, although he did not know a lot about electric cooperatives when he learned of the RECORE opening, he felt a connection during the interview process that he did not experience with other organizations he was considering.
“They just seemed real,” he says of those with whom he interacted at CEC.
Futrell was born in Chesapeake and raised in Southampton County. After a military career that included overseas deployments, he looks forward to having a better work/life balance with his wife Leah and their son Brixton, as well as autonomy in his position and “benefits and a pension that I wasn’t even looking for, and a path of growth for me …. I feel that a lot of my success came from not being selfish and looking out for other people” – the same opportunity he sees with RECORE.