{"id":207910,"date":"2026-07-16T20:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=207910"},"modified":"2026-07-16T20:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:25:16","slug":"paulding-putnam-names-new-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/07\/16\/paulding-putnam-names-new-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulding Putnam names new CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VW independent staff\/submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAULDING —\u00a0The\u00a0Paulding Putnam\u00a0Board of Trustees has announced that Nick Eltzroth, the cooperative’s current Chief Operating Officer, will become the cooperative\u2019s next President and Chief Executive Officer. Eltzroth will succeed current President and CEO Randy Price, who will retire on January 4, 2027, after leading the cooperative through three years of growth and change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eltzroth’s appointment takes effect January 5, 2027, making him the seventh CEO since the cooperative was founded in 1935 to bring electricity and now high-speed fiber internet to rural communities across northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a press release announcing the appointment, the board conducted a thorough, structured search process, engaging an independent third-party firm to help evaluate candidates and ensure the selection reflected the best possible fit for the cooperative’s members, employees, and long-term strategic direction.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Nick Eltzroth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

“I am very excited to begin this next chapter of Paulding Putnam with Nick as our next CEO,” Board Chairman Adam Schnipke said. “Nick has proven himself a valuable asset to our cooperative, starting out as an engineer, then working into the COO position, and now as our CEO. He lives, breathes, and understands the cooperative model, and brings the enthusiasm, knowledge, expertise, and energy needed for this position as our cooperative is changing rapidly.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outgoing President and CEO Randy Price echoed that confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“One of our greatest virtues is our investment in people,” Price said. “Nick is one of those people that our co-op and the industry have developed to be a leader and advocate for those we serve. Nick and the entire Paulding Putnam team will continue to practice the cooperative values, such as concern for community, and will find innovative ways to lead in the electric and broadband industries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, Eltzroth credited the team around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am incredibly honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as the next CEO of Paulding Putnam,” he said. “I would not be in this position without the talented and dedicated team I have the privilege of working alongside. I look forward to serving our members, employees, and communities with integrity, transparency, and a servant’s heart.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eltzroth has served as Paulding Putnam’s Chief Operating Officer since July, 2023, providing executive leadership across the cooperative’s engineering, operations, broadband, and IT departments. In that role, he has partnered directly with the board on strategy, capital planning, and financial performance, and has led execution of the cooperative’s major initiatives \u2014 most notably its large-scale fiber-to-the-home and smart grid buildout across the service territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Before joining Paulding Putnam, Eltzroth served as Manager of Engineering at Midwest Energy and Communications in Cassopolis, Michigan, where he led engineering, system planning, and smart grid initiatives. He began his career as a System Electrical Engineer at Holmes Wayne Electric Cooperative in Millersburg, Ohio, engineering distribution and substation projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eltzroth is a Licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ohio Northern University and a Master of Business Administration from Ball State University. He recently completed the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s (NRECA) Management Internship Program. He is active in industry leadership through the NRECA Broadband Leadership and Advisory Group and the Accord Telecommunications Collaborative, and was named to the Forty Under 40 lists in South Bend, Indiana (2022) and Fort Wayne, Indiana (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leadership transition comes as the co-op continues its multi-year fiber-to-the-home expansion, one of the largest infrastructure investments in the cooperative’s history. Since the Board of Trustees voted in July 2024 to provide fiber internet, nearly 900 miles of mainline fiber have been built. In total, more than 1,500 miles are planned across the cooperative’s seven-county territory in northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana. The Board and executive team emphasized that the transition in leadership will not slow the pace of construction, member sign-ups, or community outreach already underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulding Putnam is a local, not-for-profit electric and internet cooperative serving nearly 14,000 members across seven counties in northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana (Paulding, Putnam, Defiance, Van Wert, and Allen counties in Ohio, and Adams and Allen counties in Indiana).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VW independent staff\/submitted information PAULDING —\u00a0The\u00a0Paulding Putnam\u00a0Board of Trustees has announced that Nick Eltzroth, the cooperative’s current Chief Operating Officer, will become the cooperative\u2019s next President and Chief Executive Officer. Eltzroth will succeed current President and CEO Randy Price, who will retire on January 4, 2027, after leading the cooperative through three years of growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 16:22:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207910"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207913,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207910\/revisions\/207913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}