Reset & Ready

Lindsay Forepaugh Leads Wasco Electric Cooperative as New General Manager

By Drew Myron

Lindsay Forepaugh jokes that she “fell off a ranch” and into The Dalles, but that’s only part of the story for Wasco Electric Cooperative’s new general manager.

With a head for numbers, a mind for strategy, and a heart for family, Lindsay’s career has taken her across the nation, from oil fields to a bison ranch and electric cooperatives.

Now, experiencing a personal and professional reset, she’s thrilled to be back in her home state.

“I’m finding a balance in my life and my work, and I want that for everyone,” she says. “I’ve worked in the big companies. The title is not important to me. The people, the relationships—that’s what’s important.”

Lindsay fills the role vacated by Ned Ratterman, who served 2 years as general manager.

WEC’s top role requires a broad understanding of the utility industry, combined with the ability to understand the details of the day-to-day operations of an electric utility with 18 employees. The co-op serves 4,600 accounts across 5,000 square miles stretching across Wasco, Sherman, Jefferson, Gilliam, and Wheeler counties.

Lindsay is the second woman to serve as general manager in WEC’s 84 years of operation. Its first was Cathy Wilson, who served as general manager for Wasco Electric from 1998 to 2008 and was also the first female to lead any Oregon rural electric cooperative.

90 of the nation’s 896 rural electric cooperatives—or roughly 10%—are managed by women, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

Lindsay earned a doctorate in business administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia; a master’s in business from the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico; and a bachelor’s from Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts.

Her early work is rooted in the oil and gas industry, where she served in a range of roles, from accounting to internal auditor and supply chain manager. During this time, she traveled extensively, touring nearly every oil field in the nation.

Looking for less travel and more time with family, Lindsay welcomed the opportunity to apply her skills to rural electric cooperatives. She worked as chief financial officer for High West Energy in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, for more than 6 years, then served as chief relations officer for Delta-Montrose Electric Association in Montrose, Colorado.

In these roles, she juggled a range of responsibilities, including high-level strategic planning, collective bargaining agreements, human resources, communications and customer relations for electric cooperatives with more than 100 employees.

A native Oregonian, Lindsay grew up on a small farm along the Umpqua River in southwestern Oregon. Raised by a single mother with limited means, Lindsay was eager to explore the world. She jumped at the chance to attend college on the other side of the country.

Following graduation, she returned to Oregon, fell in love and followed her future husband, Rick, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The 2 married, then moved to Midland, Texas, for Rick to pursue a job opportunity in newspaper circulation. Lindsay secured work for an oil and gas firm conducting well testing.

In 2014, Lindsay and Rick were offered the chance to take over his parents’ bison business in Kimball, Nebraska. Together, they ran Rocky Hollow Buffalo Co., a 3,000-acre working ranch teeming with American bison. The ranch is situated near the Wyoming and Colorado borders.

During their tenure, the couple grew the herd from 45 to nearly 200. The ranch was a “feed-it-to-eat-it” operation, jokes Lindsay, as well as an agritourism experience for visitors. The couple sold animals for starter herds and sold the meat, too.

Ranch work was hard and physical but also rewarding.

“It was incredibly amazing,” Lindsay says. “But it became a really expensive hobby.”

In 2022, Lindsay experienced a profound reset. She and Rick were working the physically demanding bison operation, and she was immersed in the completion of her doctorate in business administration. Life was busy and full.

Then her sister, Whitney, was diagnosed with cancer. When Whitney died in 2023, her teenage son went to live with Lindsay’s aging parents in Eugene, Oregon.

With these changes, Lindsay says her world suddenly shrank and the message was clear: It was time to sell the ranch, pack the house, and come home.

“I reevaluated my life and knew that we really needed to come back to the Pacific Northwest,” she says. “You only have so much family. I wanted to support my parents and my nephew and be near family. Now, I’m only 4 hours away.”

Lindsay is happy to be back in Oregon, in a rich and varied landscape of canyons, rivers, hillsides and trees.

“I’m finding and embracing the positive every day,” she says. “How we spend our lives is a choice, and where we spend most of our day—at work—is also a choice.”