Flint Energies' website (www.flintenergies.com), developed and hosted by Atlanta-based Apogee Interactive Inc., was recently named among the top five electric cooperatives in the nation for website usage in Touchstone Energy Cooperative's 2007 National Survey on the Cooperative Difference.

Touchstone Energy shows Flint Energies as having the second-highest website usage among its online members, with 75 percent of Flint's 80,000 members having Internet access and, of those, 51 percent having visited Flint's website. Clark County REMC in Indiana came in first with 54 percent of its members with Internet access having visited Clark's website.

Touchstone Energy's report, "Best Practices: Attracting Web Visitors," covers an in-depth study of electric cooperatives across the nation. It is part of a knowledgebase available exclusively to Touchstone Energy members on www.touchstoneenergy.coop for the purposes of improving member satisfaction. Four of the top five cooperatives recognized in the Touchstone Energy study are Apogee clients.

An early adopter of the Internet, Flint was one of the first electric cooperatives to have a website in the 90s and bring online bill payment to its members by 2001. Apogee Interactive first designed and developed Flint's website in 1998 and has continued to host and enhance the site annually, with a full redesign launched earlier this summer.

"Clear communication with our members is essential," said Jimmy Autry, senior vice president of Flint Energies. "We want to provide our customers with as many service options as possible and as many energy efficiency tools as possible to help them maximize their energy dollars. Our website helps us do this quickly and cost effectively."

Featuring a clean, crisp look with easy navigation and an array of interactive tools and content, Flint's site offers Apogee's full suite of energy efficiency tools for homes and businesses including energy analysis calculators, an Interactive Energy House, energy reference library, Kids Korner for interactive energy education plus a Community Calendar and Classified Ad section. In addition, the website has a near real-time storm center showing any current power outages and the status of power restoration efforts.

Flint's website recently earned another award, this time from the national Cooperatives Communicators Association, in which it competed against a wide variety of large cooperatives such as Land O' Lakes, Ocean Spray and Tillamook Cheese.

"We're pleased to be the engine under the hood of Flint's website and we value our longstanding partnership with them," said Susan Gilbert, president and chief executive officer of Apogee. "Apogee's Web tools perform accurate energy analysis and provide targeted recommendations that can help consumers become better energy stewards," she added.