BANDERA, Texas — Sept. 17, 2026 — Bandera Electric Cooperative (BEC) has appointed W.C. “Kip” Gary to its board of directors, representing District 2, which covers the city of Bandera and the Highway 173 corridor toward Medina County, including the west side of Medina Lake. Mr. Gary succeeds Fran Laue, who retired in April after 10 years on the board.
Mr. Gary brings more than 45 years of engineering, business and executive leadership experience to the seven-county cooperative. He spent 36 years with ExxonMobil, retiring in 2019, and later served as president and CEO of Brock Group, a North America wide industrial services company, before retiring in 2024. Kip and his wife, Shelly, have owned property in District 2 since 2009, have been BEC members since 2012, and have lived full-time at their home overlooking Medina Lake since 2019.
“We are excited to welcome Kip Gary to the Bandera Electric Cooperative Board of Directors,” said BEC Board Chairman Chris Blakemore. “Kip’s depth of leadership experience, engineering expertise and proven ability to lead complex organizations will bring tremendous value to our Board and to the members we serve. We also thank Fran Laue for a decade of service to District 2. She gave her time and her judgment to this cooperative through a period of real growth, and our members are better for it.”
Kip applied for the seat after BEC notified District 2 members of the vacancy. Under the cooperative’s bylaws, a director appointed to fill a vacant seat serves until the next annual meeting. Kip’s interim term ends at BEC’s annual meeting on Oct. 17, 2026, where he will appear on the ballot as the only certified candidate for a full three-year term.
Kip earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University in 1982 and an MBA in finance from the University of Houston. He began his career at Exxon as a radio telecommunications engineer, working in oil fields from South Texas to Alaska, and later served as an executive with ExxonMobil Development Company, where he helped lead the development of large-scale oil and gas facilities around the world.
Kip also serves on the FIRST Robotics Executive Advisory Board and the Texas A&M Electrical & Computer Engineering Advisory & Development Council, and he provides teaching and business advisory and consulting services as President of Summit Oak Cliff LLC.
Kip and Shelly have two adult children and one grandchild. Outside of work, Kip enjoys traveling, tending a small orchard, beekeeping, woodworking and spending time with family on area lakes.
A high-resolution photo of Kip is available on request.
About Bandera Electric Cooperative
Established in 1938, BEC is a member-owned cooperative dedicated to providing exceptional service to its members. Serving more than 30,000 members across a seven-county territory in the Texas Hill Country, BEC provides electric service, fiber-optic broadband and energy efficiency programs designed to support the evolving needs of rural communities.