You Can’t Spell Dairyland without AI: A Conversation with Dairyland CIO Nate Melby

In this episode of the ACES Power Hour, host Mike Bodnar and Courtney Stooksbury Parker talk with Nate Melby, Dairyland Power Cooperative’s CIO, about Dairyland’s multi-year AI journey.

They discuss building Voltwrite (a private generative AI), use cases from retrieval-augmented generation and agentic applications to augmented reality and workforce tools, plus the critical roles of cybersecurity, data protection, and governance.

Nate shares practical lessons on adoption, training, and how co-ops can responsibly scale AI to improve efficiency and reliability while protecting critical infrastructure.