The Municipal Electric Power Association of Virginia was founded in 1954 when Tom Noland was employed with the City of Franklin. At that time, he was intrigued by the lack of knowledge and communications among municipal systems, so he met with Ed Temple, then City Manager of Danville, and Kent Mathewson, City Manager of Martinsville, at the Virginia Municipal League in Richmond. From that meeting, Tom Noland wrote a letter to all municipal systems inviting them to meet in Bedford.

In Bedford, those attending agreed to organize and the first constitution and bylaws were drafted. Tom Noland was selected the association’s first president. He became an honorary member in 1956.

For more than 65 years, MEPAV has been committed to its’s mission – meeting the needs of its members by providing information and support to those 16 localities that operate electric utilities. Since the late 1800’s municipal electric utilities in Virginia have served their customer – owners. Protecting these customers and the systems that serve them remains the association’s primary focus.  To achieve this goal, fostering cooperation among Virginia’s municipal electric systems, and the privately – owned and cooperatively – owned utilities that supply most of the energy distributed by them, is of utmost importance to the association.