Behind the Board: A Conversation with Charlie Dunbar

Each month, the Beacon introduces one member of BEK Communications Cooperative’s Board of Directors, the people your neighbors elected to guide the cooperative you own. This month, meet Charlie Dunbar, who represents District V-West.

Charlie grew up in Dickinson, but living in town never kept him far from the farm. He spent much of his childhood with great uncles and cousins on their nearby properties.

As a teenager, he met a local girl named Lynette, who grew up on a farm south of South Heart. Charlie joined the Navy out of high school and married Lynette in 1989. Just two days after their wedding, he left to serve overseas for three and a half years. Upon returning, Charlie worked alongside her dad on the farm. Today, Charlie and Lynette live just a mile outside of Baldwin on 40 acres, where they keep a small herd of cattle and a flock of chickens, a hobby farm of their own that keeps them close to the life they built together.

Charlie works as Chief Information Officer for Innovative Energy Alliance Cooperative, part of the management team serving four electric cooperatives. Charlie says he’s often out with feet on the ground and hands in the trenches, helping cooperatives with wiring and equipment setup, working in substations to hook up meter-reading equipment, and troubleshooting the specialized electronics that come with his background in the field.

Charlie and Lynette have been married for 37 years and have two adult children. Their daughter lives in Bismarck, and their son lives on Lynette’s family property, where he farms in partnership with his dad and owns his own diesel mechanic mobile company.

Charlie says his background in technology gives him a clear sense of what fiber internet means for the communities BEK serves: connecting people to education, information, and opportunity right at their fingertips, wherever they live. Serving on the Board also has given him a better understanding of communications infrastructure and how information travels from substations back to the office, helping him stay on top of emerging technology in both roles. But beyond the technical side, Charlie is driven by a deep passion for the cooperative model itself, what it means to be a co-op, and how much that structure matters for the consumers and members it serves.

Charlie was elected to the board in 2024. He encourages members to start becoming engaged in the cooperative by understanding the real value it brings to their everyday lives through the products and services it provides. “I recommend taking some time to learn how the cooperative operates and the story of how it began,” he says. “I believe it’s important to keep the next generation informed and continue to educate members, especially younger ones, on the products BEK offers and the reasons behind them.”