Lindsay Malcolm has stepped down after seven years as chairman but will remain a director of the North Otago power lines company.
Mr Malcolm said his tenure as chairman had been rewarding and challenging and an "exercise in rebuilding."
"We had some difficult moments which have all been overcome."
High points included the re-establishment of the community's confidence in the organisation.
It was now starting to pay reasonable discounts and he firmly believed the "best is still to come".
The board enjoyed a very good relationship with the Waitaki Power Trust, which owns all the shares in Network Waitaki on behalf of consumers, he said.
Mrs Kearney, who was appointed a director in 2005, said it was a dynamic industry to be involved with.
Where the company was today was a tribute to those directors, trustees and management who had built it into a solid community business North Otago could be proud of, she said.
Mrs Kearney, who has an agricultural science degree from Lincoln University, worked as a farm consultant in Gore and then Oamaru.
She and her husband, Kevin, a vet, have a small farm.
She is heavily involved with her four children's activities and stood down as chairwoman of the board of trustees at St Josephs Primary School earlier this year but remains a board member.
Coincidentally, both she and Mr Malcolm went on young farmers' exchanges to Western Australia - Mr Malcolm in 1962, and Mrs Kearney in 1985.
