Power to the people in SA regional areas Cowell Electric managing director Sue Chase has secured the firm's future in SA. ONE of South Australia's most successful regional businesses is to remain in local hands following a buyback by majority shareholder and managing director Sue Chase and other key investors. The buyback of Eyre Peninsula-based Cowell Electric, which specialises in powerline management, construction and maintenance services, comes as the company has secured a multi-million dollar project at the Snowtown wind farm. Ms Chase, along with shareholders Ken Lamb and Cameron Thompson, have bought back a 40 per cent stake in Cowell Electric purchased in 2007 by private equity company Paragon Advisory. Ms Chase, who has been the majority owner of the company since 2001, said the buyback was inspired by a desire to ensure Cowell Electric remains in regional hands for the long term, along with the realisation she wasn't ready to retire. The buyback now brings Ms Chase's stake in the 85-year-old business to 84 per cent. "I was a little concerned that if it was sold to a multi-national it might be absorbed, then taken out of the region," she said. I'm passionate about regional areas and employing people. Employing almost 50 people, Cowell Electric specialises in servicing the mining, oil and gas, and clean energy sectors from its home base in Cowell, along with branches at Olympic Dam and Woomera. The company has worked with Uranium One at the Honeymoon uranium mine, Iluka Resources in Ceduna and western Victoria, and has completed projects in the SA & Qld sections of the Cooper Basin. Annual revenue has grown by 34 per cent over the past six years and Ms Chase is confident the company's proximity to existing and planned resources projects on the peninsula and the state's north sets it up strongly for the future. However, it continues to look for opportunities interstate and elsewhere in South Australia, and is moving to increase its focus on providing maintenance work for new and existing clients. "I think our location certainly puts us in the box seat and the future is good for the Eyre Peninsula," Ms Chase said. (But) if we only relied on what's local, we'd have a bit of a hole in revenue for the next year or two. Cowell Electric's most recent success is a multi-million dollar contract at the state's largest wind farm, Snowtown, where it has been subcontracted by Downer EDI to assist with a 275-kilovolt transmission line. The company will dress and stand more than 90 poles and string the conductor under tension using special-purpose equipment that Cowell Electric recently purchased. "This multi-million dollar contract is the highest voltage powerline project ever undertaken by Cowell Electric," Ms Chase said. We have invested $360,000 to purchase new tension-stringing equipment which we can use on future jobs. It expands our capabilities, enabling us to take on more energy transmission projects of this scope and calibre across regional and remote Australia.