Summer travel is in full swing, even as more "Back to School" ads are popping up on television, and my calendar has included a number of statewide and industry meetings, including NTCA's own. This, of course, means it’s a different hotel for me every week—which is only challenging at 3 a.m. when I am trying to find the bathroom and cannot remember which side of the room I need to navigate carefully.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend time and share thoughts with my friends in the state fiber network community with INDATEL in a hot and steamy Kansas City. INDATEL is the largest national rural fiber network in the country, with 400,000 miles of fiber under its umbrella, serving over 900 rural exchange carriers and dedicated to providing best-in-class transport connectivity via fiber across the country. Its rural markets make INDATEL unique as it taps NTCA member networks to help connect rural America to the rest of the enterprise community. I have long been a fan of finding ways to achieve scope and scale, and the way that many states have seen their NTCA community-based providers aggregating their fiber assets for their state networks and then, in turn, rolling those up under the INDATEL umbrella gives me great hope for additional ways local ISPs can monetize their fiber networks and bring more connectivity and economic activity to rural communities. Justin Forte has been the "new" CEO for a year, and he's already off to a running start. His vision for where INDATEL can go has inspired me to continue our work to support the company’s efforts. Why shouldn't government agencies like USDA utilize the very network assets that they have supported building through their RUS program? That’s a win-win in my book!
The following week saw NTCA in Hilton Head, South Carolina, for our Summer Symposium. This was our first year combining what had once been five regional meetings across the country, then two Summer Symposiums, into one national meeting with a focus on leadership, industry and governance training for the director core of NTCA's membership. The fact that we were at another hot location ensured that folks stayed in the meeting rooms, and every session was filled with directors from all across the nation comparing notes on best practices from their own boardrooms and sharing their vision for their companies in the years ahead. A few things from that meeting really stood out to me, including a special session we hosted with the president of Industry Insights, the firm NTCA works with to produce our gold standard Compensation and Benefits report on an annual basis. Key metrics and information were shared with the volunteer leadership to better support their understanding of the compensation trends we are seeing in CEO positions across the country, with an eye toward encouraging attendees to worry less about overpaying their executives and focus more on ensuring that they are not underpaid. This is important given that these days it's more expensive to replace your solid talent. My favorite discussion is always the Director Town Hall, where we cover a wide range of topics—whatever is on anyone's mind. This year, I particularly loved the director posing the question to his peers on "what's next" after completely building out fiber to his company’s entire service area. What services were others looking at or implementing, and how were they assessing community needs? That prompted an engaging discussion.
Then a quick personal trip was in order to celebrate my dad's 90th birthday in Evanston, Illinois. We hosted the party at his senior community, and I always love raising a toast to that man with both of my daughters and husband at my side. Family is everything.
As I wrap up, I am in Texas at the Texas Telecom Association's TXConnect Membership Summit. I appreciated TTA President (and NTCA board member) Jennifer Prather's invitation to join the group to share some thoughts on "Empowering Local Broadband Providers," covering what is happening in Washington, D.C., and how to support and develop strategies to lead the rural renaissance. It has been wonderful spending time with NTCA members here in Austin, and I have loved the opportunity to see so many of our community-based providers in one room—because everything is bigger in Texas!
And next week? I’m off to West Virginia to join our R&S/Savings Trustees for their August meeting, as these servant leaders ensure that participating members in our industry have access to assets in one of the country's top 500 retirement plans through the NTCA benefits program.