While time has become an even more valuable commodity with all the moving pieces that are happening in the rural broadband industry these days, highlighted by the critical focus on universal service, it was still important for me to be able to carve out a day to make my way to Sandusky, Mich. (not Ohio!) to spend some time with the Highline (Escanaba, Mich.) team. We gathered last week to celebrate not only the completion of their "fiber to the Thumb" project, as they wrapped up their Rural Digital Opportunity Fund grant, but also to get the chance to help present some Smart Rural Community designations to the Elkland and Elmwood Townships. What a treat!
The day of travel was spent with Tanya Sullivan, owner and president of Plus One Strategic Communications, who helped organize the day and does a great deal of work with Highline and their work with their local communities. We were joined by Will McIntee, senior advisor for rural engagement at the White House. Will has been a wonderful champion of rural broadband efforts and we have been really honored at his engagement in our efforts to create Smart Rural Communities in rural America. It helps immensely to have friends in the right places who also have a passion for rural America and recognize that connectivity is key to building the 21st Century economies in less populated parts of our country.
We were greeted at the Detroit airport by Bruce Moore, president of Highline Midwest, and began our adventure as we drove out of the city and quickly hit farm communities (sadly past the famous Michigan blueberry season). We even managed to drive down a few dirt roads.
Our first stop was to visit with a customer getting a fiber installation, where we were joined by Cam Lanier, chairman of ITC Holding Company. Mr. Richardson, the customer, could not have been more pleased to host the slew of us and share what getting fast, reliable broadband meant to his family, especially his daughter, who is a schoolteacher in the community. He noted that the area didn't have reliable cell service either, so while they may have been a mere 100 miles from Detroit, they were a world away from the ability to connect. While the conversation was engaging, I'm pretty sure that he was most pleased by the fiber being plowed and connected to his home as we stood around in his gravel driveway.
After that, we went onward to a community gathering where we were joined by the broadband office for the state of Michigan as well as the state National Telecommunications and Information Administration representative and elected officials and staff from the local and federal level. In addition to sharing NTCA's perspective on the importance of the work Highline and other NTCA members are doing to bring fiber to their rural communities, it was great to share the excitement over the fact that this company has designated 17 communities in their service territory to be Smart Rural Communities. It was another excellent reason to cheer. As local communities become larger players in the designation of funding, particularly when it comes to BEAD, being designated as a Smart Rural Community means they already know and value the broadband proposition that NTCA members bring to the table. That is a win out of the box!
Then, because no field trip is complete without taking a policymaker into the field and having them splice fiber, Will got his chance in the trailer Highline brought to the event. Noah, the tech, was a wonderful tutor and successful splicing was accomplished on the second try (but certainly with a newly earned appreciation for what our men and women are doing out in the field to connect rural Americans).
After a few hours back on the road and a Detroit Lions win while in the airport, we returned to Washington, D.C., pulling in just before midnight. All in a good day’s work.