Contact: Lauren Gaydos, 703-351-2015
Arlington, Va., (March 4, 2021)—NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association today recognized nine rural telecommunications industry leaders as winners of the NTCA Excellence Awards.
The Excellence Awards recognize those NTCA members who have shown exceptional commitment to their communities and the rural broadband industry. Winners are selected by the association’s Awards Committee, comprised of NTCA members, and are announced annually at the Rural Telecom Industry Meeting & EXPO (RTIME). The 2020 NTCA Excellence Awards are sponsored by JSI, NECA and Womble Bond Dickinson.
“It is truly an honor to present these awards every year, and recognizing those individuals whose accomplishments have made such an impact on the rural broadband industry is one of my very favorite parts of my job,” said NTCA Chief Executive Officer Shirley Bloomfield, who presented the awards. “I want to congratulate and thank each and every one of our award winners for their contributions to our industry.”
This year, the Director and Manager Life Achievement Awards we renamed to honor James L. Bass, one of NTCA’s first board presidents, and a posthumous award was given to Tim Owens, president of Cronin Communications and the first executive director of the Foundation for Rural Service, the philanthropic arm of NTCA. Bloomfield said, “All of us at NTCA were deeply saddened by the losses of both Jim and Tim last year. It was an honor to be able to recognize their lifelong commitments to the rural telecommunications industry in this year’s Excellence Awards. They will be sorely missed.”
The winners of the 2020 Excellence Awards are:
Community Outreach Award: Gary and Sondra Coy, employees of Pioneer Telephone Cooperative (Kingfisher, Okla.), for their efforts to help a couple in their community with serious medical and mobility issues renovate their home to fit their needs and allow them to stay there.
Outstanding Marketing Achievement Award: Jonathan Babbitt, vice president of marketing at Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) (Palmer, Alaska) for his proactive work to help customers understand streaming services and retain former television subscribers.
Heroism Award: Zachary Swartzmiller, communications services technician at ATMC (Shallotte, N.C.), for rescuing a driver whose car had run off the road and sunk into a creek on his way to work.
Key Employee Excellence Award: Ron Ellis, now-retired director of operations at Nex-Tech (Lenora, Kan.), for going above and beyond during his thirty years at Nex-Tech, achieving ambitious fiber construction goals for the company.
Management Innovation Award: Michael Burke, CEO at Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) (Palmer, Alaska), for his leadership in developing MTA into a modern telecommunications company and his work to support the creation of the FCC’s Alaska Plan.
James L. Bass Director Life Achievement Award: Doug Hawes, director at ATMC (Shallotte, N.C.), for his thirty years of service to the ATMC board and his leadership through unprecedented growth at the cooperative, bringing high speed internet to over 5,000 of its most rural cooperative members.
James L. Bass Manager Life Achievement Award: Paul Schuetzler, CEO and general manager of Consolidated Telecom (Dickinson, N.D.), for helping Consolidated launch one of the first CLEC operations in the upper Midwest and more recently connecting 17,000 customers to fiber.
Associate Member Outstanding Achievement Award: Tim Owens, president of Cronin Communications, for his lifelong commitment to NTCA and the telecommunications industry.
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NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association is the premier association representing nearly 850 independent, community-based telecommunications companies that are leading innovative change in smart rural communities across America. In an era of transformative technological developments, regulatory challenges and marketplace competition, NTCA members are advancing efforts to close the digital divide by delivering robust and high-quality services over future-proof networks. Their commitment to building sustainable networks makes rural communities fertile ground for innovation in economic development, e-commerce, health care, agriculture and education, and it contributes billions of dollars to the U.S. economy each year. Visit us at www.ntca.org.