It has been a slow and cautious road to figuring how when and where to travel again as we start to peek our head out of the burrows that we have made during the Pandemic.
For a number of reason, I started off my “on the road” adventures with WCTEL in Abbeville, SC. Home of CEO Jeff Wilson and his amazing team along with leadership at the board level led by Wes McAllister, son of my first NTCA mentor, John McAllister who made the “fresh water coast of South Carolina” famous.
It has been over 30 years since I was last in Abbeville and the work that the folks at WCTEL and the community have made in terms of development has been amazing. Just when I started to get a tad nervous about my 50 some mile ride from the Spartanburg airport hitting close to 90 minutes of winding, beautiful budding countryside, the Abbeville town square came into view. Bakeries, restaurants, local craft stores and my (apparently) haunted Belmont Inn came into view. The other service that was apparent as I drove into town was the rich medical services that are available to the folks in the Abbeville area and Western Carolina. The complex for the Abbeville Area Medical Center was modern, beautiful and vast – from a new hospital (complete with a telemedicine equipped room with multiple cameras to MUSC, all powered by WCTEL of course, who also manages IT for the hospital as well. A large physician center down the road along with both a Covid vaccine center and a Covid testing center complete the comprehensive care better than many large cities. It certainly speaks to their commitment to the health of their community and the pull that good health care can be as folks retire or even think about relocating out of large urban centers. Frankly, their Covid infrastructure puts Arlington County here in the Capital Area region to shame.
The WCTEL crew is working remotely for the most part but some of the executives and others are part of the skeleton team so we spent a few hours comparing notes on all that the coop is up to….which is a lot! From their commitment to fiber infrastructure years ago, to their leveraging that fiber infrastructure to provide WCTEL Fiber to a larger community (and grab up a significant number of customers), to their newly announced partnership with Blue Ridge REC with access to over 60K new customers to their visioning on future state resources with their partnership with a local municipality, they are weighing the threats and opportunities that exist in this space and are all in on the opportunities!
Their Covid response was immediate as they worked with their local school system to set up 26 hot spots for students in 4 days and even worked with the local policy departments to ensure that they knew kids were not loitering in these hot spot zones, but were (hopefully) doing their homework. They used CARES Act support to continue building and have spent the past several months working to reach those previously unconnected. And a cool innovation? Their CSR teams are as close as a video monitor by each door and office for customers coming to their locations for support. I know, I tested it! The future is certainly here and WCTEL used a world class crisis to rethink world class service.
Wes McAllister, President of the board, joined for the tour and discussion and was contagiously passionate about the work that the coop was doing, the competitive edge they have with their wonderful reputation (which was parroted by everyone in the community I met) and by their commitment to the Fresh Water Coast Community Foundation that they work with alongside Clemson University. It was even gratifying to see the place of honor that is set aside for John McAllister in their innovation center. He was a giant in this industry and it’s wonderful to know that his legacy of service to his community lives on.
If I had to start dipping my toe back into the travel waters, this was certainly the way to do it. But I will say that I was surprised how bumping the airports outside of DC were and still found myself happy with my travel baggie filled with masks and gloves and sanitizer for the journey. Better safe than sorry!
