NTCA Members Celebrate Decades of Rural Broadband Advocacy

By Ashley Spinks, Communications Coordinator, NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association

July 25, 2018

NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association kicked off its season of Regional Conferences July 15, 2018, in Hilton Head, S.C., and conferences will continue over the next month. The Regional Conferences are an opportunity for telco employees and leaders to exchange ideas and gain a better understanding of the ever-changing rural broadband business landscape.

Beginning next year, NTCA will replace the Regional Conferences with Summer Symposium meetings—held in Bloomington, Minn. and Savannah, Ga.—that will be open to rural broadband board members, employees and executives from any region of the country.

This year’s Regional Conferences agenda features discussions of change management and strategies for financial success, as well as seminars about advocacy, board evaluations and business plans. These conferences offer networking opportunities and education for rural broadband stakeholders.

On the final day of each Regional Conference, NTCA makes time to recognize members with exceptional accomplishments—including those companies that have hit the “Membership Milestone” of being NTCA members for 25 or 50 years. 

Building a strong and consistently engaged membership is crucial to NTCA’s continued success as an association that serves and advocates for the rural broadband industry. In Hilton Head, NTCA congratulated both Mon-Cre Telephone Cooperative (Ramer, Ala.) and Progressive Rural Telephone Cooperative (Rentz, Ga.) for 50 years of NTCA membership. 

Reflecting on five decades of membership, Mon-Cre General Manager Teresa Rich said, Bringing advanced communications networks to the rural parts of Alabama is no easy task. Small, local companies like us are able to build such networks and serve our customers in part because we have such strong advocates for our efforts on a national level at NTCA.”

Rich emphasized the impact that these rural broadband connections can have at the local level. “In rural Alabama, our members use our network to further their careers, research school projects and export their goods all over the world. We couldn’t have built these networks without the advocacy and leadership NTCA provides.”

NTCA member companies access resources and track rural broadband industry trends over the long term as benefits of their continued membership.

“As our industry changes and our cooperative expands, we rely on the resources, information and conferences NTCA provides to stay up to date on the latest trends, technology and regulatory issues,” Rich concluded.

The full list of NTCA member companies that reached membership milestones this year can be viewed online.