It really doesn’t matter if you’re a trade association, a start up, an RLEC or a corporation – at the end of the day, your most valuable asset are the staff that you have on board. That is why we think a great deal about what it takes to keep them happy, healthy, productive…and safe. To that end, we just completed our mandatory series of training for our teams – in Arlington, in Asheville, North Carolina and around the country on…
The NTCA and SMC board of directors were in town this week for our big fall meeting where we review year-end activity, review the financial position of the association, approve the 2018 budgets and review strategic plans for the upcoming year. Both boards do a great deal of heavy lifting on behalf of the association and our membership and we certainly could not do our work without their service and support. The NTCA board spent a great deal of time…
Democracy is alive and well in the trade association world and NTCA’s membership just exercised their “right to vote” with elections for three open seats on the NTCA board of directors. This fall will see the departure of long time board member, former NTCA President and NE cooperative director, Jim Dauby. Jim was part of the crew that hired me to return to NTCA 7 years ago and I was grateful to have his friendly and familiar face around the…
Nope…it’s Iowa. However, this is what I saw as I drove the county highways last night between Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Sioux Center, Iowa: Yes, that is correct….black, dark, the white lines on the edge of the highway and few critters that thankfully stayed off the road. Google maps and I had a chat half way through the journey on whether or not she was really sending me to Iowa or North Dakota. But all was well and I…
What a great group and a terrific advocacy adventure! Fifteen very cool, very accomplished women in the rural broadband industry traveled to Washington DC yesterday to interact with and support female policymakers. From Colorado to South Dakota, from Wisconsin to Kentucky – some of our fabulous RLEC leadership traveled in to help me host a few political events and to talk about the need to right-size the universal service fund to support sufficient broadband deployment. We started off the day…
Like most people, I find myself getting caught up in the day-to-day and seldom take time for my own training and growth. However, I broke that cycle for a day on Friday. CEO Update, a leading trade association publication, partnered with Leading Authorities, a national speaker’s bureau to host a session for a relatively small group of CEOs who head up large trade associations. Given all that is going on in the association arena – as well as Washington DC…
Senator Capito from West Virginia may have “been in the dark” in our ballroom today over at the Westin as we—and the Foundation for Rural Service as well as our Smart Rural Community program—hosted a session on telehealth, “Rural Health at a Digital Crossroads: Improving Care With Telehealth” at the conclusion of our TEPS conference. Her remarks were really filled with “the light” of how to elevate the technology and streamline the process to create new opportunities for rural communities….
We kicked off our Telecom Executive Policy Summit here in D.C. today with 130 of our members from across the country coming to our nation’s capital to hear the latest post-election results and as we all ponder next steps with a new Congress and Administration. I had the chance to “interview” Commissioner Clyburn on her priorities for the year ahead as well as her take on the current status of FCC reforms. I found the Commissioner as open as she…
While I don’t have the stomach (yet) to pay the per-ticket price that Hamilton tickets are going for on New York’s Broadway, I thoroughly enjoyed Ron Chernow’s biography that he had written a few years about one of our key founding fathers, upon which this hit show was based. In the spirit of often finding parallels in history, I was really struck by listening to some of the wonderful lyrics of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s in the rap musical and how applicable…
Maybe it was hitting this stage of my life, of my career, of having young professional children of my own, or maybe it is the pace of the communications industry and our need as a trade association to think about how we help our members stay one step ahead. Maybe it was finding an impressive leadership trainer in interfacing with Meridith Powell during last year’s NTCA Regional Conferences. Whatever the reason, NTCA and our SMC operation have embarked on a…
