00:00
Hi, and welcome to Power the Network. I'm your host, Tim Locker, Vice President of Broadband here at CBM. We've got a returning guest this week, Mr. Jason Johns, Vice President of Network Development at Gateway Fiber. He was one of our early guests a couple years back. Looking forward to having him back in and seeing what's changed and what's not. So let's get into our conversation.
00:27
Jason, thanks so much for coming in again today. It's great to have you back in the studio with us. So it's been a couple of years since you were last on. So first time in the new studio. Yeah, you guys moved on me. Yeah. I like it. A little closer for you this morning. was a lot closer for me. Appreciate that. Yeah. know, lot's changed in the last couple of years. uh New title, a couple of mergers, uh new corporate headquarters in O'Fallon. You know, what's your day look like?
00:56
today versus a couple years ago? You know, it's kind of funny. was trying to think back when I was here, back in 24, I believe, we had just launched Minnesota from Gateway, uh our first market out of St. Louis. It's been a wild ride. can't believe it's only been two years. Seems like, like he said, lot has changed. We've merged with a sister company out of Kansas, so we're operating in Kansas now. We've launched North Dakota. We've launched uh
01:26
Massachusetts since then. uh So it's been fun. It's a whole different ball game today versus then. Problems have changed and gotten a little bit more unique for us, but it's been good. Like what kind of changes are you seeing? What kind of issues? Well, the biggest one, really, I think over the last, we've had two big changes from an industry perspective. We've got some supply chain issues going on right now.
01:55
Not only with some of our fiber and probably tied to some of the data center stuff. And then with the global situation in oil, we've seen a lot of price pressure on our condiments and different things like that. And that's always kind of a moving target. You never know politically what's going on or what's... It's a guessing game, right? The price of gas has always been just up and down.
02:22
So it's a guess. We had that conversation earlier this year when we were doing our own budgets, just in terms of fuel for everybody that's on the road. We don't know if it's going to be $2 or $5. So it's kind of hard to... How do you work around that when the cost of duct is 25 cents a foot and then it doubles to 50 or 60? How does that affect, does that affect how much you can build?
02:51
You know, how do you how do you work around those challenges? Yeah, I mean you got to bake that into your budget as it changes I think the biggest thing for us on that, you know on the conduit and fiber is like storage like you can you can decide to you know Hey, you're gonna you're gonna purchase, know, two million feet of conduit. Yeah, but then where you can put it Yeah, when you know, got you know truckloads of conduit and so we're working through those logistics Yeah, so then you just have a different cost in
03:18
yard space and storage versus- And another ship. You got a ship somewhere else. so there's, there's all, it's, it's, it's a puzzle piece, you know? It's fun putting it together. It's a challenge though. So, uh you know, two years ago, you guys were in a major growth phase. uh My assumption is that's still the case. ah Would you say looking back two years, are you on track? Are you doing better uh compared to what you were, you know, what your goals were?
03:46
Well, I think if you go back two years, we would be on track or maybe even ahead of where we wanted to be two years ago, but those goalposts move. And so now, we've accelerated our plan and where we want to be and where we're going. So, know, the industry's changed too. mean, I would say that it used to be like a, if I used a couple different analogies, I would say like it used to be, you know, like the gold rush. Everyone's trying to stake their claim to their market, to their area.
04:12
competitions change. Now I feel like I was thinking about this this morning. I feel like it's, you know, remember the movie The Gangs of New York? There's a scene where the firefighters come to put out a uh house fire. And then another volunteer group comes in. And then they just start fighting with each other. And that's kind of what the competition's like right now. mean, everything's going crazy. And so, you know, we're trying to find our way in that piece of it, So you think the competition's gotten uh tougher?
04:41
Yeah, it's accelerated. Just like, you know, I said that, you our goals have changed from two years ago. So has everyone else's, you know, and so, you know, the acceleration of that. it more difficult to find target areas then because of that? Or are you doing some of those anyway and just trying to do better than the competitors? What's the strategy? Everyone, for the most part, everyone's strategy is fiber first. So you want to be the first fiber into any area. I think it's, I think you're having to mine more.
05:12
When we went to Minnesota in late 23, there was a whole metro that was open. All of Minnesota was open from a fiber first perspective. You're not having those anymore. You're really having to mine different pockets and be very strategic on where you go. So how do you manage that in say a big metro area where,
05:40
A couple years ago, you could get all of it, but now you can get maybe just a quarter of it. Is it still worth the effort and the expense to do it, or how do you make those decisions differently now with the goalpost moving? think what looks good still is right. mean, we look at it from, again, the competition, the density, the demos.
06:06
where we think we can get uptake. those decisions are still all the same. You just have to be dynamic and uh agile to get there, right? mean, and then you have to, we're always monitoring the environment around us because it starts closing in on you. So before, uh you'd mentioned that uh the goal was number of passings. Still the same goal?
06:36
That's one of the goals. Yeah. mean, a number of passing and then there's got to be good passing, right? Yeah. I mean, we got to build economically and then we have to build where we can get a customer because at the end of the day, it's about the customer. uh So are you seeing more projects with less density to get to those targets than if the areas are tougher to find? Is that how you get to the number? Yeah. Yeah. I think that...
07:05
I think that's right. mean, you know, there's still plenty out there. I don't want to paint a different picture, but I mean, you we have a group that's very uh dedicated into finding these passing for us. We got a new markets team and they bring everything forward for evaluation. uh And then we just got to, we got to be able to make our decisions and execute on them. So what does that group do uh in terms of, you know, public relations with
07:35
cities or counties and those types of entities involved on the front end? they going to city council meetings and different places like that to get the insight on these opportunities or how does that look? Yeah, that's a great question. And our team is, we kind of take a collaborative approach to that, but our new markets team is the front end. They knock on the door first and introduce gateway and
08:05
tell them our value prop. And then it gets kind of handed off to my team and our construction and engineering teams, where they can go in and expand on that and tell them how we operate, where we would like to operate, and understand their permitting requirements and pace that we're going to be allowed to build. And so we can figure out exactly how that plays out for us. But yeah, our new markets team, not only from a density and a competition perspective, but they're that government affairs piece of it that really
08:34
that really shine for us and open those doors. And you mentioned permits. What kind of like in the weeds detail on permitting do you see and what kind of changes from entity to entity from different cities or counties or whatever? What are some of the ins and outs on those permits? Yeah, the permit piece of is probably the biggest gator, gating factor as far as how much we can build, what the cities are going to uh release from us.
09:03
You know, when you, you know, and they're getting more uh sophisticated as well. I mean, with all the different competitions and build, it's a big strain on the city. You know, you got to, you might have a city, let's just say 15,000 homes, you know, and they got to support this brand new project that they had never heard of before. You know, not only from an engineering perspective, but out in the field from a construction perspective. And so, we really partner with those cities to educate them, help them understand, you know, what we are.
09:32
and how we do it. But at the end of the day, you know, we can only build as fast as they're going to submit permits, know, so that's going to, whatever they release is going to be our, what we need to bring in from a construction perspective to support that. you know, the city permits for the most part, we get into really good cadence with them. You know, if they're going to let us do, you know, two neighborhoods.
09:59
neighborhood being about 200 homes, 250 homes, then we can scale accordingly. To your point on some of the other permits, like your major DOT permits or your railroad permits, those things have a lot longer life cycle. so if we're having to cross a railroad this year, we better have already applied for it six, eight, nine months ago. you know. Which all those can be within the same project. So you've got to be way forward thinking in terms of
10:29
submitting those permits to get the project all come together? Oh yeah, we're doing projects right now. you know, uh engineering, we're submitting uh some railroad permits and some Army Corps engineer permits. Like day one, like that's the first thing. Just get the civil done on these crossings and get them in and we'll figure out the rest later. Where we're going. We just know we're crossing here. Yeah, regardless it's going to be here because there's no, I'm sure if you
10:57
If we can build around it, we build around it. If you submit a change, it's starting over. Yeah, wherever you permit, you build it on those bigger ones. Yeah, okay. Well, that makes sense. There's been a lot of conversation, obviously, as the BED program is finally starting to get some funding behind it. Are you guys doing anything with BED, or is this just all private equity funded, or what does that look like in...
11:28
Talk a little bit about your strategy there. we have a uh philosophy that if we applied for BEDE in uh three of our operating uh states, we were uh awarded a couple of projects in uh Missouri in the St. Louis market that we turned back in because the way the program worked, we needed more given to us to make it economical for us.
11:57
They kind of don't hold us a little bit on what they awarded us. so our philosophy is we're always uh looking for those grant opportunities to be able to serve those customers that are uh edge-out markets of ours where we can grow out to them. And we've done it in the past. We've gotten ARP awards in the past and NTIA awards in the past in the St. Louis market and in Kansas as well. But they've got to be the right opportunity for Gateway. em
12:26
So we have a team that's looking at those. We're evaluating some stuff. Kansas has come up with another grant program that's open right now that we're evaluating. And if we can make some things work and be able to serve those customers, we'll do it. Yeah. What's your take on, you know, originally it was all, you know, fiber first movement. Then they kind of restructured that and kind of opened up to, you know, any technology. What's your thoughts there? Are you still all fiber first or are you doing any?
12:54
Any wireless deployment at all or what's that look like? We're not doing any. So we have a wireless network out in Kansas, part of our merger. And we have uh a lot of customer base there that we're serving and really proud of. But we're not expanding that right now. um everything from a bead perspective or grant perspective is still would be fiber for us. Others have different uh operating models that they can be successful at. Now, as far as like the program change, mean,
13:24
That was just, I think, trying to do a better job, hopefully managing that money. Some of the stuff that even from a fiber perspective that was coming out, think there was some stuff out in, I think it was Nevada. And it was crazy numbers like $20,000 a passing to get to some of these areas. And as a taxpayer, I'm like, well, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But from a network perspective, getting fiber out there for the customers.
13:52
in 10 years or 20 years, mean, I don't know where the satellites are going versus fiber, but having glass is probably gonna be always best. Yeah, I mean, that would be my take as well. There's obviously limitations with satellite. I think what's out there now is doing a good job, but I think there's limits on how many satellites can we put up there. It's an infinite amount of space, but you're gonna fill it up at some point in my eyes.
14:22
At some point, right? And then upgrading, you know. But yeah, it'll be interesting. Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, number of passings is one of the goals. What are some of the other goals? You know, I mean, we really want to focus on our customer. you know, so not only customer acquisition, but customer satisfaction. You when we get a customer, we want them to have the best uh experience possible uh from a gateway. I mean, a customer is one of those things, you know, and I can speak for myself. I just want stuff to work.
14:51
You just want to turn your TV on if you're streaming and it works, or get your internet if you're working from home or you got some school work. that's our goal. Sometimes you have an outage and you get a fiber cut. It's not your fault. Someone cuts you. But the customer don't know that. Doesn't care either, right? And so we're really trying to build a robust network that we can uh make sure that our customer uh has that experience that they...
15:20
that they're paying for, quite frankly. So what's the balance there between, um being strategic and profitable, building a robust network, uh not taking shortcuts, but still doing it at a good cost and still taking care of the customer? What's the first thing that's got to give in that equation?
15:46
That's a great question. We don't want anything to give. would be, you know, that's where... uh I guess what's the biggest pressure point? Yeah, I mean, that's where we always have to huddle up and make these decisions on, you know, I think I spoke about it last time I was here, you we love to gold plate stuff, but you just can't, right? Yeah. Because there's a cost to that. And so we have to manage that and really have a roadmap in front of us on how we want to execute.
16:17
uh If you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there, right? mean, so we really want to know who we are and how we're trending, and so that we can hold ourselves accountable as well. So when it comes to like, you know, the customer experience, know, the first step is understanding what the customer feels. And so we have a lot of touch points with our customers to get their feedback so that we can understand that, you know.
16:42
we're not in a vacuum thinking that we're doing a great job and then there's an issue out there. Talk about, you know, I was in a meeting with you, you know, earlier this year and we were talking about some of the install practices and I know you've got a special kit that goes like for every install and some of the insights, maybe you don't want to give up your secrets, but I was very impressed with, you know, what comes in this package, not only just for the technician, but also for, you know, the homeowner.
17:11
And I was blown away with the level of customer service that your company does for a company your size. Yeah, all of our new customers get a welcome pack. And it's like an appreciation. And we try to work even locally so that, for instance, if we're giving you some coffee, we'll work locally with someone in Minnesota versus Missouri to try to have that little special.
17:40
And there's a lot of different things we do and we're always having appreciation days. We'll send out to a neighborhood that we just turned up, we'll send out an ice cream truck or a coffee, come out and say hi. And of course we're trying to acquire customers too. we really feel like we want to be part of the community and that we're just not, we're not one of those companies that come in and now you're going to deal with.
18:05
a bot behind you and just some technology company. We feel like we want to be a fabric of what we're operating in as well. What does that customer service team look like compared to a bot? Well, that's a real person. mean, we have most, not all of them, but most of them are in St. Louis and then we have customers, service reps in each of our operating markets. And it's a real person and they...
18:34
They understand your needs when you call and you have a question. They dig into it. They help you out right there. And if they can't, then uh immediately, then they dispatch it and we get back to you. uh We want to resolve uh everything that is possible real time. So if we can resolve it on the phone with customer service or our technical team, we do. If we've got to dispatch a truck, we try to dispatch that truck that day.
19:04
I mean, that's the goal. That's the goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the, you know, some of the larger phone companies, I mean, you may be four or five days before you get on the schedule, you know, maybe more. Yeah. If you get, if you get to touch, if you get to talk to somebody too, right? Yeah.
19:25
CBM is a manufacturer's rep based right here in Kansas City. We've got territory where we cover from Iowa all the way down to Texas. We cover specifically three different market segments, uh utility, commercial industrial, and broadband communications. CBM is structured differently. We're an employee-owned company. We're ran as an ESOP. That allows us to do business differently. We can cross lines of markets. We can put our people where they need to be.
19:54
and really have expertise in the right place. That's what makes a difference for our customers and for our manufacturers. If you think we can help you uh with the product line in the Midwest, look no further than CBM. Find us right here at cbmrep.com.
20:15
So I live in, it's Huxley Cooperative Telephone Exchange where I live. And uh they have it outsourced to a local, it's a local company, but it's outsourced. So like the first phone call goes to this company, but they're very sharp. Like they're asking you a million questions to try to figure out, you know, what's happened, what's really going on. And then.
20:43
if there's a truck roll, they get to them right away. So it's pretty smooth, but for a smaller company, it's probably a better model. Oh, there's all sorts of different operating models. Yeah, that company will service a whole bunch of them in the area. uh
21:02
actual phone company then goes out and does the maintenance or fixes the problem. Well, it's important too, right? mean, you got to meet the customer where they want to be met. So we're talking about calling in and getting somebody, which a lot of people want to talk. But there's a lot of customers that just want, send a text or chat or whatever. So we have all those different opportunities to get a hold of us how you need to, how you feel.
21:28
and we're expanding that as well because I mean, you got to meet the customer on their terms. the install side of it, when somebody signs up new and the install team goes out, is this a gateway employee or is there a contractor or what does that look like? So we have a mix, you know, of both gateway and vendor support. Most of our, so on a brand new install, it would be uh either or uh as far as uh
21:57
whether that's a vendor or a gateway person. All of our vendors uh go through a very regimented onboarding process. uh Just like our mainline vendors, you represent gateway. And so we made sure that you... It's the same experience for the customer regardless. Because the customer doesn't care. They've ordered gateway. And so whatever happens in that house is a gateway experience. And it's got to be a positive experience. Otherwise, we're going to lose the customer, right?
22:26
um And then on all service calls right now, all service calls are gateway to, because we just think that you're calling us for an issue. uh We got to be able to get that out to you fast. um And the experience too, mean, it's kind of like that white glove treatment, I guess, where you go out there and our checklist is to make sure that the customer has uh full coverage, everything's hooked up.
22:54
when they leave, again, everything just works for the customer. Because that's all they care about. I don't want some great, big, ugly box sitting in the wrong spot, and then I want all my stuff to work. How do you, uh do the guys take the time to go through, check all the TVs, and help with the apps, and do all those things?
23:17
Oh, I can't find my password now. I mean, I've been that guy when they come to the house, you know, so I understand. I just heard a story last week. We were asked to uh mount a TV. They had a new TV and they had to help mount the new TV. And they did it, Yeah, they helped. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's awesome. You mentioned, you know, in terms of cost, you can't gold plate everything. ah And I get that. ah But last time you were here, you
23:47
You said, you know, that sometimes I like struggle to budget in for maintenance. Has that changed or is it still the same old go really fast and not worry about that maintenance yet? Yeah, we're worried about it. mean, because it's an op-ed cost, right? And so the best way to mitigate that is on your day one builds.
24:14
and to put in a good product in a good place and to use good material, right? uh That helps. That helps for the three to five year plan. Some things you can't foresee, like a road move or something like that. from a budgeting perspective, uh we are very conscientious of uh not trying to save a penny today that costs us a quarter tomorrow. And that goes back into, especially some of the... uh
24:44
SKUs that we choose today to use that might be, you know, 3 % more expensive than the one next to you. But because of the quality of that, we know that's going to save us money long-term. you putting money into CapEx budgeting for the future uh maintenance? Well, so... guess my question is like, are you preparing for that down the road or what does that look like? Yeah, well, there's all... We have a...
25:14
OpEx budget, obviously operating one year over year, that's going to be, and some of that could be actually some CapEx money as well, depending on that maintenance. As our network grows, I mean, what we're spending in 26 is 4X more than it was in 22, and it's just going to continue to grow, but that's just a product of the network and how much footage we have out in the ground, whether that's aerial or underground or what have you.
25:44
What's the most costly maintenance? Just a cut or what is there other things that maybe I've not thought about that can cost more? Yeah, you have your planned and unplanned maintenance. like you mentioned uh unplanned maintenance. I would say that the biggest uh driver of unplanned maintenance is if you have uh an aerial market and you have some major storm that takes down a bunch of.
26:14
poles or what have you. From a planned maintenance, so where we know something's going to cost because of a road move or something. We've had some big, we had one out in Troy where the state did a widening program or a project on the highway and it affected our placement where we were and we had to relocate, I think it was like three miles. you see that coming years in.
26:43
And so you can plan that from a budgetary perspective. The ones that are surprising is some of these storms. And then you have like poll attachment uh agreements that you pay for and then locating. Every time someone calls in a locating ticket and you got plant there, then you're hiring someone to go out there and flag it to protect it. I know locating was kind of a hot button.
27:09
item we talked about last time. ain't got any better. That's just a product of all the building going on. mean, everyone's building. Everyone wants to build safe, you know, and we need to put it in, you know, our plant where no one else is. So everyone's got to go. You call in a locate ticket, everyone that's already there, you know, marks up what they have. And when with all the, with all the
27:33
construction going on in the country right now. And it's not only just fiber, it's all the road construction. I mean, you get on 70. I mean, I think it's a work zone from St. Louis to Kansas City right now. Yeah. That's a, I forget how many year project, but that's going to be a mess for a while. It's a mess. Yeah. I drive it every day, but that drives all these locations, all the road projects, all the infrastructure projects. And so it puts a pressure. So is it just that they're overwhelmed and trying to do things too quick?
28:05
They're overwhelmed and it's hard to staff. Yeah. Yeah. Because they don't see, we partner with them. And so they know, like all the locating companies know where we're coming, what our bill pace is looking like, what we're anticipating. And we do it because we want to be successful, but we want them to be successful. So like in Minnesota, we've been talking with all the locating vendors since December, what our 2026 plan will be.
28:32
And some of the other vendors are doing the same thing because they got a hire right. It's hard to hire and onboard those staff to support all these different tickets. Are you seeing the same employee challenges that they are and everybody else is? Or are you pretty solid in that position? I know we talked about it last time that it was one of the challenges in the market. Is it still a challenge for you guys personally or just maybe for some of your partners?
28:59
I think a little bit of both. mean, we've been really uh conscious on our hiring practices. We want to hire really good people. sometimes, I think sometimes uh that puts a lot of pressure on us from uh trying to attract that talent. From a business partner perspective, I think that from an entry level perspective from a construction crew, it's been a challenge. a lot of turnover in that industry as a whole.
29:28
uh And then they're just fighting everyone else that's wanting the same labor pool. One of the things that we do with all of our vendors uh is really grow with them. We don't like to be transactional. We want to be partners. We want to be true partners. And so we do the same thing with our vendors. We give them a forecast of what next year looks like so that they can staff accordingly and they can support us and then we're both successful. uh
29:57
the rapid pace that everything's moving, do you find those partnerships more important or tougher to maintain as things get crazier and crazier? I've never felt like it's hard to maintain it. Maybe that's just me. mean, that's, you uh but it's more important. Yeah. I mean, it's as important as ever and growing. mean, you want to be working with people that are, that it's a mutual uh understanding of success.
30:27
You know, we want our vendors to succeed because when we succeed, know, so when, you know, there's always a pricing conversation. And vice versa too. Yeah. And, you know, and so if you look at our vendor, like on our main line up in Minnesota, for instance, the very first, we still have the contractor that started it for us. You know, they're still one of four main vendors up there. And then the other three vendors have been with us since 23, 24 as well.
30:54
So it's just a growth. And sometimes they travel with us. As an example, one of the vendors, Telcom, that's a great partner for us in Minnesota, just went to Fargo for us. And then we have others too. mean, Fusion was doing some work for us in St. Louis, and now they're doing some work for us up in Minnesota. So I mean, just fostering those relationships is important. Finding new ones is important too, though. You got to grow your network. as Gateway grows, our needs grow.
31:24
And you got to grow that vendor base in those relationships. Let's circle back a little bit to the hiring process. So, for Gateway, internally, hiring their own employees, what do you think the secret sauce is there? What do you guys do? How do you attract and maintain good people? think because that's something everybody's interested in knowing. ah For us, we're a small company.
31:51
There's a lot of ways we could probably improve that. So, you know, just kind of looking for a uh roadmap to... Well, if you find the secret sauce, let me know. I think hiring is probably the single hardest thing to do. Yeah. Especially, I've been, I feel like I've been successful over the years, as everyone probably would say the same. When you hire someone that you have a relationship with in the past, you've either worked with them or you know someone that worked with them. So it's not like a uh cold hire.
32:20
building your bench. Yeah, I mean, and it's important. The toughest thing to do, or at least for me, I'll just speak for me, is hiring someone that even through a rigorous interview process, but the first interaction that you've had with them was a resume. I've interviewed people that just completely just bombed the interview process. Just did not, but we saw something and we hired.
32:49
outstanding individual. Then you can hire someone that just knocks it out of the park on the interview process. you get you kind of never know what you're going to get. And then you get a man and you're just like, what do I got here? Yeah. You know, and so it really is the hardest thing we do. So then what do you do? You have that situation where it's, okay, what did I do? So then what do you do? Well, I read part of an article or book, I can't remember where I read it, but...
33:18
A speaker was talking about that the worst thing you can do is be tethered to an employee that's the wrong one. Because you get emotional about the hire. You're like, this is reflection of me because I've hired this person. Sometimes if you know it's not the right hire, then you stick with them too long anyway. And it's not fair to the employee either. m it's not the right fit, then you got to move on, which is tough, right?
33:46
That's probably the hardest thing. it's yeah. Yeah. Well, second hardest, hardest is hiring the right person on the front end. Well, yeah, that's true. You know, I don't know, generationally, I think there's a shift in, you know, in our parents age, you know, they go work at the mill and they're going to work there for 50 years and retire on a pension. know, everybody was loyal to, you know, probably to a fault, you know, and now you see
34:16
You know, it's just hop, skip and a jump to the next better opportunity. You know, and it's hard to blame somebody for that to try to take steps to make themselves better. Oh, you can't blame them. As leaders, that's what we want, Yeah, but it's tough for the company. you almost got to look at it. There's a lot to But it's hard to find that loyalty. And there's a huge cost to starting over and starting over and starting over. So I don't know what the secret sauce is. Well, let me know.
34:45
Let me know. I don't know either. But to your point though, a little bit, think from a workforce perspective, a lifetime used to be, to your point, a lifetime for our parents, but now it's like three to five years. But that's part of the industry though. Everything's growing so fast, other opportunities are popping up. So the challenge is figuring out that
35:15
process, making it repeatable and attractive. Yeah, we'll just have to figure it out, I guess. You know, I want good people to stay at I love Gateway. But also, if there's an opportunity that comes up for someone at Gateway, that is a uh good opportunity for them. And it's a better opportunity than what we can give them.
35:44
You can't hurt, can't get mad at them for leaving. I that's what we're here for. Everyone, you know, I say it all the time, we're our own CEO. uh At Gateway, we want to foster a culture and an environment that you want to stay. And we want to treat employees uh with respect and give them opportunities to grow within Gateway. Sometimes that doesn't work out and that's okay.
36:12
So talk about that culture a little bit, that's also a challenge for a lot of companies. I don't think putting a ping pong table in the break room necessarily represents culture. We got a ping pong table in the No, I know. I know, it's... And it can be fun, like, short of the ping pong table, what kind of things can a company do that really drives that culture? And I guess I think of culture as like,
36:43
more of a feeling of family or a feeling of belonging or a feeling of importance. And as great as a ping pong table is, what's the magic there to the culture? So I think for Gateway, we want to promote a transparent operating. We want people to be able to be heard. People want to be heard. People have good ideas at all levels of organization.
37:12
And so having an uh open and honest conversation about how we're doing, uh where we're going, and then what are your guys' thoughts? How do we improve? And it's not a top-down, like, this is a directive. is a collaborative uh operating uh ecosystem.
37:40
We all have jobs to do, but we all know what the goals are. We all know what rocks we need to push up this hill, and we need to do it together. And people want to be uh heard, people want to grow. uh It's also important that people want feedback. And so having honest feedback is uh critical to an organization. The worst thing that can happen in a company is you build walls, and you just get put in this little room kind of like this.
38:10
And you just start doing widgets and you don't have an impact on what's going on. You don't want to be impactful with their employee. Now that makes a lot of And the ping pong table. So you're saying it helps? Yeah, it does. Who's the best in the office? That's probably, I'm not going to throw anybody out there. I don't know. It's not me. It's not you? It is not me. Yeah. We got some fierce ping pong players.
38:38
I'm frankly not that good, but I do have a wonderful ping pong story. A friend of mine, they have a ping pong table in the basement. I think it was a New Year's Eve thing or something we were over. And his wife challenged me and she's good. It was a tough match and it got down to the end within a point. And so I had to distract her. So I just took my shirt off. And she couldn't believe it. And then I won. So she wants a rematch, but never going to happen.
39:07
You got to go out on top. You do, you do. So where do you want to be in five years? Personally, uh company wise, uh what's a win for you five years from now? Five years. So personally, got it. I got my oldest uh son Jackson is going to be uh a senior this year. uh My daughter Parker is graduating high school this year and going to college. in five years, hopefully I have
39:35
two kids, young adults that are in the workforce. the payroll. Off the payroll. And I can start really saving some money. That's a misnomer. They're never off the payroll. Maybe they're a little pay scale. I don't know. I mean, does it get cheaper? I don't feel like it does. My son's getting married this summer, so we'll You'll let me know? Yeah, we'll see. So yeah, so that's exciting times for us. Be empty nesters and you know.
40:04
Different different phase of life and we're really excited about that me and Johanna my wife m Professionally, I don't know. I mean, you know five years from now. It's it's in Intel com is a lifetime uh It seems like it but I'll be here and gone for you know, it'll be here and gone. I mean I would say that I'm really uh Curious on it one where the industry is gonna go in five years um You know uh with with all there's a lot of consolidation going on in the market right now. Yeah
40:31
um And that's always exciting. It kind of feels a little bit like the early 2000s when there was a lot of consolidation. So it's exciting what's going on. Hopefully in five years, Gateway is three, four times the size we are right now uh from a passing perspective and a customer perspective. And we're looking for how to get more office space because we've already outgrown our office that we just moved into last year.
41:01
I'll probably take that ping pong table out and put a couple of desks in. Maybe a bowling alley, I don't know. Yeah, so that's where it is. We're excited about those opportunities. Awesome. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming in for the second time. Well, thanks for not taking your shirt off for this interview. It's always a risk. You never know. It's always a risk. never know. The mood might strike me. No, it's been great. It's been a...
41:27
Pleasure of ours to work with you for so many years. we appreciate everything you do with us and for us and just a great partner. So, Well, we appreciate your partnership too. You guys help us out all the time. So, thank you. Thanks. Thanks.
41:47
Just wanted to say thanks again to Jason for coming back and joining us on the show again. It's great to have him in studio as always, know, Gateway Fibers, one of our great partners in the industry and, you know, we do all we can for them and we appreciate that relationship. So thanks, Jason. Remember, if you need help with a project or looking for representation here in the Midwest, look no further than CBM. You can find us right here at cbmrep.com. Thanks for joining us on Power of the Network and until next time, we'll see you next time.
