00:00
Hi, welcome to Power of the Network. I'm your host, Tim Locker, Vice President of Broadband here at CBM. I'm very excited about our guests this week. We've got Mr. Ben Foster from Twin Valley Telephone, also ISG Technologies, and he's also been recently appointed to the Director of the Board for the NTCA. So we've got a lot to talk about. Looking forward to meeting him. We've met in passing over the years, but never really had a chance to sit down and get to know him.
00:28
looking forward to this conversation.
00:34
Ben, thanks so much for joining us. It's great to have you in studio here today with us. ah I think we've probably met in passing at different trade shows or something, but I don't think we've ever sat down and chatted. So I'm excited to get to know you a little bit better. So thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. ah I wanted to start off and highlight that Twin Valley uh family-owned business, uh fourth generation. you're...
01:02
leading the charge and I've taken over the reins for quite some time now, but talk about what that family owned business means to you as coming up through it and growing into it. Yeah, it's a great question. It's one that I do think about quite a bit from time to time, but I think it all just starts with, for me, it's just like, it's normal. When I grew up, my great grandparents lived right across the street from us. They lived to be almost 100.
01:31
You know, so they were with us a long time. And so when we would go down, if you want to go, you know, the town of 500, if you want to go down and see your parents or see your family, they were all at the telephone office. And so you go down there and, and, um, just really kind of included the employees as part of my family and, and just was, was, was very natural. So kind of just grew up, you know, always thinking I was going to go like right back into, you know, Twin Valley and, and didn't even really.
01:58
and really want to go to college that bad. But my dad told me, like, you don't have to go to college, you just can't work here if you're going to do that. So it came pretty clear that there's some steps that I needed to take before I got there. even when I ended up going to Southwestern Bell and what's now AT &T for about eight years, always knew that my real...
02:21
purpose, my real why was I wanted to come back home and make an impact in my community and for my family. So uh there's a lot um of differences, you know, whenever you work for your family, you know, in terms of your shareholders and some of your members on your board, um some things that are, you know, pressures that might not exist other places or obstacles or challenges that might exist other places, but those are...
02:48
That's honestly what makes it worth it for me. I just, you know, I love to work with them. They're very supportive and just uh love the long-term aspect. You know, in my particular position, to be able to think long-term and know that the family's thinking long-term, thinking about the next generation really kind of makes my job really easy when you think about it. ah And I'll throw you a little bit of a curve ball here. Tough question. If you don't want to answer it, that's fine too. But I've worked for, you know, some family-owned companies over the years.
03:18
And even looking at some of my parents' experience, same thing. The first generation, the guy that starts the company, he's got a lot of respect and so on, and then the son comes in. And sometimes you see that level of respect change, like maybe he didn't earn it or he's just given this. There's always that perception. Has that been an issue for you or is that different as it's fourth generation and not second generation?
03:46
It wouldn't have been different for me. um think that might have been part of it. I know it was part of the reason why Dad even said, like, you have to go to college. You're not just going to work here and, quote unquote, do a good job. And then you have to do some things to earn it. And I don't know that I was mature enough at the time I decided to go to AT &T to say, OK, this is going to be a way that if I can be successful here, that might be a way I can earn some respect back at.
04:15
at Twin Valley. don't think I was really thinking that way necessarily until a little bit later. And then, you know, I realized when I did come back that I'd been able to have the kind of experience that when, and there's a whole bunch of this backstory, you know, that's taken place in the midst of this. One of them is like, we were a bit of a lifestyle company, you know, like Twin Valley was a way for us to work with people that...
04:41
shared our values that were a lot of fun to work with. I the people in our company when I was growing up were hilarious. And I loved the technicians were unbelievable. loved spending time with them and working with them. um But around the time I decided to come back and there was an opportunity for me, that was about the time that the third generation, second generation wanted to make it kind of a perpetual family owned company. so that's...
05:07
there's some changes when we're gonna make that kind of conscious shift in a lot of different ways, in some uncomfortable ones. But I think the preparation that I had at a non-family or experience I had at a non-family company helped me, helped us kind of lead the transition to, now we're gonna be a really growing enterprise. Yeah. So what are some of the lessons you learned with that time at AT &T?
05:34
Oh man, so many. mean, like it was, you know, so naive looking back, you know, I went in there thinking, I always grew up, I still believe this. mean, like the telecommunication industry is special and like there are special people that work there. I mean, growing up, you go to the state associations and you see all the different, all the different characters, know, and they carried, they were really always friendly to young people and just very inclusive, you know, kind of, kind of industry and family. I thought.
06:00
naively that that's just how the telephone industry was. So I go to Southwestern Bell and discovered that there are some union people there. And it's just a different thing. thought that they just needed a little bit of, we can make this into a Twin Valley kind of group, and things can be awesome. I got an education. That's not exactly what uh exactly they wanted to do, some of them. So I learned about
06:29
you know, that I had to motivate people differently than that I had, you don't really don't have to motivate people into it. They were self motivated. That's how I grew up. So, so started to give me, you know, some, some skills and lessons about how to start connecting with people and really intentionally figuring out like how, makes them tick, you know, and try to, you know, in union environment, even like what.
06:55
what do you want? I'm limited on what kind of perks I can give you and things that are equal by the contract. But can really still figure out on an individual basis, what are the little things I can change to help support you when you do a great job and if you need some help in some different areas, what are some things I can do there? In terms of motivating people, do you find that it's different for everybody or is there maybe a general rule that you've?
07:22
put together or you got to figure everybody out separately? I believe at the core, you have to figure out individuals. um And then at the same time, I think you have standards that you're always there. So I don't believe we should sacrifice our standards for anyone. If you have, like, this is what I want to achieve and this is where the business needs to go and the values I want to
07:52
have in our team to get there, those are kind of non-negotiable. That's the standard. then it becomes like, what are we as a group going to do? What are we as individuals going to do? And that's where I think you do have to spend some time and say, kind of leader do you want to be? What role do you want to have in that? And people are different. I've made all the mistakes. I've tried to manage them all the same way because it felt like I didn't have time.
08:22
And at the end of the day, that doesn't work. but for me, what works is I find people I want to work with and I want to discover. I do want to help you with your personal goals because I like you and we share the same values. And uh that's when teams really do some pretty cool things. Yeah. So what are a couple of your key principles? I think, you know, don't really, I guess I probably don't have it like boiled down to two principles. I mean, I think it,
08:52
You know, the people, the teams that I have now, they're fantastic teams. They believe in values first. Like you can't, if you don't have, if you're not like hiring based on values, if you're not promoting people based on values, if you're not disciplining people, you know, on values, then it's really fake. And people see it through like just that fast. You know, they'll look at your value statement and they'll see really quickly.
09:17
And that the first meeting, if somebody's there and they're clearly not aligned with your values, they don't believe in it. So like that's non-negotiable for me. People at the end of the day, we've got all this technology, all these distractions, all these things going on. There's really not that many places around that are larger companies that truly do run the business based on.
09:42
value. So when we think about growth and the kind of people we need to attract and all those things, that's one of our biggest differentiators. We m believe we're serious about it. um And so that's kind of the number one. And then the second one is um the business needs to achieve certain things. And we all have a role that we have to play in that. then this goes back to the kind of rat person, right seat.
10:10
At one time, if I liked people or we liked people, sometimes we would invent seats for people to be in that you maybe didn't really need. And then that causes kind of issues in there. So at the end of the day, it's like the values and then make sure you've got the seats identified, clear accountability about people that can get things done that you need to get done to achieve your, I like to look at three years in the future.
10:36
and uh put that person in there. if they're not on a trend um toward kind of getting there, then you got to work really hard with them. And eventually they'll get there. if they see everybody else has these kind of standards, it's not me setting the standards. A lot of times it's my team setting the standards.
10:55
then they eventually kind of move to a different team on their own. So that's kind of, if you could boil things down to like a couple of areas, like if you just stay really disciplined about it, which is really easy to say and harder to do. um That's the tough thing, discipline's the hard part. It is, it really is. Because I say it, even when that happens, you make rationalizations and a little bit more time, this one thing happened and that other thing happened, and it's easy to kind put it off.
11:24
ah So you seem very growth oriented. Obviously that's important in any company. ah Going back four generations to now, what's a couple of things that's consistent and still the same in terms of those values and what is something that's maybe different now than when your great grandpa was at the helm? ah So, I mean, it is the values are the same.
11:55
I think I can quickly describe the process by which we discerned our values. wasn't doing word clouds out there and figuring out what we thought sounded the best or anything like that. What we did was say, OK, as we look back, who are the people in our company today, who were people in our company previously, that if you had to go to war with them, that you would...
12:23
that they'd be part of your team out of all of them that are out there. And then tell a story about why. And so we started telling stories about current employees and previous employees about why we thought they would be the ones that we'd want to pick on our team. And then you start putting all those stories together and that's when you start discerning value. So one of our values is lead by example. And one of the, there's...
12:48
There's many stories. My great grandpa, after he worked outside till he was, think he was 73. And then grandpa Jack, know, decided it was time for my great grandpa to come back in because he was kind of getting in the way of things. was, only guys were scared to tell him that. So grandpa Joe didn't really like it, but he decided to come in to start doing dishes. He would come down for coffee and after the coffee was over, he would do dishes.
13:15
Mick Hamill, just one of the technicians, would come in before work. He'd come in at 4.35 in the morning, something ridiculous, and he would empty out all the trash before everybody came in and made sure all the trash got done. so, you know, it's not about like... So what I learned from that is like all of this work is important. It doesn't matter what your role is. it has to get done. Somebody has to do it. And if they don't do it, then it all falls apart. And so...
13:41
That's just one example or two examples. those are the values. um it's important that we have stories to go along with those values. um What's changed is a lot. That's really been kind of the challenge that I was mentioning. When you're a family-owned company, you make that leap that you're going to go and hopefully be a perpetual kind of company. You have to do two things. have to, well, really have to do one thing.
14:08
you have to continue to create reasons that your family wants to share capital with each other. I mean, at some point, everybody could just sell and just take their piece and just go home, right? Do their own thing. And so you have to, you know, we have to figure out ways that we, and reasons we want to share capital together. And one of those is, obviously there's a financial component, you know, to that.
14:32
So everybody could take their piece, put in the S &P 500, get their 10 or 11%. If they wanted to liquidate it, they could liquidate it. And that would be real easy and less risky. So that's where a lot of our business goals come from. We have to do better than that. We have to do better than the S &P 500. So just on a pure financial basis. That's kind of where just the business part comes in from how we set our goals. the family part.
15:02
That's where we are really intentional. That's probably the number one thing we're working on as a shareholder group is what kind of lessons do we want to teach our family? We want them to come together and figure out how to be owners. We know they're not all going to work in the business the way our previous generations did. So we're creating ways that they can connect with the business, that they can learn great life lessons, that they can contribute to their communities differently as owners if they're choosing not to work in the business.
15:31
That's what we're working on, because the financial stuff by itself won't be enough. You have to kind of help them build relationships and do those kinds of things. What types of things does Twin Valley do in the communities, whether it's booster club activities or whatever? What types of things do you guys participate at the local level? I you name it. I mean, they're sponsoring little league teams.
16:01
uh If there's grant opportunities going, we try and encourage, we're in a lot of the economic development group boards in different counties that we're in. So they're always looking for projects and grants from other places. So we'd like to support um football stadiums. One of the cool things we did recently that I had a lot of fun with was we sponsored an e-sports team.
16:26
In Junction City. And so like this is one of their kind of community groups. They've got a fantastic guy named Aaron Sheltdown that um started this group and I didn't even know anything about it. Like my team found this group and decided let's go ahead and start sponsoring their eSports arena and their team.
16:47
And so I find out about, like, I didn't have anything to do with it. And the team did it. And I just, I loved it. I thought was What was the game? you remember? Oh, they did it. So it was Call of Duty. I mean, a bunch of them. I think there's Call of Duty. I remember that one, because that's the one I actually know how to play a little bit. The other ones, I can't quite I was at a, I believe it was a volleyball tournament that my daughter was in. If I remember correctly, I was in the Nevada High School in Nevada, Iowa. And there was a banner, a state championship.
17:16
Mario Kart state champions. Oh, really? And I'm like, what in the world? And that's the first I'd ever seen or heard of it. But yeah, it's crazy what they're doing now. If they had like a Tecmo Bowl deal, might be able to a Bill Jackson. And I could win that one. But I mean, the games they play now, I just can't even believe the way they're doing it. They let me play Call of Duty with them.
17:41
they were, of course they introduced me as the president of Twin Valley. So like these kids were all like, there's Mr. President. So they decided, they said Mr. President get behind us. They decided they're going to be like, protect me. Because ultimately they didn't want me to die. And so they would surround me. wouldn't let me, they'd almost like build walls around me so I can get out and try. was like, guys, want to try and get somebody. And so I had a great time with those kids, but like they're... em
18:06
they are learning production skills. know, like there's one of them is they're trying to do things like this and trying to build into like a Twitch community where they're streaming and creating content and things like that. of course they're doing gaming and having a good time and building some relationships there. But Aaron is really also, you know, having them start learning about production, you know, kind of techniques. So, it's really cool, you know, with what they're doing there. So I said, that's another one that I think this was more recent that I really connected with, but it's...
18:33
The parades, mean, it's all of them, just being visible, you know, and making sure we're giving back to the community that supports us. What is your message for kids now? Like, you know, it's totally different than when you and I were kids, you know, but even just coming into the workforce, there's millions of different ways to make a dollar, you know, these days. What's your message to, you know, somebody coming out of high school or out of college? Well, I mean, so I got kids in high school.
19:01
Um, now and, um, man, it's tough, you know, I mean, like the, things that, I mean, there's always going to be a place for values, being honest and, and hard work. that, you know, that's timeless, you know, hopefully it always stays timeless. Um, you know, but it feels like that these kids are going to have to, obviously they're gonna have to learn about.
19:25
technology and AI and sort of figure out like how do I build these businesses without very many people, you know? And like that's, know, there's gonna be a lot of resources out there. And so I tell my kids like you have to figure out AI. You have to use that in a lot of different things. mean, like, you know, different schools have different policies about like what it should be. And I kind of find myself.
19:50
nodding on both sides of the debate. They need to learn critical thinking skills on their own, absolutely. And they also need to learn how to use AI to not just, some of the memorization things we have to do. Maybe that's been part of our education system change. But I tell them, my view is you have to learn how to be potentially a serial entrepreneur. Maybe you have an idea, let's spin up your business. If you can work, if it's relevant for five years, six years.
20:19
and maybe that's a great business, then you start up a new one. So I don't know, it's really just changing really fast. But I think at the end of the day, have to know customer service, you have to know who your customers are, what problem you're solving for them. Make sure you've got your values out there and then be very nimble, I think. Creativity, one, certainly follow those hunches, I guess. You feel fast. If it doesn't work, then move on.
20:47
That's probably the biggest lesson I've learned was when I was younger, not taking those risks. I think that's the time to do it. You have plenty of time to recover, uh less responsibility. That's what parents are for, to pick you up when you get knocked down, How did you... uh
21:09
How would you teach your kids? I was the same way. I put entrepreneurs up here because they're willing to take those risks. I was never comfortable doing that. um It's a challenge to teach your kids when they don't listen. Exactly. But looking back, ah I came out of high school, went right into construction. And um I always had an itch to get into rental property.
21:38
I just never had the money to do it. I had the edge, but not the scratch. if I really, really forced myself, I probably could have made it work somehow. And 30 years ago would have been a much better time to start buying real estate than today. And so that's one of the things that uh sticks back in me that I maybe not regret, but probably something I'd be way better off had I pursued it.
22:07
ah Yeah, I think, you know, I have a son who just graduated from Iowa State last year. He's getting married this summer. He's, mean, it's like me all over again, you know, that's just, uh but you know, I didn't listen that well to my dad. He doesn't listen that well to me. Some people just want to find out the hard way. You know, if you could, my advice would be if you could just learn from the mistakes I've made, you know, and
22:37
and just believe me that it's true and not have to find out for yourself, you'd be further along. So that's my advice. Learn from the people that are trying to teach you. There's a reason they're trying to give you whatever that advice is. I like that. Yeah.
22:59
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.
23:28
and really have expertise in the right place. That's what makes a difference uh 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.
23:49
So have a couple of legacies since you've taken over the helm, which was that 2010, 2011? Yeah, 2011 is when I did it, ISG. We bought ISG Technology and became the CEO of that one. My dad was still CEO of Twin Valley. So I kind of had dual roles there. then you were back to the company, your dad was in charge. Yep. And then 2014 is when dad retired and took over at Twin Valley.
24:18
And then what you guys purchased SKT? I'm awful with years. Yes, it was 20, I think it's 2021. 2021? They were also a family-owned company, if I'm correct? Yeah, they were. Okay. Was there a challenge there bringing two family-owned companies together because it was different families or was it easier because it was still that same mentality? I mean, it was easier. mean, like we, yes, we, I mean, we knew the
24:47
the Microsoft family from, like I said, when I was a little kid running around, like in the state association meetings, I mean, like they were there and grandparents were friends, know, together. So we were very aware and, you know, Kendall is who I'd known the best after I came back and he was doing some, lot of leadership on the legislative and regulatory front. So we got a chance to interact with him, him some. so it was just really...
25:16
clear, you know, that they cared about their people and had very similar cultures to us. So was never a question of if it was just how do we make it work? Yeah. Yeah. I tried to, I talked to Kendall a few years before that saying if they were, know, I could see that his kids had different interests and they going come back and work, you know. And so I was like, hey, if you were ever going to...
25:41
Think about selling, know, we'd be interested in talking to you, you know, about that. And they thought, you know, the best thing for them was more to run a process, you know, that they did. we did kind of, they ran a kind of a private process and invited different companies that they felt comfortable with to participate in that. And we were fortunate to be successful there. Awesome. So what did that do in terms of size of your network?
26:05
How did it impact it? It almost. So we had a few more customers than they did. I think we started C-Leking a bit more aggressively than SKT had. Of course, Kendall was kind of coming toward the end of his investment cycle. So they were starting to kind of be a little bit more conservative with their spending. So I think they were about...
26:31
40%, 35 to 40 % of our size. So we probably, we grew by about a third or a more. But they, we really liked their network from a perspective that it was outside of Wichita. So again, just thinking long-term, Wichita is expanding. And so we wanted to kind of have some network on the south side of Wichita. as city, we'd build that in there. We didn't have any place, because we're obviously in more central Kansas.
26:59
we just didn't have any kind of natural growth areas that were ever going to get to our territories. being able to have the SKT territory in that part of Wichita was really exciting. you know, starting a business is one thing, running a business is another thing, know, acquiring another business is a whole nother level. What gave you that confidence to be able to, you know, put a deal like that together? You know,
27:28
There's a lot, I mean, there's actually a few things. like uh we had developed, so I mean, I will start with the values. Like I did know some of the people there. Like Bill McVeigh had been a colleague of mine on the Kansas Fiber Network board for a long time. ah I really enjoy working with Bill, he's incredibly smart.
27:50
very gracious with his knowledge and just really liked working with him. and he liked working there, obviously he worked there for a very long time. So I knew their staff was really solid and they had some capabilities that we didn't have or that we needed to hit our growth goals. just from like the fit from the management team, felt really good about that. The second thing is that we had gone,
28:17
Have you heard of EOS before? It's called Entrepreneurial Operating System. It's just kind of way of formalizing in some ways. It's the way that we probably all, you guys run your company and we do ours. Just a little bit more formalized. the thing it did for us is it really helped us develop a longer term picture about what Twin Valley needed to look like. What were the objectives?
28:46
three years from now, what's that look like, both in terms of what the financials are and then the things that we need to change to hit those goals. So it puts it out there really clearly. So whenever you start talking to another company like SKT that might become part of yours, everybody's got a question like, what are you trying to accomplish? And you can give them the standard kind of stuff that's not clear, it's not really well thought out, it's not supported. And I think there's a lot of times that builds anxiety in people.
29:15
because they're not sure why did you buy us? And so just having that, already having gone through what that picture looked like and what the why was, when we started talking to the company in general, they knew exactly what we wanted to do. So whenever they started seeing changes get introduced, it made it much easier to tell them why and see how they would fit into it. So I would say that was big part of it. One thing that I'll
29:44
I would suggest this all the time. wish I had engineered this on purpose, but we had a big backlog of customers. We started C-Liking Junction City. ah And so whenever you're the acquirer, there's always just a little bit of anxiety about, I'm losing control. Somebody else is going to have new control. It's going to be a big change, right? Yeah. We had a backlog and we were struggling a little bit getting orders done on time with our customers. They brought...
30:10
we brought up about three or four of their technicians to kind of work for a week up in Junction City. And it actually lasted much longer than a week, probably more like a month or two months. And they helped us out. So all of a sudden they saw that they had, you know, they got a purpose, you know, they helped, you know, being able to help the acquire, accomplish, you know, kind of their goal was made a huge step and just kind of saying, okay, there's no, we're all one team now. We're all one family. So.
30:37
an opportunity to show their value and chip Yeah, they did a great job. so it just eliminated a bunch of misconceptions that people are going to have that they invent in their own heads by just putting it in real life and seeing that that's not true. What do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that is made when, know, merging or buying another company? What do you think is the most common?
31:02
Well, values is one everybody will tell you and it's true. I believe in that. The second one is just being clear what your why is. Like what is that? What does it look like three years from now? having that be very well developed so that you can communicate that to the other company. To your company, I mean your company and the other company. But if you don't, you know, there's a lot of people that can rationalize anything, right? I rationalize why, you know, CBM ought to be part of Twin Valley or why we should go buy a construction company or...
31:31
Well, maybe. But you can rationalize anything. Sure. But if you really start thinking about it, you really start challenging some of those assumptions, you can see if I wanted to buy a construction company, for example, it'd be like, so why am I doing that again? Just to save money for me, potentially, or get my projects done on time, what's that look like financially for the construction company? You spent all this money to buy them, and then you're going to give yourself a discount?
32:00
you know, what that is. So I think a lot of times, you know, there's these things that people do to solve problems and that's not a, that's usually not a very good reason to acquire a company. I think it's more about where is there, is there actual synergy there, you know, that you can gain from to hit something that you couldn't do on your own later on. So I understand you were recently appointed to chair of the board for, is it NTCA? Yep.
32:26
Congratulations. Thank you. So how does that impact your life now? I got really busy. When Shirley decided to retire, we had to find another leader that was out there. And so the board recognized just how big of a role and how important of a role that was to the entire industry, just by the nature of Shirley.
32:55
I mean, like Shirley made that role important because she was so impactful to everybody. So we knew obviously that we had a great internal candidate in Mike Romano. Shirley had groomed him and Mike had wanted to be able to be in a position to serve the industry in that type of role themselves. they had already kind of created a I'll say safety net.
33:23
You know, like there's no, really, it was going to be hard to screw it up. Right. mean, that was, you know, so, so, so that was, that was, uh, very nice to have going into the process at the same time. You know, whenever you have somebody that there's a transition, you know, where, um, and you start like thinking about just uh the, industry and competition, like, you know, we're going into now an era where, you know, the entire industry and some of our regulatory regime is based on scarcity.
33:51
scarcity of the network and scarcity of people that would have access to it. And now, with Leo's, there's at least the perception that some of that scarcity is being solved. mean, that part's not even just perception. mean, it is solving some of that scarcity, But there's still some limitations. There's major limitations that I think some of the policymakers are still, they would love for it to be what they want it to be, but it's not there yet. And maybe it won't ever get there.
34:20
So there's still some limitations there, but it has changed the conversation significantly. And it's going to change the role that NTCA can play in how we best serve our membership. So the board recognized there's an industry in the regulatory regime, even the role of Congress in the White House is dramatically different. mean, the administration now, this current one and potentially the future ones have a lot more impact.
34:50
you know, policy making compared to Congress has. And so is that a short term thing? Is that a long term thing? And so the board just thought, you know, there's a lot of questions, you know, that now we have this transition time that we wanted to answer. And one of the ways we wanted to do that was by just opening up the process, you know, to a lot of other candidates. That's why we ran an open process versus just, you know, making that decision with Mike. So putting together a process with, you know,
35:16
12 other directors from across the country, one in Alaska, on how you're going to go through and hire someone to take Shirley's spot, took a lot of planning, a lot of coordination, a lot of discussion. we went through it and there's a lot of trips back to Washington, D.C. to interview people and coordination with the hiring committee and our recruiter and all those different things.
35:46
That was incredibly rewarding and pressure packed period, but I saw the board really grow in a way that I think is going to serve the industry and serve in TCA much better into the future. Yeah. So for some folks that may be watching that don't know, talk about what does the organization do for a company like Twin Valley? Yeah. I mean, first and foremost is really just continue to make the case for why
36:15
our customers need connectivity to the network in order for our communities to be economically viable into the future and why that's important. um That's the number one thing that we have done and has been most important that our companies can't do on their own, right? Second one is, and I think this is starting to emerge a little bit, is how can we start to be more of a convener of kind of thought leaders and partners that are out there that are thought leaders?
36:45
about how we can start to take control more of our own destiny. know, because I mean, like there's going to be limitations, you know, of what an TCA can accomplish. There's going to be external factors. Like we just talked about some of the LEOs and now private equity and the tremendous amount of private investment that's coming in and the competition that that is meaning for our members. So, you know.
37:08
We're now trying to figure out ways to be more of a, play more of a business support model and bring in experts and resources and partners to uh kind of introduce options to our membership to reduce the reliance on government support, regulatory support in that area. So I'd say those are like two of the big focus areas for us. then it's about kind of
37:35
Can we start partnering with some other type of industries like the Kansas Farm Bureau, but the thing of the National Farm Bureau, kind of organizations, larger national agricultural organizations to build alliances, to start advocating for, it's not just about broadband. mean, it's about our rural America and all the different things it takes to make rural America work, which is if rural America doesn't work, the country doesn't work very well.
38:04
And so there's a lot of just how do we start reaching out to other groups to make a holistic message instead of just being kind of narrowly focused on the band. Well, there is a big movement and there's so much technology going on in the ag market now too. How does that market correlate with your market? How do those two industries work together? I think it's not been fully utilized yet, really. I think the... So, I mean, obviously...
38:33
Obviously, if you go out to the golf course, you're seeing robots mowing golf courses now. I haven't been in one these brand new combines, but I hear stories from my friends that own them. they're ultimately autonomous robots that we can take control of if we need to or want to. all of that stuff is going to start running on technology and obviously requires infrastructure to do so.
39:04
So like that is going to continue to evolve and become more efficient. But I mean, you know, the amount of data that people are, it's not just about physically harvesting the crops or planting them or whatever. It's also about, you know, what's all the big data? All the reports. the inputs more efficient, know, the harvest, have a greater yield. I mean, it's all these different things. So I think just ensuring that rural America and our agricultural
39:32
producers in particular have access to that is important. But again, it's not just about that. We have to have schools to have farmers. In these areas, have to have communities that can support, be self-sustaining so that we can even get access to that kind of stuff. it's really, it's healthcare. So you'll hear a lot more, I think, of us talking about not just broadband, we have to continue to talk about that, but what's broadband, why? What it does. What it does.
40:01
For us, for rural America, it's really got to be about uh agriculture, healthcare, and education. That's what the world enables. So one of your customers in rural Kansas, that's the benefit for all of this funding. yeah, whether it's healthcare, education, et cetera. Starting your own business. You mentioned uh something there about private equity. I saw an Instagram post from...
40:29
I don't know the person, but one of your employees, it, let me read it. I want to make sure I get it right. Some networks are built to sell and Twin Valley is built to last. What does that mean to you? Well, you know, look, you know, I have friends in private equity. I don't think it's, it's not necessarily a good or bad thing. just, it is what it is then. Sure. You know, like, so, you know, people invest in private equity.
41:00
Many of them are there for a return on their investment. And that's kind of the full stop, end of their story. That's why they're there. And so when you see any industry pop up when all of sudden there's grant dollars available, I've seen this before and I'll take a brief sideways, or a tangent here, like in Clay Center, we had some uh grant money that came out from the USDA for housing, affordable housing.
41:30
and private equity group came in there and built these slab homes. um They looked good for about five years. And then things started to fall apart. But that group was already, they'd already sold, they were on down the road. And why wouldn't you do that? If you're in it solely for if you're in it for financials, then that's what you're so it just is what it is. I'm not saying it's bad. But I think when you're policymaker,
41:59
I think our policymakers are failing to take that into account the full way that they should. So when we just want to highlight, not just for policymakers, but for our customers. mean, there's been competitors that have come in and they're not getting contractors that are doing locates. They're putting their networks like that deep underneath the, it's just really not quality work.
42:29
you know, that's built to last. And you probably know this, I the industry talks about it. So instead of like complaining about it, we just want to make sure people are all aware. There's just differences there. And if you're a business that needs to stay up, and you're running a hospital or a critical care facility, there's going to be differences in reliability there based on how networks get constructed. so we just want to- you never know what's being-
42:58
transported. I remember years ago, you know, I was a splicer for McLeod way back in the day. And I can remember we were doing a cut over one night in Des Moines and there's a knock on the door of the trailer and it's sheriff. What are you boys doing? That's like the third time for the third time. you know, we knocked the 911 down. 911 service was down. you know, we missed it on
43:26
all of the planning, it was missed that that circuit was on there. And like, he's at our door, like, get this up now. You never know what could be, what can be affected by that. So the other point too, I guess is, uh it's different when that's your own backyard. You feel differently about how you wanna take care of that, being your home, your neighbors, et cetera.
43:55
versus just a percentage point, if you will. That's another part that I think the policymakers miss is that they think the customer service that we have is too expensive. Some of them do. A lot of them don't. They do get it. But when you look at our penetration rates for the NTCA membership, they're dramatically higher than anybody else that's serving rural America.
44:22
Starlink is asked for a waiver. They want waivers to have professional installation that we do all the time to get around some of the requirements of the BEAT funding. We have much higher penetration because we go the extra mile to help our elderly, help the ones that need extra help in rural America to get connected to the internet. So it's not just about the network and building that stuff out there. You have to have people that care about making it easy to get.
44:52
people that might have difficulty uh to get onto the network and see how they can help use it and benefit from it. without that, you're wasting the public dollars. You're building really nice networks to go past people that are still not taking advantage of that network. We had Green Hills Telephone on here recently, and I know they had a program where they were doing public Wi-Fi in some of their towns to parks and schools and different places like that. you doing similar type of work? Yeah.
45:22
Yeah, there's a really cool idea um that's going on in uh Tennessee. uh One of my good friends, Jonathan West, is on the board with me actually at NTCA, is part of a group that they've started this, what they're called, Trilite Mobile. So it's an MVNO, and we're an MVNO, so we can provide uh mobile devices and service via the, like we use the Verizon network, to our customers. They're rebranding that.
45:51
In fact, and I think they're even using that brand, using the same brand for all of their different cooperatives. I don't think they'll happen to be cooperatives. They're also using that for their community Wi-Fi. So they're starting to build this kind of like statewide brand of Tri-Lite, both on community Wi-Fi and with their mobile service, that I think is really kind of exciting to do. I think there's some opportunities for our industry to think larger like that, to really help
46:21
provide a national kind of brand or certification that really does highlight the differences between NTCA members who I think do the best job in all the competition that's out there. So I think there's a lot of things that are very creative that are out there. of course, we're going to do those. We're doing the MVNO. We've started community Wi-Fi. But I think that's not the end point. That's just kind of the starting point.
46:50
Yeah, I look forward to seeing the impact you have over the next few years. Yeah. With that, before we wrap up, any message or anything you want to say to your team while we got you here? Oh man, well, so the Twin Valley team, if there's anybody that makes me feel kind of irrelevant, it's the Twin Valley team. Like I keep thinking that they need me to do something. And by the time we get on, you know, kind of annual calls about like, where are we going or whatever.
47:18
I mean, they're set the bar, you know, with that's out there. So, you know, the one thing that I want to share that they're working on and doing is around, you know, creating kind of these exponential concepts using AI for our company and how we work. So, you know, we're talking about how do we keep our, same service that we're known for having and also
47:47
enabling people in the community that care so much about their neighbors, just like we do, um help support that. So an example could be, right now we have our technicians that are trained to handle all the problems, They oh got trucks and tools and all the different things to go out there. And sometimes we cover 6,000 square miles, which is like size of Connecticut. So it's a big area. sometimes we'll send a technician an hour, an hour and a half.
48:15
to go take care of a router reset for a customer or something like that. Obviously, we tried to avoid that, but sometimes you can't. What if there's somebody in the community that we just go ahead and pay $100 to whatever to take care of that problem for them with their neighbor that they already might be their plumber or their electrician or whatever. They already know that person that's there. there's going to be, I think, for us to stay relevant.
48:43
and be competitive with the competition that's coming through. They're charging $35 for 500 megs. They're all being very aggressive on pricing because their service is not particularly good. So they have to be very aggressive on price. The team is starting to come up with all these experiments on how do we become much more efficient, not like 5 % more efficient or 10 % more efficient, but like 50 % more efficient in different areas. So I'm really excited.
49:11
a lot of traction there and what they're doing. I just kind of get out of the way. When they start running these experiments and kind of cheerlead them and things like that, but some of the things they're doing are really exciting. Yeah, well, and obviously when they have that much input into the process, they're going to buy into it way more than if it's downhill. that's awesome.
49:38
I can't thank you enough for spending some time with us today. It was great to meet you and enjoyed the heck out of talking with you. So it's been great. Thank you so much. you, you guys. I mean, I've been fortunate enough to watch your guys' podcast and what you do for the industry, but CBM and this podcast, I it just continues to, you guys are looking for ways to add value. So appreciate you guys doing what you are. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thanks Tim. All right.
50:03
Just wanted to say thanks again to Ben for joining us. We really appreciate him spending some time with us this morning. It was great for me to get to know him a little bit better. So thank you. And I appreciate everything that we're able to do with Twin Valley over the years. 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 at cbmrep.com. Appreciate you watching Power of the Network. And until next time, we'll see you next time.
