Welcome to another episode of Power the Network.
I'm your host, Tim Locker, vice President of Broadband here at CBM.
One of the things I love about doing this podcast is being able to meet new people, and today we've got a special guest, Jade pyros De Carvallo.
She is the director for the State of Kansas Office of Broadband.
We've got a great conversation today.
It was a great opportunity for me to finally meet her, and let's not waste any more time and get into our conversation.
Jade, thank you so much for being here today.
It's a pleasure to get to meet you finally and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Tell me a little bit like how did you get into broadband?
Yeah, well, thanks Tim for having me.
I always love hearing these stories too, about how people fell into this industry because it's not often an intentional choice to go into broadband.
And much of my career was in the marketing and kind of public relations space.
But in one of those roles as a mark or, I was working for my local Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development organization.
On the board of directors for that organization was a young man who owned a rural fiber Selek, and so we just got to know each other, had to mutual respect because of similar work ethics, similar values.
And then I was recruited away from that role to run a marketing company for a consortion of Kansas owned newspapers, so kind of lost touch with him.
He pivoted the company from being a fiber to the home business to a fiber to the tower business, built a couple thousand miles fiber across Kansas and then ended up selling that company and then retooling it with the scraps and wanted to He invited me on to do the marketing and sales for that company.
So the idea was to return back to the company's original roots, which was bringing fiber broadband to underinvested, really really rural small communities.
We're talking a couple hundred people, and I knew nothing about broadband, right This is around the twenty fifteen timeframe, and that's where I really cut my teeth and was able to join the company.
It was about fifteen people do a little bit of everything, So it's kind of how I fell into it and just really love it.
You know, it's not the most exciting topic to a lot of people.
But there's a lot of different directions you can go in this industry, from engineering marketing, so oh yeah, yeah, it's great.
It's really a small industry, you know, over the years, you know, I've been doing this for gosh, going on thirty years now, but in different roles.
But yeah, you see the same faces.
You know, they may be wearing a different shirt from time to time, but it's really a tight knit group of folks for sure.
Yeah, and all of them are really friendly and I'm helpful.
So it's been good.
So in you know, we sell mostly outside plant products.
Yeah, you know, we do some DC power work and et cetera.
But as a sales guy calling on an independent TOCO for example, you know, we're really focused on that side of you know, the outside planning, construction, et cetera.
From a marketing standpoint, what are we missing as salespeople?
How can we help the companies that we're you know, trying to market to differently and not just think solely on outside plan Is there something we can do, you know, along the marketing lines that we can help these companies differently.
That's a great question, I will say.
With the company, the company that I was with was quite small and going into markets that were really difficult to make the economics work right, very sparsely populated areas, and it's really about what can your product do to make the business case more feasible, right, and really marketing the way that you can bring efficiencies to the table.
A big part of my job, even though I was in the in the marketing space, was the stakeholder engagement CAN and partnership coordination because you really had to leverage partnerships and resources to make things happen that wouldn't that wouldn't necessarily work, such as you know, how can you talk with a co op and do a poll attachment agreement at a less expensive rate?
Sure, how could you you know, get some sort of right of way concessions from county leadership along dirt roads to make to make it easier.
So I really think highlighting the way that your products bring cost efficiencies is not maybe the sexiest message, but you know, you look at BEAD in this or the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Act that state broadband offices are are administering and and those dollars are going into spaces that there's a reason that there's not broadband there, right, it's because it's never been economically feasible.
And so, uh, the biggest scoring component of of winning a grant with these funds is something called minimal beatout lay.
And you're going to find this across all fifty six states and territories.
Even though everyone's going to have a different scoring rubric, the biggest component in that scoring for any subgrant is how are you asking for the least amount of government funding to deploy that network?
And so bringing products to the table that help lower that beat out lays is going to put applicants had a competitive advantage.
Sure, well that brings up another topic when I think about that.
So one of my concerns with you know, all of the funding that we're putting towards the broadband is how do we make these networks last?
Yeah?
You know, we've already seen some projects even having to be rebuilt you know, in yeah, ten, twelve years, et cetera.
Uh, and you know this money is not going to last forever.
Yeah, and we talk about having to do things, uh, you know, future future proof the network, et cetera.
Ruh, but how do we how do we maintain that philosophy, but then still go down the how do we do it as cheap as possible?
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
How do you balance that?
But I think you bring up a good point and it's what I've referred to oftentimes as the bye cheap by twice mentality that we've really utilized through all previous efforts to bridge the digital divide.
You know, you you have these reverse auctions with the lowest bidder coming in, but then there's not really proper vetting on the on the front side to ensure the financial, technical, and managerial capability to do the project, and there's no compliance on the backside to ensure that the taxpayer got their dollars worth and the commitments or obligations were made under those agreements.
So a lot of these decisions on future proofing and building sustainable networks.
The last were made at the federal level in the legislation when fiber was chosen as the prioritized technology for grant winners, and so to the extent possible, every state is being encouraged to deploy as much fiber as they can.
Now we know that the formula for allocating these bead dollars wasn't perfect, and some states got a lot more than they needed us some states have a big shortfall, and so Kansas, for instance, we estimate with our cost modeling that we'll be able to deliver about seventy five percent of networks fiber and then we'll be looking at sixth wireless for the other twenty five percent.
But I think even within these alternative technologies, there's a lot of exciting innovation happening, and there needs to be an eye for the more innovative and longer lasting technologies within that bucket.
Right, So, even with fiber, are you going to use GPONN or XGS pond?
Within wireless, are you going to use equipment that is going to be backwards compatible as it's upgraded?
You know at at the tower?
Where are you going to have to do a complete rip and replace every couple of years, which is what we've we've been funding, right with a lot of government grants.
I was going to ask that too, in terms of future proofing, Uh, what do you think plays more into that role the actual fiber itself, you know, the outside plant components or the electronics that we're that we're utilizing.
It's a good question And I'm not a network engineer.
I'm a marketer and a policy a policy person.
But I would say that if you build a network really sustainable and resilient with with good duct and you know, strong components, that the electronics are can be you know, switched out every ten years as we have greater bandwidth needs.
There are other, I think components of a network that are being glossed over from a future proofing standpoint with beads, such as you know, latency.
I think the latency requirements on these networks under the legislation are only like sub one hundred milliseconds, so we know that, you know, some of the technology coming out today is going to need you know, sub thirty, sub eight milliseconds.
But I think we can't boil the ocean with this program.
But we're going to do our darnness to ensure that the dollars are spent in a way that doesn't doesn't leave people out of luck in seven ten years like a lot of these programs have.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.
You know Kansas, uh, you know, my old territory was Iowa, Nebraska, and I think Nebraska and Kansas have a lot of similarities, especially you know, the further west you go, obviously you've got a lot smaller population.
And some of my customers out there, you know, they were forced you know, years ago to do fiber to the home in the rural, you know, before the cities, because you know, they could, they could maintain this they needed, you know, still on copper in town.
But when you've got a ranch that's forty miles away, there's no other way to exactly take care of it.
So I'm sure you're dealing with the same.
Well, yeah, and I think you'll see that a lot in Kansas that you'll go into these really rural spaces and they'll be one hundred percent fiber to the prem And then some of the cities, like for instance, I'm from Hutchinson.
We were a community of forty thousand.
I now live in the northeast part of the state.
But we didn't we didn't have fiber to the home, you know, in Hutchinson.
But in all the small communities in Reno County, many of them, you know, Yoda, Kansas, population like one hundred, they had fiber.
Yeah, you know, well, I live in a small town in Iowa.
Slater Huxley Communications built fiber to the home in that town.
I don't remember exactly, but early two thousands, two thousand and one, two thousand two.
Yeah, and so I've had it, I mean as long as I can remember, we've we've spoiled.
Now, there's been a lot of things changed in you know, twenty plus years.
They don't construct it and do it the same, you know as they did true back then, but a lot of it was direct buried, which you know, we you know, kind of shoot ourselves now for that.
But why do you say that, Well, I mean it's instead of putting in, getting instead of putting in.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's still you know, pretty pretty well maintained, depending on the depths.
And but yeah, we have a lot of rural elects that are one hundred percent fiber in all of their exchanges and have been for the better part of a decade or more.
So.
It's it's really incredible.
So what does uh, what does a bad funding do for a company like that that's that's built out.
Are they looking at just areas to expand?
Yeah, how do we manage how do we manage that and maintain a good business model if you're you know, all of a sudden build a network that's one hundred miles away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, good question.
So a lot of these rural elects also have a sea leg right, and so their exchange might be one hundred percent fiber or maybe I haven't quite gotten to that.
We've got some that that still have a lot of DSL in their exchanges, so be it'll definitely be an opportunity for them because we did what is called DSL pre modifications and our initial proposal which basically designates any DSL location is underserved and BET eligible.
Okay, so exchanges that or Islex that you know, still have a lot of copper in their networks, will we'll be able to to bid to bring those up to fiber.
But a lot of role isles that I've spoken with are really looking at this as an opportunity to edge out their networks it through Celex and and really get to areas outside of their exchange that you know, we still we still have a lot of locations that have like there's there on GEO they don't even have LEAs satellite right, and so how do we get to them if they're you know, a full mile away from play.
Yeah, So I think it'll it'll be an interesting dilemma trying to get to those onesies and twosies, especially considering that a lot of our grant programs through the FCC and even USDA created the pockets that make it more difficult, Like they gave grants for the population centers, which really made getting to those last five to ten percent even yeah, more difficult.
Really.
Yeah.
I mean, let's face it, if there's not enough customers to make it pay, that's that's how we got in this, you know, into the first place.
Yeah, you know, the big boys aren't interested in you know, putting three miles of fiber in to go to one farm.
You know, yeah, it doesn't make sense now, So I think we all know, you know, how we got into this.
You know why the areas are underserved, and you know, being from a small town or small communities, especially in the rural a lot of farmers, rural people, small communities, sometimes they feel kind of left out or you know, not counting for and you know, and I think COVID probably had a big turn on this obviously as people are moving and working from home.
But you know, talk a little bit about why broadband for everybody is is really so important.
Yeah, well, I it's a great question, and it's why I really enjoy this job because I feel like it's mission based and I get to I get to come in every day with this goal in mind, and that is to connect every canson.
And I see broadband as an opportunity equalizer, right, There's a lot that goes into you know, the success of an individual or a household or or a business.
But so it's more than broadband.
But broadband is certainly such a vital component of quality of life and opportunity for people to fully participate in society.
Really, you can't do a whole lot without a broadband connection.
You can't you know, apply for government services or a job, you can't you know, take part in telehealth or education opportunities, the same way you can't work remotely.
And I can remember I, in my former job, had moved more into the policy kind of broadband expansion advocacy space government relations, and I would I would talk to lawmakers about the critical nature of this service and how it was part and parcel with like our everyday lives, and I would get comments.
I remember a congressman telling me, well, that's like building a paved road when a dirt road would do you know, if people want if people want Netflix, they can move into town.
And you know, you try to bring in all this data around the homework gap, you know in households with school age kids with broadband and without, but there wasn't there just wasn't a lot of data to really prove the point.
And then the pandemic hits and it's like I could just skip over seventy five percent of my shield because I didn't need to spend so much energy convincing people that it wasn't this nice to have amenity, but that it was like you know, in everyday utility, and we could just talk about solutions and how we're going to get it into PE's hand hands.
And then now you know, now there's money to do that.
And so not only am I in this position to help, you know, facilitate these these connections, but there's money to do so.
And so I think it's a really interesting time in the history of our country where we're we all have this recognition that you know, connecting every home and business is you know, this common goal and something that the kind of bare minimum we have to do as a country, and and there's money to get it done.
So it's really exciting.
Yeah, that's yeah, that's a great opportunity for you to you know, you're just like, see, I told you you know, I tried not to say I told you so.
But it was interesting how, yeah, how attitudes and the general zeitgeist of lawmakers changed after the pandemic.
Pandemic made it really really clear and exacerbated those inequities quite frankly, especially between rural and urban areas.
You know, kids just yeah, where certain people were able to go and work from home and and other people were just lost their jobs, you know, exactly had different impacts.
And it definitely had different impacts for women too.
It took a lot of women out of the workforce because of that access to broadband.
I was speaking with We have our largest rural ilek in Kansas, has you know, some customers that are way way out from their fiber line and they're they're serving them with a really quality wireless product.
But talking to the woman who homeschools all four of her kids and has a full time job, remote job that she's able to do because of that connection and couldn't do it, quite frankly, during the pandemic because she was unable to work because she didn't have broad dank connections.
So it definitely is making an impact on the workforce and on individuals, you know, opportunities.
Yeah, for sure.
No, that's great.
So if you get anything out of this episode, you know, just remember that we work in several different markets.
We've got expertise in many areas, and if we don't, we've got the relationships to find the answers that are right for you.
We go really deep with our relationships and that's really what we value here at CBM.
If we can be of service to you, please reach out cbmrep dot com.
Talk a little bit about your Broadband Ready Community program.
Yeah, I'm a little interested in that, Like what does that actually do?
Do you tell me how it works.
You're going out and visiting with you know, mayor's city, city councils, et cetera, just selling why they need to upgrade their broadband or what's what's the spiel.
Yeah, I'm glad you asked about this because I feel like it's such a full circle moment because I when I was on the private side, I was trying to convince our broadband office to introduce a program like this, but they were so small and just didn't have any capacity to do so.
But this is something that has been successfully done in states like Indiana and Tennessee and Georgia the last few years, and it's really just a tool to educate local government about how to make their communities more friendly to broadband investment by lowering just the simplest barriers so it doesn't require it's not a big ask, one single point of contact for broadband deployment projects at the city, reviewing any kind of permit or application within thirty days, moving to online applications if you don't have electronic filing of permits, and then not charging unreasonable fees for these permits.
And then the last thing is just operating in a non discriminatory manner, So allowing anybody to use your right of way not discriminating.
And now this is all in a state statute, but it's just not really people don't really know about it.
People don't really know about it, and it's not really enforced if you're not doing it.
So if there are communities out there that might be using, say permitting fees for as a revenue stream, when you're really precluded from from charging fees that are greater than the administrative costs of issuing the permits right.
And so we're working with our Association of Counties and League of Kansas Municipalities and also going out to communities during regional planning, so where we've identified about twelve regions that have a lot of BEAD eligible locations and we're trying to convene all the stakeholders and have a really community driven conversation about designing a network that works for them.
And that's when when we, you know, really start to get into the what are you doing on your side to bring something to the table.
I can remember pre pandemic talking to one county and there there was this group of people who really wanted broadband out in this rural area.
So we used to operate in tiny towns.
But even tiny towns are huge compared to these excerbs or whatever you want to call them, where there's one season ties across a country road and you'd get a group of broadband champions.
So just knock down your door, you know, for you've got to bring us broadband, and we'd run a typical business case.
Oh wow, it's never gonna happen.
Okay, well, then how can we be creative?
Can we do this?
This?
This?
And remember there was one community where we thought, if we can just talk the county commissioners into letting us Bury along the edge of the road instead of in the ditch, we can make it work.
Right.
You would have thought we were asking for their firstborn man, like that was not going to happen.
But this was pre pandemic, right, Well it's post pandemic now and they're going to be a broadband randy community.
They're one hundred percent on board, and so really it's just about educating, educating policy makers that there's a reason why there is a broadband in these spaces, and it's because it's very difficult.
And what can they bring to the table to help make it more feasible.
Yeah, yeah, really, it doesn't make any sense at all for a city or a municipal to to make it difficult, you know, frankly, because it's going to better their town.
You know, people in general, they want to live, you know, they know the need for broadband, and they're going to live in a place where they have it.
Well, I agree, but I also think it's lost on providers sometimes that in these rural communities especially, you know, municipalities, you may have one part time clerk and that's it, you know, and that person is and they might be working for a couple of cities exactly, and so there's just not a lot of capacity.
And so we try at the Broadband Office to be that that liaison and also a resource and and and helping get these these ideas off the ground and you know, facilitating those partnerships.
So really educating both sides as to you know, what what are the struggles eacher going through and how can we work together to get this done?
Now, you were you were mayor of Hutcheson for I was six years.
Well I was on the council for for ten years and I had three terms as mayor, so two year terms just one year terms other one year Yeah, okay, okay.
Were you an advocate of broadband then or well it was a little dice ier then because I was working for a broadband provider, but within the city proper, we did not have underserved areas.
We had you know, two competitive cable providers, uh no fiber really except to businesses.
But definitely an advocate at the county level for for broadband expansion, and we worked in some areas too to facil facilitate fiber builds and even wireless builds during the pandemic.
Oh that's great.
Yeah, I was on the I was on our city council for six years.
Uh, broadband was never the issue.
Like I said, we've had fiber the home in town for for twenty years.
But it was sewer and water.
Yeah, it was was the big Yeah, the big issue.
So we actually just put in a new sewer facility that grows algae and they harvested algae and then use that for fertilizer.
It's it's kind of neat stage.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's always there's always something on the city level that's you know, a main focus in town.
Yeah.
So no shortage of challenges and where you can spend your money, Yeah, for sure.
So a little bit more about the bad program.
What is different about BEAD than say the NOFAH grants or some of the other funding problems that we've seen in the past.
For me as a sales guy, you know, we see a list you know, X y Z all these people are getting all this money and we all flock to them.
Try to sell them stuff.
But I mean, what's the difference what makes one program maybe better for a company than the next.
Yeah, well, I do think that BEAD has has a lot more strings attached to it.
It's being administered completely differently, so it's not being administered from the federal agency level down.
It's going through the states with bottom up input.
So do you like that so that the state level gets more focused on where they want to put the money?
Is that?
Is that a good thing?
Well?
Obviously, I think it's a great job, you know, But I do think that you know, the closer government is to the people, the more they you know, they understand the problems on more granular level and are better better equipped to solve them with input from the people they affect, right, And so I I love that it's being done at the state level and I and I also like that it's it's requiring stakeholder engagement at the local level.
So there's a lot of outreach and planning, local planning done and engagement on the on the survey side to to really understand the lived experiences of people in the digital divide in Kansas and and also from the provider side understand the challenges they're going through to getting broadband into the spaces that have been historically disconnected for ages.
Right, So I think it's a good model, but it's almost like they've taken every everything that's gone wrong with former programs and tried to build in some kind of safeguard and now there that has led to a lot of strings to these grants that haven't been in prior programs and might make it a little more challenging for resource strapped What would be an example of said strengths, Well, well, the build America by America.
Usually those those requirements are waived for most government grant programs, and there are certain components, certain components that will be waived.
In fact, that waiver just came out last Friday, I believe.
Yeah, but there there are also a great deal of components the O and ts olts that the fiber that must be sourced from here in America, which I think overall is great that we are forcing the issue of on shoring.
Well, I think if we learned anything through COVID, it was the supply chain.
Yeah, you know, it's been a global supply chain, and you know we can't always count on that, so we do need to bring some of that back home, and so I'm really I'm happy to see that, but we haven't yet received guidance on how to how to really monitor that, how to verify it, and so providers are a little skittish on the amount of bureaucracy that may be involved with that.
That's just one that's just one component.
The letter of credit was something that I know smaller providers were concerned about.
There have been some loosening of those restrictions, but still a program geared to those with access to most equity, right, even though it's supposed to be a program that really allowed for the intrigue of non traditional providers such as you know, co ops and nonprofits and muni broadband, right, smaller, minority owned, lots of lots of different players were supposed to have equal access to the funding.
And I think there's still those efforts to ensure that they do.
But looking at the totality of the the requirements, it's it's a lot.
You know, with within the different states, you know, how do you work together with Saint Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, you know, all the different all the different states.
Uh, I assume you collaborate some, but I suppose there's a little bit of independence as well.
Tell me a little bit about the different relationships with the states.
Well, I have got to tell you, the group of State Broadband Directors nationwide is so wonderful and pretty tight.
So we have this group called State Broadband Leaders Network that was facilitated by the NTI a years ago back during I think like the ara A days of State Broadband Initiative during you know, the Obama Reinvestment Act.
Okay, so there were some state broadband leaders out of that never any money toward broadband, but states given a little bit of funding for you know, some mapping and maybe one person and you know, the state to kind of head up some broadband efforts.
And so the State Broadband Leader's Network came out of that, and the NTIA still keeps this group going.
We have every other week meetings zoom meetings.
We meet twice a year in person.
We just met in February in Philadelphia and share best practices, and then we have a Google group where we share best practices all the time.
I mean, I'm texting constantly with other State broadband leaders, and I think there's this idea that there's all this competition.
You know, Antaria has this dashboard and the state's you know here, and the state's there.
But you've got to remember every state has a different strategy for when they want to go into the subgrant process and when they want to get fed dollars out the door, and so it's not necessarily indicative of which state is doing a better job.
Every time I talk to another state, there are so many things that I think they're doing, They're doing really great that I'd like to steal, right, and they think the same way.
So it's a lot of back and forth.
We can't take all the great ideas and produce them all because we just never move forward.
I like to make decisions quickly and you know, keep the ball rolling.
But yeah, work really closely with a lot of state broadband directors.
Yeah.
Well, not to put you on the spot, but I know the big question, what everybody wants to know is when will the money hit the shot?
Well, that is a wonderful question.
Now, Well, Kansas's strategy is to move as quickly as possible.
So we have had our Volume two into the ENTIA for several months and are just waiting approval on that before we begin next steps towards the subgrant process.
We've already gone through our challenge process and we're submitting those results in TIA has to review your process and sign off before you can move to the subgram process, which is what everybody cares about, right, Yeah, the subgrant is where you're breaking it down to the individual awarding.
Well, it's basically where you release this is what the application is going to look like, and you allow people to then come in apply, apply.
Yeah, but between Volume one and Volume two and subgrant is you know, there's a lot of other steps.
That's also a misconception.
Okay, states need to do five year action Plan, Volume one, Volume two challenge and then then they're off.
But for states that are designating project funding areas like Kansas will have to do that high level design and get those areas out for people to view.
We've committed to publishing those least two weeks before we start the subgrant process.
We have to build a grants application portal, and there's a lot of just always constant back and forth with NTIA in between each of these steps and lots of approval volumes of paperwork.
So right now, because Kansas is one of you know, one of the ones that has chosen to move really quickly.
Ntia is kind of moving along with us, and so there's not necessarily processes in place for them to Like, yesterday was the day we got the process for submitting our challenge results right, and so Louisiana, Virginia, and Kansas have all done their challenge right, and so we're just kind of waiting, like how do we submit these And so they're you know, they're they're working as quickly as they can and then we're waiting and as soon as they're ready to go, we're ready for the next step.
So really trying to stay one step ahead of the process.
We hope to get our sub grant process open in June.
If all goes well, hopefully we'll have our project funding areas out end of March or even it might be April.
So we want people to be able to look at these areas and have an idea of if they're interested in applying, and start the design the design conversations.
Yeah, I mean we we already we already published that we were going to look at school districts as a starting point, so people can start thinking about where they want to edge out their networks.
But obviously that's not going to work in every school district.
We have two hundred and eighty six school districts in Kansas, and some of those will be combined, some of those will be split apart.
Some of those will include components of you know, maybe a few locations in another district.
We really want to have an eye to wear is existing plant and how can we design a project funding area that's going to induce interest in bidding on it, because none of this works if you just throw out an arbitrary area.
This one thing I was wondering too, it's if if nobody takes debate, if you will, yeah, I mean, well, could it be that, you know, companies are forced to build you know, yeah, I don't.
I don't think so.
But we have enough flexibility built into a second or third round.
If I mean, there's it might just be that later it's going to cost more to build it, because that's why there it is.
And I think that if in Tia, it say, a state gets to the last round of funding and there are areas no one wants anything to do with, I think NTIA is going to be amenable to you know, applications for waiver of the twenty five percent match, because one thing we're really hearing is, you know, this can't be done for seventy five percent public.
Yeah, you know funding some of these networks, even if you if you one hundred percent subsidized the capex.
Uh, they're still worried about the long term operational costs, right, And so I think those are hard conversations we're going to have to have at the the last few percent of those locations.
But who knows.
I mean, it's all it's all guesswork until we get the subgrant process out and we see what the entry is on the bidding side.
Yeah, oh, we'll see what We'll see what comes of it.
Yeah.
You know, when I look at at Kansas in particular, you know, one thing I noticed is not a lot of activity with utility companies.
Are you see in the broadband space?
Is there a reason behind that?
Or I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
You know.
It's it's interesting because if you look at say Arkansas, they're very engaged, built out an entire Missouri Uri Oklahoma both there are Yeah, active.
We have one role electric that is really in the broadband space and that's Butler but really just hasn't caught on in Kansas.
I think that they want to really stick with their core mission.
But you know, there are so many efficiencies if you you know, you already owned the poles, absolutely, but it's also a completely different industry and it's not like any body can spin up and I some think is just education.
You know.
Yeah, if you're not han't been doing it forever and it's brand new, you're going to have your reservations.
You know, we deal with that with It really doesn't matter who could be a contractor, it could be a utility.
But like you know, we've done it this way for the last thirty years and we're going to keep doing this way, you know, So sometimes the change is difficult, but yeah, and there's you know, there's risk involved, and so it really just depends on how much the members push it.
We do also just have a lot of strong ur les in Kansas, and so they're already taking care of a lot of these rural spaces.
Even though we have I would say maybe eighty five eighty seven thousand beat eligible locations, that's a lot lower percentage than in some states.
You look at Missouri, they have you know, a couple hundred thousand, and many of them in the Ozarks, so it's going to be hard because yeah, yeah, real quick, I wanted to touch on this.
So you were announced last year twenty twenty three Woman of the Year of Kansas for USA.
Where did you dig that?
UT?
I can't divulge my resources, but I thought that was great.
I read that article and you know, tell me a little bit about what that meant to you.
Yeah.
Well, I got this phone call and it was an editor of a paper and they said, well, you know, I'm calling to tell you you have been selected as the twenty twenty three Kansas One of the Year by USA Today.
And I'm like, really like why.
I mean, not that I'm a terrible person, but I think my comment was, you know, I could name a dozen women in this building alone that are more deserving of this honor.
So it was certainly a mind blowingly enormous on for me.
Well, I look through the list, you know, across the country.
I mean there's some there's some very big names there.
Yeah, that's you're incorporated with.
So yeah, I thought that was great.
I had one quote I wanted you to touch on.
Oh God, just make sure I get it right.
But so, so I read in the article you said that you put everyone on the same level and that you can learn from anyone in the room.
It's not about proving your point, but standing up for what's right, even if it's unpopular.
When when did you come to that realization?
And how's that affected you?
Oh?
Goodness, I mean, I think I've always benefited from the generosity of people's knowledge and just been really attuned to the fact that I'm never the smartest, the smartest one in the room.
And so that's I think a real gift because I can, you know, I can always learn from people.
But but knowing that has made me, yeah, I guess endeavor to help others recognize that too.
And one way that really came to fruition was when I was on council and we had we had ten different city level commissions a commission for everything, right, panning commission, housing commission, you know, historical commission.
And it was like the same people and the same type of person were was always they were always appointed to these commissions, right, And and I knew that that wasn't in the best interests of our city because you're only hearing from a tiny, tiny percentage of people in the community and usually people with the same experiences, and so really pushed for a complete change in the policy of appointments.
In fact, last time I was mayor, I just I just paused all appointments, said I'm not appointing anybody to any commission.
It was it was unpopular, but I tried to pitch it in a way that like, like we've we've done it this way for a long long time, and we're just not bringing new voices to the table.
So I guess that would be one example.
But I do think that that like that particular instance, maybe it wasn't popular at the moment, but now it's really it's really popular because we have younger people now on those commissions, we have people representing groups that were completely left out of the conversation before.
And it's really come in handy in this job because my background is very fiber heavy, you know, and I come into this role I know nothing about satellite broadband, I know nothing about the spectrum wireless.
I just you have to have a level of humility and learn from every provider, learn about you know, everybody, what everybody's offering.
And then on the digital equity side, just going into communities and understanding the lived experiences of people with say disabilities, or or people and aging populations who are completely intimidated by use of the internection.
You know, and if you if you go in there with this kind of I know what you need mentality, you're not going to get anywhere.
And you're also gonna not gonna learn anything, not gonna be a very effective policy maker.
And so I think it's coming handy.
But you really really pulled that one out of out of nowhere and didn't didn't let me know you're gonna ask that we try to do our research.
That was great, dar Google, darn you Google.
No.
Jade, it was an absolute pleasure to meet you today.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Uh.
You know, the people are Kansas are lucky to have you, and I know you're doing great things there.
So thanks Skim for joining Well, thanks for the opportunity.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Wow, what a what a great conversation we had with Jade today.
Uh, you know, I really appreciate her coming in and spending some time with us.
Uh, such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to broadband and funding, et cetera.
I'm sure you all enjoyed that as much as I did.
You know, always remember uh.
If you're looking for great representations from a wonderful salesforce here in the Midwest, look us up here at cbmrep dot com, or you know, if you've got a if you've got an issue with the project and you're looking for a solution, you know, reach out to our folks here.
We're happy to help.
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Until next time, thanks for joining us on Power the Network.
