Jason Johns of Gateway Fiber | Power the Network Ep 8

In this episode of Power the Network, host Tim Locker interviews Jason Johns, Vice President of Construction at Gateway Fiber. Jason has over 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. He previously worked at Centurylink for 22 years before making the switch to Gateway Fiber about a year ago. Jason was attracted to Gateway Fiber because it is a smaller, growth-focused company with an aggressive build forecast.

In the interview, Jason discusses some of the challenges Gateway Fiber faces with its rapid expansion into new markets like Minneapolis. Educating new communities about who Gateway Fiber is and why they are building fiber networks in their city is an initial hurdle. Working with city governments to get permits approved in a timely manner is another bottleneck that throttles Gateway's ability to scale quickly. Reliable utility locating from private parties is also a major pain point that slows down Gateway's construction crews.

Jason stresses the importance of finding the right balance between quality and cost when building fiber networks. He notes that many companies fail to budget properly for long-term maintenance. Jason explains how developing clear standards, innovating on new products/processes, and nurturing relationships in the industry contribute to success.

Educating new markets about who Gateway Fiber is and why they are expanding there is an initial challenge
Getting city permits approved quickly enough to scale construction is a common bottleneck
Unreliable utility locating from private parties slows down build process
Need to find balance between quality and cost to build sustainable networks
Many companies don't properly budget for long-term maintenance costs
Developing standards and innovating on new products/processes drives efficiency
Cultivating strong relationships in the telecom industry is critical for success

Jason Johns provides an insightful look into the challenges and keys to success in building fiber-to-the-home networks based on his decades of experience. He offers practical perspectives on scaling construction, balancing quality and costs, budgeting for maintenance, innovating on new solutions, and developing relationships in the telecom industry.

Hi, Welcome to Power the Network.

I'm your host, Tim Locker, vice president of Broadband here at CBM.

Today's guest we have Jason Johns.

He's vice president of Construction for Gateway Fiber.

He's a wealth of knowledge.

I've got a lot of background in construction engineering, and today we have a great conversation about building fiber of the home projects and some of the challenges in today's market.

Thanks for joining us, Jason.

Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.

We really appreciate you being here.

We know you're busy guys, so thank you.

You spent twenty two years with Centralink and about a year ago you made the switch and you're working now for Gateway Fiber.

Telling you a little bit, what about Gateway Fiber grabbed your attention, made you want to go to work for him?

Well, thanks for having me here.

Really appreciate the opportunity.

Twenty two years of lumin I had a great time.

I started there with question communications back in long haul, had a lot of different rules and responsibilities, a lot of friends.

But it was time to move on.

About three years ago or so, I knew I wanted different, a change.

I knew what I wanted.

I wanted to get to a probably a smaller company, a growth company, and one that was you know fit my from people in culture perspective.

Okay, So I wasn't in a hurry to change.

I just started looking in the Gateway opportunity came up, like you said, about a year ago, and meeting with them and doing research and knowing some of the people over there.

It made the jump and it's been fantastic.

I love it over there.

We have a aggressive build forecast in front of us.

The people are great, you know, and it's just been a wonderful time so far.

That's awesome.

That's great.

So Gateway, you know, they're relatively new company founded in what I believe twenty nineteen from selling reconstruction.

Shout out to those guys, you know.

So they started building fiber to the home in communities in around Saint Louis.

Now, you know, four or five years later, like you said, your growth plan, you're you're jumping into multiple states.

Uh, you know, building fiber like crazy.

What are some of the challenges that you face with such an aggressive uh build schedule.

Well, it's a lot of fun for first, right, I mean, so we have a new markets team that really identifies our next area of opportunity.

And so really, when when you talk about going into a new market, there's a lot of different hurdles, challenges that you got to get through.

One, you got you got to educate the new community to who you are.

You know, you get up to you know, who is Gateway Fiber?

And so do you think that's more difficult when you say you make a jump from you know, it's one thing to go from Saint Louis to Columbia, maybe another thing to go from Saint Louis to Minneapolis.

Do you find that more difficult to educate the customers?

You know, it's a it's it's it's similar, you know, if they haven't heard about you.

I think I think in the Missouri market it was a little more uh natural, because we were just founded in Missouri and and our roots are here and so you know, we we know the landscape.

But when you go you know, the the questions we get when we go to like Minneapolis, for instance, we're building and blaming and coun rapids right now.

It's like, you know, why here, No, why did you choose us?

Why did you why did you disconnect that you know, a thousand miles away, you know, and so that education is part of it.

And that's one thing I was going to ask too, How do you identify that market that's so far away?

What what are the what are the things that you're looking for, you know as a business plan to where do you identify that market?

Well, I mean there's there's a lot of things that go into play there.

I mean, so when we when we look at new markets, we're looking at, you know, what what the competitive landscape looks like.

Is there fiber to the home at in these communities already?

Or are they underserved?

What is the density of the market, you know, you know, because I mean if if it's you know, you got a lot of underserved markets that might be three or four thousand people and they need to be served as well.

But you know up there, you know there's one hundred thousand underserved, you know, and so and so when you look at where to go next, you also want you know a little bit of runway, you know, from a growth perspective, Yeah, that makes sense.

How long will it take you to build to one hundred thousand homes one hundred thousand folks?

Well, I mean is that even in the plan, what's your of that you know, how much is that market do you plan in?

It's less about it's less about what you can build, because I mean you can, you can.

You can ramp with drill crews and material to build you know, however much you want.

But it's more about, you know, what the cities that you're building in can handle.

You know, because you have you have locate issues, you have you know, the cities, the cities can only process so many permits.

You know, there's throttling issues that that the city's put on us.

So so what we try to do, and you've seen it in our Saint Louis market, is we target you know, four or five different cities so that we can grow, you know, at a more rapid pace.

But if you but the cities themselves are sometimes the biggest challenge to work with, and it's because they they're just not supporting us.

You know, they got everything else they're supporting as well.

Well.

Why do you think that is?

I mean from the city's perspective, Uh, if you've got an underserved area, I mean, they have a lot to gain, you know.

People do, Uh, they pick where they're going based on broadband.

That's just something people do these days.

So I guess why would a city slow you down.

They don't do it on purpose, but they got other work, you know, they're they're they're they're doing their road projects, they're doing their you know, storm and water upgrades and there, and then they got other people doing work in their cities, you know, and so they only have so much capacity.

There's only so much city staff that can that can do this for Okay, so you've got educating the customers in the new markets, you know, hurdles that come along with the city permits, et cetera.

What what are some of the other hurdles you face, you know when we get into the construction phase of it.

One of the biggest things that that is problematic is uh utility locating you know, you know outside of the city.

Even so you got your your private party locating, you know, and you know, if if there's a delay in them locating, which is a big problem.

I mean, you know, there there's a a a lot of work going on in all these different municipalities and so if if if they're slow to respond, we can't drill, you know from an underground perspective or you know, if there's a if it's miss marked, you know, if they're not doing a good job locating, it slows us down as well, you know, and we are very you know, Gateway Fiber is very proud of our damage prevention program.

We we are hyper sensitive to a safe uh drilling practice and so you know, you know, it is important for us to drill safely in the communities because every every you know, household is a potential customer of ours.

So if we hit something, you know, even if it's our even if it's not our fault because the locate was off, it's still it's still reflects on us.

And so so that that locating, that third party locating is the biggestue force right now.

So for some of the folks that may not know what are the parameters of the locate?

So you call, you know, you call in and locate, what is what's the time frame?

Explain to people what that process, you know, from the day you call it into when you can actually work.

How does that work.

Every state's a little bit different, but you can you general guidelines are you know, from the time you call it in, it's it's two business days later.

So you can start about three days later.

You know, is that practical if you're calling in large swaths of area, it's not.

And so we try to manage that as well.

You know, from a locate perspective, the locate you know, uh ore spposed to be within two foot of the facilities.

So we're digging, we're pohole in the facilities.

And that mark on the ground, you know that that orange mark which is a communication line, or the yellow mark which is a gas line, it's supposed to be within two foot of where they put that paint down.

And so and so you know, we pohole all those areas and we start we started verified, make sure verify it's where and how deep it is, you know, because that'll that'll change where we put our put our pipe.

All right, real quick, let me tell you a little bit about what we do here at CBM.

So we're a manufacturers rep located here in the Midwest.

We work in three different vertical markets, utility space, we work in communications and also commercial industrial markets.

We've been in business since nineteen sixty been an employee owned eShop since nineteen eighty eight.

We really value that employee ownership in our organization, and I think it brings a lot to value our manufacturers as well.

So if we can be of any service to you and help you in your next project, or if you're a manufacturer looking for expert representation, feel free to reach out to us here at CBM at cbmrep dot com.

You know, one of the things that that companies seem to struggle with is the balance between you know, quality and cost.

And you know, we're we're all responsible to the being counters.

But what are you doing in your network to ensure that your infrastructure is going to last for twenty thirty years?

How do you ensure that quality?

Well, first of all, I mean from a from a you know, cost perspective.

You know, there is a lot of downward pressure.

I mean, we want to put the best network network in place at at a very you know, reasonably priced sure price point, you know, but it's twofold, right, I mean when you look at uh, you can't goal plate it either, right.

I mean there, you know, so you look at your labor costs, you look at your material costs, but it's all one right the way I look at it, it's it's really one unit.

Because you can have you know, you can be putting in a great product and if you're using cheap labor, then they might not be putting it together right.

Or you can be putting together.

You can be putting together.

You can have a cheap product with good labor and it's not gonna last.

So it's really it's really finding, you know, where your sweet spot is as a company on how how to go forward with that.

You know, you you really want to maintain the issues that we have in the industry right now.

To be honest with you is is you know when those maintenance costs that come up, you know, and you know, do you want them in five years?

Do you want them in ten years?

Do you want to you know?

When are when is this thing going to fail?

You know that you're gonna have to go out and replace that, And that's that's that's kind of that soft cost that it's hard to do.

You know what I guess in my opinion, I think a lot of companies don't budget for that.

You know, what I see is people are you know, either getting funding and they're or they're using cap X funds and building these projects, but they're not accounting for that maintenance down down the road and that you know, those maintenance dollars come right off the top end.

Yeah, I would say, I would say when you talk about budgeting, I think there is a budget for it, but it's kind of like a run rate budget.

It's not it's not on the front end.

It's not like, hey, this is going to save me money ten years down the road, like you know that.

You know, we're trying to be that thoughtful right now.

We're trying to understand you know, whether you know, whatever that product is, you know, whether that's that handhole, that splice case, what have you, that it is going to last.

I mean there's a lot of stuff that's coming into the market, as you're well aware, Yeah that's that's you know, it's flimsy, it's cheap, and you can tell it's not going to last.

Yeah, you know, they try to sell you on it might be you know, fifteen dollars cheaper, you know, but you know, you know, really the cost savings for a lot of this stuff is getting that product that fits your build plan, that's a solid product, and that maybe drives down labor.

If you can find that, I mean, you can spend more money on a handhold or a case if if it actually is it's gonna last longer or even in the better world, gonna you can you can drive the labor cost down so the labor costs exceeds the material in the in the cost of the build.

Labor is the bigger part of them.

It's the biggest driver, bigger part of the puzzle.

So you know, one of the things I think that can help with the labor cost, uh is standards.

You know, doing things consistently, more repetition, doing things the same thing over time.

That's going to drive that labor cost down, you know.

And one of the things that we love, uh, you know, being able to work with companies like you to help establish those standards, uh, you know, kind of get in the weeds and figure out what products makes sense.

Maybe maybe different construction practices and those kinds of things.

But uh, how have those kinds of standards helped you or do you even have standards in place that that you go on day to day?

So we do have standards from from a from a material perspective and you know, uh installation uh perspective.

We we are really fine tuning that right now where actually we've just started un initiative, Uh, to drill down into that deeper.

We want to make sure that you know, we can present our standards to anybody that comes in and and we have a you know, for lack of a better term, kind of a research and development type of acceptance for anything new coming in because you want to you really want to minimize your SKUs too.

You just still want to have all these different SKUs in your in your portfolio.

And so we've were hoping by the first of the year to have that you know, really uh honed in and developed so that we can start you know, understanding you know, what our next phase is, because there is going to be a new mousetrap that comes out right that that you want to evaluate and put into your well oil.

Yeah, that's one thing that I wanted to ask too.

So, uh, you know, a lot of especially you know, and with contractors, you know, you hear this a lot.

You know, we've we've done it this way for twenty years, you know, and that's great, and that's some of the consistency we talk about, But how do how do you keep those standards then flexible so that you're allowing these new and potentially better processes or products or such on.

You know, to get into the network.

How you got to kind of play both sides of that fence a little bit?

Well, you do.

I mean, you know, I've told people forever, you know, they asked me what I do, and I tell my dig ditches for a living.

You know, that's what we do.

We dig ditches.

We put condit in the ground, we put cable on the ground.

But there's been a lot of innovation and change over those last thirty years, right, So you know, I'm a big believer in trying new things.

I'm a big believer in failing fast.

So you want to evaluate it, and you don't you don't want to just beat your head.

But to your point, there's a lot of there's a lot of pushback on this is the way we've always done it.

Yeah, right, and you and that's gonna that's going to stifle innovation.

That's gonna stiful progression.

You know, you've got to be open minded to try new things to to you know, be have that mindset that you're not you're maybe not doing it right.

There could be a better way there there are Well, there is a better way.

Yeah, you may it might not be for today, but eventually there's going to be a better way.

That's just how we operate.

Yeah, that's a great perspective for sure.

And so your title your vice president of Construction.

That's right.

Uh So tell me a little bit about your team now and share a little perspective on how you know, what you've done in the past, uh affects you know, your leadership role today.

Well, I started out as as a field engineer, actually a field engineer assistant.

We were building back in the late nineties.

Uh uh, conduit and cable from city to city, and so we were out, we were out in the field, and so you know, from a boot on the ground perspective, I've kind of done it all on that engineering and construction side, and I've made my way up and so my team now, you know, I've pretty much done everything they're doing, and so I understand what their day to day operation looks like.

So so I can I can empathize with what they're doing, but I understand I can also see them areas of opportunity, so I can coach them up and so they can grow as well.

So okay, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, having the boots on the ground and being in their position in the past is obviously huge.

Give me a little bit of an idea what your team looks like today.

You know, how many people you know are working for you?

Is it direct folks or is it more a broad Well, my organization is is it's growing rapidly growing right now.

So we have a couple of different verticals within that.

We have we have engineering, which is focused on just your you know, just what it is, the design and the the inventory of our plant.

We have a construction managers that is responsible for running the uh, the crews and interfacing with the cities and and the and the homeowners to resolve any issues like that.

And then we have an inspection group as well that that goes out and make sure that that, you know, post installation everything's to our standards.

So those are the three, the three main verticals.

It's we have a centralized team too that just supports all of it.

So, okay, great, So, uh, you know, being in the industry as long as you've had I'm sure you've developed, uh, you know, a bunch of relationships over the years.

You know, some probably good, some probably bad.

Obviously, in my position, relationships are critical to our success.

Is that the same for you and your position.

You'd be surprised how small telecommunication is.

I mean it is really for for what from a coast to coast perspective, with all the different companies, it's really a very small industry.

From from a people perspective group, it is and and and you're you're dealing with the same cities and railroads and co workers and peers from other companies.

It's very interesting for me, you know, I talk about it a lot.

You know, you go to a different you know, conference, or you go to a city meeting and it's the same people.

You know, they might be wearing a different hat, but it's the same people.

They've changed jobs, just like I have recently.

But it's it's it is those relationships, you know.

And and that's the thing that really that really drives success is if you can if you can foster those relationships.

Yeah, And I think you're right, And that's probably a lot of the reason why nobody leaves this industry because it's I mean, it's it's in general great people, uh, you know, and it's really a tight knit group of folks and it's really hard to leave.

For sure.

Well, there's some that might we might want to leave, but you know, but you got to work with those guys as well, right, I mean, you know, and that I think that's what drives uh, those of us that have been in it for that long, for as long as we have, I think that's what that's what keeps us going because it is a great group of people.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jason as much as I did.

We're going to have him back to continue our conversation on the next episode, so please stay tuned for that coming out.

If you need expert advice on a project or looking for representation from a great salesforce, reach out to us here at CBM at cbmrep dot com.

Please leave us a review, and thanks again for joining us on Power the Network.

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Jason Johns of Gateway Fiber | Power the Network Ep 8

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