6 minute read
A GROWTH MINDSET, BUT COMMITTED TO BEING COMMUNITY-BASED
By Bob Fitch
In the early 1900s, large, nationally operated phone companies found it too expensive to string telephone lines to far-flung farm homes. In 1906, farmers in the Sioux Center area decided they didn’t want to be left behind. They pooled their resources to create their own phone service to stay connected with each other and the community. Their efforts laid the groundwork for the shareholder-owned Mutual Telephone Company.
From those humble beginnings, the company eventually developed into Premier Communications, a regional powerhouse in the telecommunications industry. Premier Communications provides cutting-edge internet, cable TV, phone and IT services for homes and businesses in 30 communities in northwestern Iowa.
Closing the Digital Divide
Regulatory changes in the telecommunications field in the 1990s set the stage for Premier to move into a rapid growth mode beginning in 2002. Many companies, including Premier, entered new municipal markets. But Premier has stayed true to its roots by also connecting with rural households, even though running fiber communication lines to rural homes can easily cost four to five times as much as a customer in town. “These are 25-30 year investments. Installing fiber in a rural area can cost $15,000 for just one mile; and there might be only two or three customers in that mile. With that significant upfront cost, it may take a decade or two just to pay for that initial investment,” said Ryan Boone, CEO of Premier Communications. The state's broadband grant program also helps to offset the high cost of bringing fiber to historically unserved or under-served localities. A grant is currently helping Premier Communications fill in a gap in the hilly, sparsely-populated corner of southwestern Plymouth County.
“We’ve made the conscious decision to help close the digital divide,” Boone said. “For example, not only do we strive for students in town to have great access to broadband, but we also want their rural classmates to the have same access. Likewise, farmers and other rural businesses deserve excellent broadband service just like the businesses we serve in cities. That’s not always the most profitable decision, but our board of directors and shareholders are committed to this course.”
This commitment synchronizes with their company’s core values:
Community-based
Family-friendly
Customer-driven
Growth mindset
As part of being customer-driven and having a growth mindset, Premier builds multiple redundancies into its systems. “The recent floods showed the resiliency of our network,” said Scott TeStroete, Premier’s chief customer officer. “You saw a lot of bridges out and a lot of times fiber is attached to bridges. But the ‘rings’ in our system helped re-route service. If something gets cut, it flips to another feed.” Because of the redundancies and because the network is built to handle peak usage and not just average loads, the system performed at a level of excellence. Only one of its 30 communities saw an extended service outage (because flood waters damaged lines coming from two different directions). Service personnel went above and beyond to restore service and put in place new redundant fiber routes as quickly as possible in the event more flooding occurred.
Boots On The Ground
Another reason service was maintained so well is that the company has boots on the ground throughout its footprint. “We’ve found that we’re able to meet our core value of being community-based by having local team members in the locations we serve,” said Boone. “Even as we continue to grow, we will stay community-based by making sure we have team members in our new locations.” Locally-based personnel also help the company stay supportive of economic development and local nonprofit organizations. “Growth is important because we always need more economies of scale to provide the service and cutting-edge technologies our customers expect. At the same time, we’re always striving to grow in a way that doesn’t let us lose our focus on community.”
TeStroete added, “Our customer are our friends. They are the people we sit next to in church or at school events. When Covid hit in 2020 and all the schools sent their kids home and everybody was scrambling, we wanted kids and teachers to be able to get digital access as quickly as possible. I was on so many email threads throughout the country trying to get solutions in place. We did a lot of very unique things in those first couple weeks of Covid to get people access. We were handing equipment through windows and talking people through it over the phone. We helped people who weren’t our customers yet. It proved to be one of the most rewarding times for a lot of us.”
Staying community-based means the company encourages employees to be active in community events and organizations such as youth sports, churches, schools and scouts. Likewise, Premier’s growth and innovation mindset includes ongoing technical and customer service training plus internal leadership development. TeStroete said a number of employees have risen through the ranks. In fact, both he and Boone started as part-time “spade men” on cable installation crews.
Can-Do Attitude
Boone said the board of directors continues to double down on the value of being community-based because this approach ensures local dollars recycle through the local economy. “We're building a new retail space in Okoboji, and one of the very first things that we committed to was using local contractors whenever possible. We have a local general contractor, local cement crews and local building crews. We could have hired someone out of Sioux City or Sioux Falls and maybe that would have been a little cheaper. But that's not who we are. We understand the economic benefit – hiring local is good for the communities. And what's good for the communities is good for a Premier in the long run, too.”
Through the state’s broadband grant program, Premier Communications is helping to “bridge the digital divide” in sparsely-populated areas such as the recent addition of southwestern Plymouth County.
Boone said Premier Communications aims to emulate other businesses and individuals in northwestern Iowa who made decisions to stay here, to re-invest here and to take calculated risks. “Like other area leaders and business owners, we strive for a can-do attitude with a bent towards collaboration.”
