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Spring 2009
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GREEN MOUNTAIN COMMUNICATIONS Where Top Quality Service is Most Important
THE MAGAZINE FOR CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVES
Green Mountain Communications
Where Top Quality Service is Most Important Produced by James Tingley & Written by Shannon O'Neill With over 28 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, Victor Drouin remains dedicated to two main goals as the head of Green Mountain Communications: quality and safety. After working as a crewmember and supervisor for an electronics communications contractor
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company, and subsequently as a management consultant for Ericsson, Victor and his wife, Catherine, started Drouin Communications in 1993. Five years later, the couple decided to buy out two other
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partners and form Green Mountain Communications, Inc. Since then, the company’s reach, experience, and reputation has grown. Their service area now extends across New England. Green Mountain employs 49 individuals, many of whom have worked with Catherine and Victor for a decade or more. Based in the small, historic town of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, with a population of less than 6,000, it’s no surprise that Green Mountain feels more like a family than a company. The office headquarters are located in a renovated historic building the Drouin’s completed in 1999 of approximately 16,000 square feet. Green Mountain’s main focus is on managing and installing equipment for the wireless industry. This kind of work involves much more than simply building and maintaining cell towers. Green Mountain offers a broad array of construction services, which can include complete turnkey and 3G installation, road construction, foundation installation, rooftop installation, structural modifications, antenna and cable installation, tower erection, and new tower builds. Tower-specific services include inspections and testing, antenna and tower maintenance, lighting, mapping and upgrading services. The company also offers professional services, like project management, construction oversight, site acquisition, design engineering, structural mappings, and reviews. The company’s clients are among the biggest names in the business including AT&T, Motorola, Sprint/Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile. On the other side of the business equation, Green Mountain works closely with key vendors to subcontract for some equipment and installation needs; providing electrical, project management, technical testing, accounting, and inventory control trades in-house. Solid communication skills and a history of completing projects on time and within budget are the main criteria for Green Mountain’s project managers, whether in choosing a subcontractor, or in selecting a construction foreman. Green Mountain has been working with several trusted vendors for a decade or more. In addition to straightforward tower construction, Green Mountain has experience installing wireless sites in
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surprising and challenging locations: church steeples, flagpoles, and rooftops, and creating cell “trees.” Some of the company’s most unique projects have been wireless installations and upgrades at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox; for any New Englander, Fenway is an exciting place to visit let alone work with. Green Mountain has had an inside view on the design and renovation work being completed and has worked closely with wireless carriers to make sure that their needs and requirements fit seamlessly into the renovation plans. Each off-season, Green Mountain goes in to upgrade wireless equipment, and the company has most recently installed distributed antenna systems (DAS), wireless in-building, and macro technologies to cover inside and outside of the facility and surrounding area. Another exciting project involved the Boston Fire Department, where Green Mountain installed wireless broadband links to extend the Department’s reach to Long Island and Moon Island. This seven-mile stretch over water presented challenges in order to link voice and data circuits. Using the rooftop of a building with an existing fiber backbone, the signal is shot to another high-rise building seven miles across water to the top of a 120-foot water tank located on Long Island. This allows the wireless signal to link Long Island with neighboring Moon Island two miles away so the Fire Department and Public Safety can have continuous wireless access. Victor and Catherine’s goals of quality and safety are ones the entire team endorses and takes responsibility for achieving. Many of the initial employees were people she and Victor knew in their community for many years—some had construction backgrounds; others were hired and then trained, allowing them to progress upward as their skills improved. There are several tiers of employment within the company, from new crewmembers to experienced foremen, and growth and advancement is encouraged. The importance of customer satisfaction, emphasized from the very beginning, is a key ingredient to delivering top-quality services. “Profit is important, but top-quality service is the most important component of a successful
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[The mortgage crisis] started in the residential market, then filtered down into the retail, condo, and hotel markets. Some projects have been canceled and some have been put on hold,” added Puetz.
business”, Catherine notes. New technology is enhancing Green Mountain’s service by allowing quicker responses to customers. Crews now have laptops with email and digital cameras with them in the field and can respond immediately to changes and contingencies, where in the past any adjustment required a trip back to home base for assessment. Green Mountain’s reputation is largely built on their top-rated customer service and impeccable safety record. Employees take part in weekly safety meetings and also take OSHA-approved classes; they participate in CPR and First-Aid training, and complete Fall Protection Safety classes. An outside company conducts random site audits to make sure that Green Mountain is complying with all regulations. The company is also a longtime member of the National Association of Tower Erectors, known more simply as NATE, whose guidelines offer further guidance on tower industry safety. In October 2008, Environment, Health, and Safety Today magazine (EHS Today), chose Green Mountain Communications as one of America’s Safest Companies. Impressively, the company is the first tower industry company to be honored with this award. Looking to the future horizons for Green Mountain Communications, Catherine acknowledges the challenges of the current economy; but by ensuring her team’s safety and supporting the company commitment to quality, she thinks that progress, perhaps at a slower pace, is sure to continue.
COMPANY AT A GLANCE Established: 1993 Employees: 49 Owners: Victor and Catherine Drouin
greenmountaincommunications.com
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Green Mountain Communications P.0. Box 356 Wolfeboro Falls, NH 03896 United States