5G Talent Talk with Carrie Charles (00:00)
Welcome to 5G Talent Talk. I'm your host, Carrie Charles, and I'm thrilled that you're with me today. I'm also excited to have my guest today, Joe Pellegrini. He is the president and COO of Great Plains Communication. Thanks for joining me, Joe. Thanks, Carrie. Appreciate you taking some time today. Yes, yes. I remember I met you years ago at a conference and I've always had such incredible respect for you. So I'm really excited about this conversation, but...

First, let's hear about your, you know, your past. How did you get into telecom? How did you get to your seat today? Yeah, it's really a true telecom journey for me. It started way back when I graduated college and got a job with Southern New England Telephone on the I -Lac side. So I started the construction division. I got asked to move over to management and then actually took part in a layoff. So that was kind of my first, you know,

piece of the larger telecom experience. I was six years there, but Fibertech was really picking up. So I jumped in with Fibertech, I was there 12, 13 years. And then Fibertech got bought by Light Tower, Light Tower got bought by Crown Castle. And that allowed me to step away at that point in time. I figured I wasn't going to be interested in being part of the bigger business like that, which opened up the opportunity with Everstream. And we just really, we grew that business unbelievably over those four years.

And then it's been almost two years now I've been at Great Plains. So kind of stepped into this seat to continue doing what we've been doing for a lot of years, which is really looking at systems and processes and growing the businesses and ensuring that the customer experience is absolutely the best it can be. So yeah, just a true 26 years of telecom journey for sure. So I want to hear the Great Plains communication story, but first.

When we spoke, you said that the company has been around, is it 113 years? Yeah, taking good notes. Yeah, 113 years. Wow. We are just, we are one of the oldest kind of infrastructure providers across the Midwest. It started in Crate in Nebraska as a local telephone company and as a technology and as communications changed and business changed with it. And so we were actually one of the first providers across the Midwest to lay fiber.

and start to produce fiber fed services. And then just the growth over the years has been absolutely outstanding. So yeah, committed to the customer, willing to grow in all sorts of rural America as well as urban. And so really a committed business to providing to the underserved and unserved as well as the business community, the tower community and all the rest that we can put on our platform.

What makes GPC different? wow. I think there's a few different things. But I would say the fact that we have, I would say, six different business units that we continually feed and care for. We are not a pure play fiber to the home. We're not a pure play enterprise. We're not a pure play fiber to the tower. We have a really robust wholesale business. We work with carriers. We do a decent amount of work now with the hyperscalers as, you know,

not just providing service of connectivity, high ping of connectivity for them, but also being a point of presence inside the facilities to ensure that we can often onload services as well. So really just having a broader based business as opposed to kind of a single shoot business, it allows us to kind of dial up or dial down the business in each one of those market segments. Perfect example, MDU.

So they just started the MDU about, this is about three years ago, really wholeheartedly. And last year, the MDU group grew 96 % in one. Wow. Yeah. So, but we saw it as a market opportunity, you know, turn the dial up, put the proper resources and dollars and people behind the effort and really, you know, we're gaining those dividends now, which is, it's very impressive, the growth over the three year period. my goodness.

So I know that you're a player in digital equity, like you just said, and also BEAD funding as well. Talk about how GPC is going to participate in the BEAD funding. Yeah, so I think that's a two -part question for me. What I want to give you is a little bit of the history, right? So the history behind our involvement, GPC's involvement in government -led efforts to solve for the broadband piece is

15 to 20 years old in terms of its current iteration. It's led for us by one of the leaders in the business really. It's amazing how much Ken Pfister, that's who it is, how much time, energy and effort he has spent. He actually came from AT &T before this on the policy side. He's been with us for 15 years. And so we participate in a whole ton of programs already. We work in the capital projects funds, broadband bridge, the next level three and four over in Indiana.

We just were very successful in a reverse auction here in Nebraska. And then we participate in a large way with the new enhanced ACAM program. And so ACAM was developed by I think in 2008, it's had two enhancements since this was the third and the really, really big one that's going to cover a whole ton of our area. So we participate there as well. So I would say for the bead piece and the upcoming piece, bead gets a whole ton of airtime.

It really does. Everybody's talking about the 42 and a half billion. Everybody's nervous that it's going to be an RDOF 2 .0 and we hope it's administrated much, much more robustly than the prior. So we will absolutely participate indeed. We're excited about our participation, but it's going to be in a thoughtful manner because we participate in so many governmental programs right now, whether they're locally in terms of the state or backed by the federal government.

We've had a ton of success inside of each and every one of those. And so our commitment to the business and our commitment then to the customer and the public dollar that we're receiving, you know, just year over year, we're hitting those commitments. We're bringing services further and further into rural America, solving for the deeds and the digital inequity in so many places that we understand BEDE. We're going to wait for all the rules to get kind of clarified in every single state. And then we will thoughtfully participate across our footprint.

where we feel we can continue to succeed in terms of taking those dollars, bringing those services to those local constituents, and ensuring that we land where we're supposed to within the governmental timeframes as well. So yeah, it'll be another piece of kind of a successful deployment across the board for us. Okay. So let's switch gears a bit to company culture, because I just love to hear not only about the culture of GPC, but...

you know, how you've been able to maintain that culture over 113 years. And obviously it's not, I'm sure the culture has, has evolved and transformed over that time period. It has, it really has. I know it is transformed since we've now been PE owned. So Grain Management took ownership on 2018 and they've been a tremendous partner, really helped ramp up the growth. And they came to us, David Grain and his team came to us with a really strong telecom understanding as well as tower.

So they understood the space, but they didn't stand in front of us. They stood along us and helped move the business forward. Before that, it was more, it was the family owned. So it's a slightly different version of things, right? In terms of spend and year over year until a run rate and all the other pieces of it. But the culture, I would say it's a wonderful place to be. In fact, we have some folks that have been here 25, 35, 40 years, and we have other folks that have been here, you know, seven days.

And so having those internal folks who have the history with them, that when we bring folks in, I don't want to say you indoctrinate them, but I would think it gives them a healthy understanding of one, the history, but to the effort that it takes to continue to be a positive work environment and deliver to the customer and a place you want to come to. Folks aren't going to stay 25 years if it isn't an interesting place where they're continuing to learn and grow as well.

but that you're solving for and delivering on the commitment to the customer. And I think that really resonates inside of our walls is that commitment to the customer. I mean, I've been in multiple meetings where, you know, I'm sitting across the table or right next to a person who is, so another one of our leaders who is being an advocate, a staunch advocate for the consumer, as opposed to just an executive makes a suggestion and everybody kind of nods and goes, okay, we'll do that.

People are willing to kind of quote unquote fight back a little, right? And say, listen, I don't think that's the right thing to do, or I don't think that's the right route to build, or I think we can solve for more of this local community if we do this and this. So there's a real advocacy for the consumer inside those walls, and that permeates all the different groups. And I think that's one piece of the culture that people can be really proud of the business they're working for, because it's not just making money.

It's working through the commitment to the customer, whether it's a business customer or a residential, and makes, I would imagine, a lot easier for all of us to come to work every day, knowing to enjoy your job. Yes, yes. You mentioned, and I want to go back to this, you have someone that's been there 25 years. I mean, that's incredible retention. Talk more about your, I guess, your secret to your unusually high retention. Yeah, I would say it's respecting.

the employee, no matter what level, no matter what pay grade, no matter what title, right? We have 400, over 400 employees and carry 50%, over 50 % work and live in the community they service. And so it's not a we do it from afar kind of business, but folks are seeing, you know, customers who are also friends and neighbors and family members at church, in the grocery store, at the local baseball game, whatever it may be.

So their commitment to the business and their commitment to the customer, you got to look these folks in the face, right? On a daily basis. And so it really creates that collaborative atmosphere, that team atmosphere where we want to succeed for the business and for the customer. And it's honestly that respectful, truthful engagement and allowing people to be a part of the business as opposed to just, you know, go do X, Y and Z. And that's that.

We'll go do X and if it's not working, change X and let's understand why and be a part of that. And so that fully engaged atmosphere is probably one of the key tenants of the culture. So how do you prioritize growth and development for your employees? Because I know that's something that's very important to GPC. It is. And for me personally, as well as the business, it's allowing people to be responsible for their decisions. And as parochial as that may sound,

Right. It's not always, as easy to roll out in a business, but asking someone to participate in the decision in not just the decisions, but in the execution. And then they get to also participate, which is, I think something that's missing. Sometimes they get to participate in the success or the failure. What I don't want to do is shield my team or them shield their team from the success.

or the failure, right? Because both of them build a stronger, better -informed employee base. And so if we continue to ensure that we're promoting folks in leadership and we're teaching and we're mentoring and we're allowing them to participate in the culture events as well as like 360 feedback and all the other kind of fun HR things, we're still pulling it back to the sharing and the decision -making, the direction of our policy, and then...

If it's great, let's all celebrate together. If it's stunk, let's postmortem. Let's figure it out together, but let's not just sweep that under the carpet or lie to each other and say, well, it was some other external something. 99 % of the time, we could have changed something to achieve a better hokong. Let's figure that out together. One of the number one desires of our workforce today, specifically, you know, millennial gen Z, but it's, and really, I think everyone is,

having a voice and what you just described is a platform for having a voice at your company, right? Absolutely, absolutely. And it's, and it's, I would say it's uncomfortable for some leaders and this would be maybe a piece of advice I would give to all the leaders out there. and I've said this before and I think I've even quoted saying this before. Just because you have a title doesn't give you the right to talk.

When you're talking, you're not learning. When you're listening, you're learning. And you can learn from every single one of your team members, whether it's someone you're reporting to, or that's reporting to you, or maybe a couple layers back into the business. But closing your mouth, listening to maybe someone who is a little closer to the actual problem. And I think we struggle with that as leaders because we have solved a ton of problems in our careers. I mean, 26 years, I've made thousands and thousands of decisions. Some have been horrible.

Some have been great, right? And in the middle is the rest. But listening, learning, pulling people into the process and allowing them to engage on that level, that's for me, it's been one of the most important pieces of my personal growth and the way I like to manage as well. How do you train up your leaders? Do you have an internal training program? Do you bring in someone from the outside? Yeah, so we just completed a four module program here. We took our 60.

60 of our leaders, so all senior executives were required to go as well. It wasn't just, you know, management director, VP, it was all the C -suite was in attendance as well. So C -suite directors and VPs, and we went through a full day each time with a dinner and everything else, but brought everybody together. Nobody was remote. We brought everybody together and we had an outside vendor come in local to Nebraska and do...

just that he went through all sorts of wonderful things. We had breakout sessions and we changed tables every single time. And so that each of the four sessions, you were sitting with different people. It was all designed by our HR team to put multiple groups at a table, not just everybody from your department or something like that. So it created a cross pollination of ideas. You met a whole bunch of different folks in the business who maybe you hadn't been.

And then from that, we're taking some of those tenants and building out, at least it goes into the business. We also do 360 feedback for a select group every single year. And then we do mentoring as well as there's a culture, the Tenants of Culture program that we participate in that people are able to jump in and do some of the kind of the university stuff online if they'd like to get badges and everything like that. So there's, we are really committed to the continued growth of, of the entire employee base.

Absolutely wonderful. So Joe, I want to know about you as a leader. What is, you know, who are you and as a leader and what's most important to you? So I've thought about this before and it's hard to boil yourself down into one, one or two sentences, right? But I would say for me, honestly, I don't use words like drive and force or push. My

biggest thing is I'm trying to incent folks. I'm trying to teach people. I'm trying to ensure a curiosity in them that then motivates them to be the internal driver of their next steps. So I can tell, I can push, I can dictate, we can all do that. But if I can create an internal curiosity in someone to understand deeper into a KPI or deeper into a metric or want to be a better leader,

because they're seeing how our relationship is. They want to have a similar relationship. And I also want to have fun. I want to come to work and have fun. And again, maybe to rah rah, but I've been accused before of being the guy running around with pom poms, promoting the next cool thing in the business. But I want to have fun. There's no reason for us to come here and fight. We should be coming. And if we do disagree, if we disagree toward the problem,

we don't disagree toward each other. Because when we disagree toward each other, it just creates the rift. If we disagree toward the problem, then we're looking at solving it from different perspectives. And so if we can come and treat each other well, incent that kind of curiosity amongst each other, and then teach and mentor and share information, the business by default and by design appreciates right along with it. So we've heard...

over and over again, and it's just such a hot topic about remote work versus hybrid versus in office. And I'm just curious about your thoughts here. I am 100 % on board with remote work and Great Plains Communications has embraced 100 % as well. And for us specifically, I mean, right now we may be based in Blair, Nebraska.

And we have a 13 state footprint. It's 1 ,100 miles wide. It's, you know, it's, it's an expansive footprint, but we now have employees in all four time zones. And so the systems and the processes and the tools that are available have allowed us to step back and say, yeah, it's terrific having people near each other. And I think it was Tony Shea, right? He was the one that talked about collisions being near each other and having those conversational collisions. Right. But for us.

Being able to broaden the scope of who we can bring into the business, we are attracting world -class talent to a regional business, which then positions us to move outside of that region, right? In terms of having the true talent and folks that really understand the backplane of the business and the systems of the architecture and the tools, and maybe that person isn't near one of your offices, but you can now bring them on board.

because we have adopted, accepted, and understand a remote work policy that's really working for our business. Obviously, technicians, tough to work remote, right? But those are also the tough folks that are near and dear to those communities and are in those communities, and they wouldn't want that any other way. But for us, some of the office staff and some of the administrative piece, whether it's systems tools or whatever, as well as executive.

we can pull that talent from so many different places now. And at the end of the day, we have the right systems, we have the right tools, we treat folks like adults. And if they're willing to participate at that level, whether it's at the home office or on the road or directly here in the office, we're loving the fact that they want to engage with us and become a part of the GPC family. Gosh, sounds like a wonderful place to work. This is, I'm sold, I'm sold.

Let's talk about vision. What is your vision or the vision for GPC moving forward, let's say, the next five years or so? Yeah, well, and I can even bring you a little further than that. We participate in some of the regulatory programs that actually are funded through 2039 already. Wow. And so we don't just have, we have a fairly large telescope.

when it comes to looking down the path of continued growth and solving for the commitments to our constituents and our customers. For us as a business, though, it's continued thoughtful growth. Everybody got caught up four or five years ago in the grow to grow cheap dollars. Fiber to the home was becoming the next big thing. In 2013, it was small sell. And five years later, it was fixed wireless. And a few years back, it was Fiber to the Home.

And all of those still have homes and places in the architecture of communications. But really for us, it's continued thoughtful growth. Like I said, six different kinds of tendons and channels of the business that allow us to specifically, like I said, at NDU or Fiverr to the Home or the business and enterprise segment to kind of turn up those dollars and turn up the pressure inside of those groups to grow in different areas and different segments. So for us, it's continued thoughtful deployment of capital. Capital is double.

in terms of the cost. So it's, we talk about it at length that, you know, there's a lot of businesses out there that are going to be shown for what they are when they're pulling down 10 % money, as opposed to three or 4 % money. And we, the GPC great business never put themselves over their skis. They've always thoughtfully deployed capital. And that allows us to kind of crank up and crank down where needed. So yeah, continued development across.

all different sub segments of the business and where we're finding success or opportunity, we turn up the dial and we run a little harder down that path. But yeah, we have a pretty long -term vision, but it doesn't remove our flexibility. As market forces change, we're going to change with them. That's maybe another one of the pieces of who I am as well. We can be wrong and it's okay. There is almost no penalty for being wrong in my group.

Specifically and I know that a lot of the other execs feel that way here The whole idea is if you're making decisions, you're gonna screw up occasionally if you make no decisions Then you're never gonna mess up and so again on that incenting people to own their their decisions and their progress and their and their success You have to be able to make enough decisions to occasionally stub your toe Well, we're gonna sweep you off. We're gonna tell you we can help but fix it We're gonna fix it. We're gonna throw you right back in the game

because just not making enough decisions and not continuing to want to grow. So the business across the boards continue to grow, continue to incent folks, and continue to solve for our customers' needs, whatever, whether it's the business segment or the home consumer. There's so many gold nuggets in this episode. And the more I get to know you, I have even more respect for you now, Joe. Thank you for sharing everything about your culture, your leadership. It's just been...

I've learned a lot myself. So I, what is your, what is your website? Are you hiring right now? I'm sure there's people listening that are ready to go to your job stage and ask how do I become a team member at Great Plains right now? Yeah, great question. So anybody can jump on our website. It's gpcom .com. So great community, great place communications .com. So gpcom .com.

And inside of that, if you go up to our top right hand corner, you're going to see a tab, which is, I think it's the careers tab. You hit that dropdown and inside that dropdown, it's going to give you a couple of choices and you can look up in your careers and see all the different openings that we have right now, as well as our benefits. I think that's another thing. We are extremely open with what we offer, whether it's the job or the benefits associated with it. And so, yeah, I recommend anybody who's interested in just learning a little bit more about the business, the footprint, what we offer.

the business community, where we're building fiber to the home, how we're engaged kind of with communities. There's a lot of community stuff on there as well. I mean, we're in 200 communities across our footprint. And so that allows us to engage with, you know, the baseball games and sponsorships of the bake sales, as well as scholarships and community events. So we want to be quality partners and quality tenants inside those areas. So yeah, please go to the JIV website again, gpcom .com.

learn a little bit more about the footprint, learn a little more about our offerings, but also there's a careers page and you can learn about what we have open right now and then the benefits associated with it. Joe, thank you so much for coming on the show. Here is a pleasure. Appreciate your time this morning. Yes, absolutely. I will see you soon. Absolutely. Take care. Take care.