Broadband Deployment: Fiber? Why Not in Minot, North Dakota - ETI
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May 18, 2023

Broadband Deployment: Fiber? Why Not in Minot, North Dakota

The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.

Joe Coldebella:

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Broadband Bunch. I’m Joe Coldebella, and we are at NTCA’s annual RTime Event in sunny San Diego. Joining me is Cassidy Hjelmstad, the CEO and General Manager of SRT Communications from Minot, North Dakota. Cassidy, welcome to The Broadband Bunch.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Thank you so much, Joe. It’s a pleasure to be here. And thank you for telling our story, it’s so important what you do, so we just appreciate this and I appreciate the opportunity.

FROM MINOT TO PHEONIX AND BACK AGAIN

Joe Coldebella:

Really appreciate having you on the show. Before we dive into the SRT story, I would love it if you could just give our listeners a little bit of background about yourself, you’ve got some really interesting stories along the way.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Interesting stories for sure. Grew up in a small town, 45 minutes north of Minot, with no stop signs, just yield, so rural North Dakota, a little bit from Canada. And went to college at the University of Minnesota, after college, took a job with the Timberwolves, moved to the Phoenix Suns, lived in Phoenix for a while, worked there, and then moved home to SRT Communications, to take over as director of communications.

Joe Coldebella:

Okay, Cassidy, so I’ve got to ask, so you went from the super cold of North Dakota to the super hot of Phoenix, Arizona, and back to the super cold. I mean, did you lose a bet?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

I do think people were like, “What is wrong with her?” However, honestly, it was for family. My parents are still in North Dakota and my dad had gotten sick and so just felt the need, something was calling me home. And so I told my mom and shared it with some family, I was looking to get closer. Loved my time in the NBA, and had such a phenomenal experience, but there was just something calling me back and when the opportunity for SRT came open, I was like, “I should look into this.” And sure enough, was lucky enough to get the job and that’s where I’ve been for 12 years.

Joe Coldebella:

Wow, that’s great. You know what, it’s always fascinating learning about how people almost fall their way into the industry, there’s no real sort of simple path in terms of how folks get here. It’s crazy.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It is crazy. And I knew what SRT was because we had service from them, landline phones, we had call waiting, we had our own 800 lines that we could call when we were in college, to call home to our parents. So I knew exactly who the company was, but never had even considered it when I was leaving North Dakota. And then coming home and being able to work for the largest co-op, to be able to serve 25,000 broadband customers and be able to serve our small towns that I grew up in, turned into such a passion of mine.

Joe Coldebella:

No, that’s great. So in terms of just the overall, so is it SRT, is that only in Minot, or is it … go ahead, I would love to get a, I guess a 30,000-foot view of the company.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Yeah, absolutely. So our square miles is about 5,400 square mile territory. We serve up to the Canadian border. And when we used to have our wireless cell phones, we actually had Canadian customers because they didn’t have cell service there except for us, so we kind of extended, I suppose.

Joe Coldebella:

Wink, wink.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Yes. But we’re no longer in the business. And so we serve about 32 gigabit communities and then including Minot, which is obviously our largest, so our smallest town has 19 people, and we just crossed the 50,000 threshold mark for Minot.

Joe Coldebella:

Wow.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Population wise.

THE CHALLENGES OF RURAL BROADBAND

Joe Coldebella:

And so it’s interesting in the sense that you guys are sort of a tweener state in terms of you’re not obviously an NFL city, which doesn’t have a problem with getting broadband, and you’re also not super small. So I would love it if you could talk about some of those challenges.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Yeah, so SRT was originally just the rural communities, and SRT, the co-op, approached a larger company and bought it, and that’s how we acquired Minot and we’ve built them into the co-op. So we’ve kind of always said, the joke is that we’re almost a little bit wrong sized because a small co-op didn’t typically go buy a larger city-

Joe Coldebella:

Yeah, that’s interesting.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

… and then fold them into the co-op. The thing today now is to get those customers because you’re providing such good broadband, but these are all our true members and our owners.

IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY-BASED FIBER NETWORK

Joe Coldebella:

So obviously you’ve been around about 70 years. I would love it if you could sort of touch on the importance of having a community-based fiber network for the smaller towns that don’t have the number of folks to make it worthwhile for the big boys to come in and serve.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Yeah, absolutely. Our board of directors had the vision to put fiber in our rural communities first. So we used USDA rural utility service loans to build out our entire rural service area, and it’s 100% fiber.

We’re in the process of building Minot fiber with internal cash and our own funds. But the vision that they had to do that was amazing because unfortunately, when the pandemic hit, what would our students have done had they not had fiber? And so we committed to making sure that every student, which already had built out to their house, but had connectivity and the ability to do that. Our schools, who are fantastic, made sure that all the kids had devices.

And so for us to say that North Dakota in general, because honestly, our whole state is pretty well-built out, there’s just a few pockets left, we say we have about 6,000 locations left in our entire state to go and the North Dakota will be 100% fiber. But for us to have that done and to be able to serve those students, and people to work from home, it served us well.

Joe Coldebella:

That’s great because honestly, as I interview folks from across the country, and sometimes we get folks around the world, honestly, when you just said that, that North Dakota is almost completely fiber, it must be so gratifying for the state in terms of just like, “Hey, listen, we’re ahead of the curve,” because that curve that’s coming down is going to be massive. So that’s awesome.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It’s incredible. And that’s a credit to all of the boards and the CEOs in our companies who have paved the way for us to do this. And our association as a state, we’ve always really worked well together, and so I think that’s part of why we are so successful is because we’re trying to … I guess you can consider North Dakota a flyover state for many, I think it’s in a song even. And from that standpoint, we’ve kind of had to be the grit and we’ve had to do things on our own, and that’s part of why we are built out the way we’re built out.

Joe Coldebella:

No, that’s great. I think it’s the epitome of the rural mentality of, “Hey, we’ll get it done, we’ll figure it out.”

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Yep. And that’s what we’ve done.

FUNDING AND WORKFORCE CHALLENGES

Joe Coldebella:

Awesome. All right. So now just in terms of challenges, obviously have been any that have been sort of lingering or it sounds like you guys are doing an awesome job though?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Thank you. I mean, I like to think that we are as well, as a state and as SRT, but there are definitely challenges. From the standpoint of Minot, it’s too big to be rural, so we don’t qualify for broadband funding from a lot of standpoints. We have competition, so it’s not unserved. And honestly, those urban customers deserve to have just as much connectivity, so that’s why when I mentioned earlier, we’re building it out ourselves and using our own cash, we don’t qualify for a lot of the funding because we’re too big to be rural.

Joe Coldebella:

Sometimes I just wonder, because it definitely is, it’s a crazy thing that we’re undertaking right now, just some people qualify, and other people don’t qualify. And so it must be challenging for you guys to sort of like, “Hey, listen, we’re going to do it, but it’s going to take some time.”

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It is. And workforce challenges from the standpoint of how fast can we do this? Because let’s face it, everyone wants broadband. You can’t live without it. It is just as essential, in my opinion, but I’m obviously biased, as electricity. Our kids can’t function without it when they’re … we have snow days and they want to not cancel school, so they go virtual. And so it truly is essential, the number of people that work from home, the telehealth that we serve in our rural communities, all of it, it’s critical.

INTERNET CRITICAL FOR GAMERS AND NATIONAL DEFENCE

Joe Coldebella:

I know some gamers that would give up water before they gave up their internet, so it totally makes sense.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It’s funny you say that because, so we serve a Minot Air Force base, it’s eight miles north of Minot and there are 8,000 airmen and airwomen there every day that are the highest gig customers that we have in our entire service area because there are so many gamers. So I agree with you that they would say it’s critical, probably also critical to national defense too, but there’s that.

HOW RURAL COMMUNITIES THRIVE

Joe Coldebella:

No, that’s great. And I would love it, what kind of reaction do you get from your local community? Because you guys are local as well, obviously you might have some bigger competition, but I’m sure that the fact that you guys are local helps in terms of just like, “Hey, listen, we’ve got local people that we can trust.”

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

We do. Our techs are known by name, we get calls, “Can I have so-and-so come back to my house?” Because that’s the relationships we build. We live, we work there, we play, we go to school, church, everything in all of our communities. The other piece is we donate a lot back. We created our SRT Cares program. And the funny thing about that is when I worked for the Suns, we had NBA Cares. It was the first ever really cares program, and now you can’t go to some major company and not see it on a website. But basically, as a co-op, we’ve done that for 70-plus years. The difference between SRT Cares is that it’s actually part of what we’ve built from, we’re not doing it to sell more services or sell more tickets necessarily, we’re doing it because that’s who our member-owners are.

And if our rural communities don’t thrive, and I’ve said this since I’ve been in my CEO position, we don’t thrive. We may have Minot, but we were founded by these communities, this is where we all live, this is what spurs economic growth for North Dakota, and by us providing the fiber, it’s only going to help those communities grow. So we do a lot of giving back to our communities. We have donations, we have sponsorships, and we do scholarship programs. We’re working on doing more with rural development in general, and so that we can just continue to help them thrive.

FACING SUPPLY AND BUDGET CHALLENGES

Joe Coldebella:

No, that’s awesome. It’s those little things that local companies do for their communities that really stand out. So just awesome to hear stories like that. So we talked a little bit about workforce challenges and then what about supply challenges? It’s one of those things where unfortunately everyone’s had to deal with it. Has it been good, bad, or indifferent with you guys?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It’s definitely challenging. We are no different than any other company across the US when it comes to telco. So not only are some of our vendors facing those challenges, we’re on a worldwide allocation for some of the equipment. We need to upgrade some of our transport networks. We’re obviously, with our fiber network, the more customers we turn on, the more capacity we need. So to be on a 360-day wait time and we’re trying to order ahead of time, we’re trying to think two years out, but it also costs money to do that.

Budgeting is very difficult when you’re trying to say, “Is it going to come in this year’s budget or next year?” And our vendors are doing everything they can, but hopefully, it’s starting to slow down and we can start to see some stuff move because we want to get our fiber finished and we want to get our project done.

Joe Coldebella:

Right. No, and it’s funny, we’ve been doing some interviews lately where it’s scary when, it really does have an accordion effect, where I think everyone wants to fulfill the orders, everyone wants to work together, but it’s hard. It’s one of those things where if there’s one little hiccup in the supply chain, the ripple effect is just devastating.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It is. So I’ll give you an example of our current issue, but we’re upgrading our transport rings, and Minot Air Force Base, which has our most gig customers, is on one of our three rings. And we couldn’t get the equipment in, worked with our vendor, and they’re doing everything they can to try and help us, but we’re missing a key component to being able to finish the upgrade. Everything else is in place, and the second we can get the last piece of equipment, that network will be upgraded. And it’s hugely critical because not just for the gamers themselves, but again, we’re tied to our Air Force. And so the things that we’re doing just to … that we’re seeing the long-term effects of us not being able to finish the projects we’ve tried to do is true.

SUSTAINING FIBER NETWORKS

Joe Coldebella:

That’s crazy. And then just out of curiosity, in terms of funding, since you’re sort of a tweener, as we said before, is that one of those things where it’s front and center, or is it one of those where since you’re kind of in between, you’re not eligible for it?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Well, we’re not eligible based on the size of Minot, and because we’re not unserved, we are a served area and we do have good competition. I think the biggest critical piece for funding for us is USF reform, which is a huge topic at this conference because it is critical to us. The amount of money that we’re investing in the fiber networks, the amount of fiber we had to put in the ground, miles wise, 5,400 miles of the service area, but we have over 8,000 miles of fiber in the ground so far, and we’re not done.

Joe Coldebella:

That’s incredible.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

So the fact that we still have to be able to sustain these networks and then pay for their long-term and continue to upgrade the equipment so that we can meet the demands of our customers, that’s where our funding is going to be critical for us, and USF is extremely important. So I probably sound like a broken wheel, considering what the topics of this conference are, but they’re so timely and it’s really important to us.

RELATIONSHIPS IN THE BROADBAND INDUSTRY

Joe Coldebella:

So no, that raises a great point. In terms of the event itself, is there anyone you’re looking forward to talking to or seeing, or is it one of those things when you come to an event like this, it’s like you want to see everybody?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

I am the type of person who if I see someone in the hall, I try to grab everyone I can because everyone here is trying to do the same thing. So there are a lot of critical conversations. Of course, Shirley and Mike, leading NTCA, are able to talk to the NTCA board members who are great obviously at listening to what our needs are across the industry. I try to grab our vendors just because they do so much for us. But this business is about relationships, and our industry is built on relationships. And as I said earlier, I think that’s evidenced by what we’ve done in North Dakota, our co-ops, and our companies that work together to build what we have, that’s how the industry functions.

Joe Coldebella:

Well, it’s kind of funny though, because it’s a people-person relationship, yet we’re all trying to get online.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Absolutely. But I think those one-on-one conversations are what lead to us being able to bring everyone online.

Joe Coldebella:

No, no, I think it’s super, super critical. And it’s one of those things where I would assume that the great thing is that you don’t have any direct competition. So people, if they encounter something and they solve the problem, you can sort of lean on them for answers because it’s one of those things where we raise all boats with …

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Rising tides.

Joe Coldebella:

Yeah.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Yes, absolutely. I think that’s why this powerful group of, I think probably over 2,000 people, I’m not even sure how many people, but it’s a lot that comes to San Diego. And it’s rural America, it’s us telling our story, getting to talk to folks like you, thank you again. Because if we don’t come together, one voice in Minot, North Dakota, one co-op, isn’t necessarily going to move the needle. But hopefully, the 850 plus of us together companies, plus the 2,000 people in this location, start to do that.

Joe Coldebella:

I think that’s a really important point in terms of the importance of this organization, especially in Washington where it’s one of those things where it’s like when you guys are one voice, you can get so much more done.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Absolutely. In North Dakota, we’re a small state, so we have one representative, Representative Armstrong, and of course our two senators, Senator Hoeven, and Senator Cramer, and they’re fantastic, but we’re still small because it’s North Dakota, we don’t have as many. The nice part about us, and that’s a huge advantage for us, is that we can call their offices. I just had coffee with Senator Cramer’s person in Minot, Kaitlyn Weidert. And so to be able to have those relationships, that says a lot about what rural America builds and how we can be effective. And we’re so appreciative of what our senators and our representative do for us because they listen, they know who we are, they know what SRT is, and so that’s an advantage

Joe Coldebella:

That’s great. I mean, it’s awesome, you really are cooking with gasoline. So let’s look a little bit into the future. So in the next two to three years, where do you see things happening and as long as the supply chains hold out, what do you see for SRT Communications?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Absolutely. As long as supply chains and funding, again, because we’re still in such a critical build stage, we owe that to the rest of our customers who don’t have the ability to have gigabit service. And frankly, they’re still on DSL, you can’t run a robot vacuum off of DSL. Come on.

Joe Coldebella:

I mean, absolutely.

BUILDING CYBERSECURITY DEFENCE

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

But I think looking down the road, we finish our fiber and then from there, we’re fortunate enough, so here’s where we’re not wrong sized, is that we’re big and we have a lot of talent and every company does, but we also have a local university. And so we can pull a lot of IT, we have a cybersecurity defense program now that our local university is offering, Minot State University. So to be able to grab those students and build our IT teams, I see there’s an opportunity for us to hopefully be able to help other companies that need it, say our partners in North Dakota, our colleagues, that maybe don’t have the large staff that we do. We’ve been approached by other businesses, especially locally and other co-ops in the area, to be able to farm out some of that expertise.

So if there’s an opportunity for us to grow there and be able to serve others, because let’s face it, cyber security’s not going anywhere and it has to be top of mind, especially considering where we’re located. So looking ahead to try and figure out what other businesses can do that make sense to us, that use our expertise, that we have in-house, that’s one opportunity I’m looking at.

Joe Coldebella:

Now, have you considered maybe creating an innovation center or whatever?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

We have. That’s interesting you say that. I have a proposal on my desk for that. And we kind of have our own internal one.  We actually encourage our people to go play with new devices — not robot vacuums necessarily. But the devices that are helping make our network work, testing the security, seeing if they can hack into it, that kind of stuff. We’ve got some fabulous talent on staff. So if we take that a step further and do it more of an innovation lab and where else do we go? Then how do we bring our rural communities back into the fold?

I was just talking this morning with a colleague. They run our Central Regional Education Association, and three of them all work remotely in one of our towns that has less than 300 people in it. We’re not just the pipe provider, but we provide the technology that they need so that they can have an office space to go to and collaborate. Because that’s what’s going to spur our small towns as well.

HOW FIBER IMPACTS WORKFORCE

Joe Coldebella:

As a smaller state with fiber built out, you’re not losing as many people. Now that you have the technology, you can also attract people as well.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

We have a program called Find the Good Life in North Dakota, and it is a talent attraction program. Our chamber EDC for Minot has a great staff. And we had the first person ever move from the state of Washington to Minot, North Dakota, and chose to work at an IT company. So everyone’s trying to find ways to attract people. We want to make sure we’re keeping our talent because we’ve got fantastic people. We like to say we have a really good work ethic because we grew up in the cold and working on farms. So they’re used to working hard and getting the job done. So I think that’s a huge attraction piece for North Dakota to keep that talent there.  We must be able to provide the technology they need and be a partner with them.

Joe Coldebella:

A lot of people in the big cities are looking to go to more rural communities.  So it sounds like it’s a great program.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Quality of life, housing, technology, ability to work from anywhere, it’s all there. So I’m biased again, but I moved home for a reason. If I didn’t want to live there, I didn’t have to stay, and I love it. We have a fantastic community, we have so many good things happening. Our state overall in general just has really friendly economic policies. I will tell you, Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank, just talked about Minot, North Dakota on the Fox News business segment.  We are notable because of all the exciting things that we have happening, both in the state and the opportunities that we have because of our technical abilities.

WHY NOT MINOT

Joe Coldebella:

That’s awesome. I’d like to sort of end the interview on two different points. The first one is, as I was doing a little research on you and just on the city of Minot.  There was a baseball team in the 1920s, the Minot, Why Nots. And just learning a little bit about that, it was because of the sensibilities of the folks from North Dakota. Is that sort of a perfect name for you guys?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It is. While I don’t know a lot about the baseball team, we still use it. Everyone says, why not Minot? Number one, because when you see the spelling of it, M-I-N-O-T, not everyone knows how to say it.

Joe Coldebella:

Guilty.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

It’s easy to remember why not, Minot? And then we have another saying that says, only the best come north. And so it’s true, we like to think that, we like to say that. We like to say, “Hey, come here and be a part of what we have going on. We work hard, we play hard, but it’s a beautiful place to live and raise a family.”

Joe Coldebella:

That’s awesome. So as we’re winding down, is there anything that we missed that you’d like to talk about?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

I think just the passion for rural America for what we’re doing, not just as a telecom industry, but especially where I live and what we get to do on a day-in and day-out basis. I see our future, even though there’s uncertainty with funding and supply chain and stuff, that we are critical, and I only see us continue to thrive as long as we can continue to keep our rural communities helpful, and sustainable.

Joe Coldebella:

It’s been an awesome visit. Now I’ve got the most important question to ask, will the Phoenix Suns win the NBA championship this year?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

So exciting. Not this year, but I think they’re on the verge.

Joe Coldebella:

I mean, Cassidy, why not?

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Because of team culture.  I will tell you this from all of our days there,  we had fantastic team chemistry. Steve Kerr built the Golden State Warriors off of that, and I was with Steve for many years. They don’t have the culture or the team chemistry yet but they’ve got the right pieces in place. But they have to have time to build that culture and that team chemistry; so it’s coming.

Joe Coldebella:

All right. Well, hopefully at least this year or next year, because as someone who grew up in Phoenix.  It’s one of those things where I’ve always wanted the Suns to win a title. So thank you so much, it’s been great chatting with you. I would love it a little bit down the line.  We meet up again because I think the North Dakota, the Minot story is a fantastic one. Thank you so much for joining us.

Cassidy Hjelmstad:

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Joe Coldebella:

This is going to end this episode of The Broadband Bunch until next time. We’ll see you guys later.