Nominee Questionnaire

Please provide a short bio for voters to get to know you.  

I joined the FBA in 2013, but my company, PLP, has been a member of the association since its inception including the global FBA sister organizations. I am National Sales Manager at PLP and am responsible for a network of direct and contract sales people, creating and meeting sales and budget forecasts, and most importantly supporting fiber projects across the United States by partnering with operators, engineers, and contractors to ensure their physical infrastructure gets installed and operates in a highly reliable way.  I live in Fort Worth Texas with my wife of 16 years, Rachel, and daughters Macy (14) and Molly (12). 

Please summarize why you consider yourself an excellent candidate for the FBA Board of Directors? 

Since my first day at the FBA, I have supported its mission through committee membership and leadership.  I am proficient at networking with people through listening to their needs and concerns and ultimately delivering results for them, both inside the FBA and in my professional role.  As a board member I will bring transparency, a domestic manufacturers perspective on supply chain and deployment solutions, and a capability to support the FBA in a non-biased way to achieve the best possible outcomes for the membership at large.  

Describe your current position and functional responsibilities to your company.  

At PLP, as National Sales Manager, I am responsible for leading our U.S. Communications Division through sales growth, network application, and industry advocacy.  I have 5 direct reports, and 21 indirect reports that I am responsible for training and leading every day.  P&L, forecasting, solution development, solution application, contract negotiation, and key account management are direct responsibilities that I have to fulfill.  I work across our teams of engineers, marketing, marketing communications, buyers, legal, manufacturing and IT departments to solve challenges facing network operators on issues ranging from having the right material where and when they need it, to juggling compliance requirements, to developing and executing training programs.  I have personally supported deployments of operators large and small, but I am proud specifically of the work we do to support US Military bases around the globe with a wide range of training initiatives which support their legacy copper infrastructure and their ever–expanding fiber network assets. I will address my industry advocacy, particularly for the FBA, through the remainder of the questionnaire. 

What was your previous position, and how long did you hold that position before transitioning to your current one? 

My previous position was Western Regional Sales Manager which I held for 5 years, but I have been with PLP for 13 years altogether. 

Do you have any experience as a member of a Board of Directors? If so please provide name of the entity and number of years of which you served.  

No I have not.  The FBA is the only board I am interested in joining because of the relationships I’ve made and continue to make here as well as FBA’s mission to provide a fiber connection for reliable broadband to every facility in the United States. 

How many years has your company been a Fiber Broadband Association Member? 

PLP has been supporting this organization for 25 years including its first conference in Las Vegas.   

How many years have you participated in Fiber Broadband Association activities? 

I have personally been to every Fiber Connect, almost all of the Regional Fiber Connect events, and every Fiber Day on the Hill since 2013. 

Please indicate any Fiber Broadband Association Committees or working groups you have participated on including position and years served. 

I joined the FBA’s technology committee in 2014 and participated in that until I, and a couple others, formed the Ad Hoc Deployment working group in 2018.  The Deployment working group was renamed the Deployment Specialist Committee after our charter was adopted in 2019. I currently chair the Deployment Specialist Committee and Co-Chair the Education Committee. 

Please list any Fiber Broadband Association Contributions (activities supported, assets developed, documents drafted, webinars presented, etc.) 

The thought leaders I have been blessed to work with have supported 4 whitepapers I have been project manager on that have been published.  These papers are “The Road to 5G is Paved with Fiber” (which I named), “Microtrenching Accelerates Fiber”, “Accelerating Utility Locates”, and “Local Permitting for Fiber Network Projects: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.     My support has ranged from writing the majority of the body of these items, to compiling contributions from subject matter experts and filling in the gaps, to coordinating the movement of the paper across parties to write and review that led to submission, each project is different. These whitepapers have been drafted while I was working shoulder to shoulder with companies like GFiber, Ting, Crown Castle, Dycom, Lightera, Vermeer, Clearfield, Corning, Nokia, Utilisource, Mears, Horrocks, Graybar, and more.   

When the Deployment Working Group was in its infancy, we championed a safety summit in Washington DC that included multi-state 811 and multi-organizational support in the CGA and the PCCA.  Damage prevention and safety have been a key pillar we’ve included in the Deployment Specialist Committee’s content as safety is a mission critical priority in utility deployment.  

In 2020 I worked with Mark Boxer from Lightera and Gene Scott from Greenlight Community Broadband in Wilson, NC, to develop the structure of the OpTIC Path®, which I also named and provided content creation services for which is still going on today.  I was part of the pilot program when we launched OpTIC Path at Wilson Community College in Wilson, NC, and was instrumental in connecting FBA to Learning Alliance Corporation, where I personally lectured and PLP supported with hands on training which has led to hundreds of military veteran technicians graduating and finding jobs amongst many broadband carriers including Frontier, which I also manage as a key account at PLP.   The work I performed and continue to perform on behalf of the OpTIC Path® led me to supporting the Education Committee as the co-chair.  I championed and am currently working on a Tribal FBA Pilot Program that will hopefully change the lives of many Native Americans for years to come. My dedication to the development of this program and other FBA support led to my acceptance of the FBA’s Photon Award in 2023. 

I was part of the planning committee for Fiber Connect 2025’s OpTIC Path Rodeo and co-emceed that event.   

I have been part of the planning committee for the FBA’s Public Policy led Event, Fiber Day on the Hill in Washington DC and have supported some of the fly-ins to Washington DC to lobby for more support of Fiber Broadband from lawmakers in Washington DC. 

Please provide a short overview of your experience with telecommunications, fiber optics, and FTTH technologies. 

I have been in the broadband industry since 2006.  While my professional experience has led me to support the manufacturing sector of this industry, the nature of what I do for PLP has allowed me to collaborate with Operators, Contractors, Engineers, OEMs and Associations that all have supported my professional growth and knowledge of fiber optics.  I have negotiated, sold, trained, lectured, and moderated within the fiber broadband ecosystem for two decades. My experience with fiber relates to all areas where the cable jacket gets opened for the fiber to be worked on, an area in which I received a product patent, as well as terminating strand or fiber optic cables directly to poles in the case of ADSS.  My top priority is to make sure fiber broadband infrastructure is built with quality and in accordance with the standards my company has helped develop since its first commercial installations in the 1980s.  Listening to my customers with a true intent to help them improve their outcomes is a strength that I will bring to the FBA board. 

Please describe the goals you would like to accomplish during your term as Fiber Broadband Association Board Member. 

As an FBA Board member that has worked from the ground up in the organization, one of my primary goals would be to improve the alignment of the FBA leadership and the work that happens in the committees, the FBA’s greatest member outreach mechanism.  The community platform the FBA created will be a strong tool to help that alignment goal to become a reality. 

I would like to support the FBA’s public policy initiatives that intersect with deployment challenges like Permitting, Safety, Locating, Pole Attachments, Railroad Crossings, but also elevate the need for training funding to be made available so we can streamline the pipeline of young people that may not have a clear occupational path into the Broadband industry.  

I would like to continue to support FBA’s training mission through advocacy for the OpTIC Path Program as I have done in the past but will be better aligned through board membership in the future. We will need to fill critical roles in our industry such as technicians, linemen, locators, but also to extend into white collar professions like engineering and manufacturing roles. 

Because I work for a global manufacture that is headquartered in the United States, I am positioned to support any supply chain, tariff or compliance initiatives that develop as well. 

Please describe the level of commitment (in terms of time and effort) that you intend to make to the Association during the three-year term. 

My dedication to the Fiber Broadband Association is apparent to others that are along the same advocacy path in the FBA.  We give what we can, when we can, and even sometimes when we couldn’t, but we find a way to.  My record speaks for itself, and I am proud of my commitment to this association. I will bring the same passion to the board as I have brought to every other facet of this association over the last 13 years, whitepapers, 3 presidents, and 2 brand identities.   

Please use this space to include any additional information you feel is important to share with voting members.   

What I bring to the board is a passion and dependability that the FBA membership can rely on.  I am personally and professionally devoted to the cause of bringing broadband to the people of the United States through policy, safety, and workforce advocacy.