BroadbandBreakfast.com Hosts Broadband Breakfast Club Event “Bringing Broadband Infrastructure to Rural Areas: Where is the Progress?” Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 in Washington, DC
WASHINGTON, Thursday, October 13th, 2011 – The internet and intellectual property policy news and events service BroadbandBreakfast.com will hold its October 2011 Broadband Breakfast Club event:
“Bringing Broadband Infrastructure to Rural Areas: Where is the Progress?” on Tuesday, October 18th 2011 at Clyde’s of Gallery Place, 707 7th St. NW, Washington, DC 20001 from 8 am – 10 am.
American and Continental breakfasts are included. The program begins shortly after 8:30 a.m. Tickets to the event are $45.00 plus a small online fee.
Registration is available at http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com
The Broadband Breakfast Club is sponsored by Comcast, Google, ICF International (ICFI), Intel, The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), US Telecom.
The Broadband Breakfast Club series meets on the third Tuesday of each month (except for August and December).
The schedule can be viewed at http://broadbandbreakfastseries.eventbrite.com
Read our website for broadband news and event write-ups http://www.broadbandbreakfast.com
Videos of our previous events are available at: https://broadbandbreakfast.com/category/broadband-tv/
October 2011 Broadband Breakfast Club Event Description
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act promised to bring broadband infrastructure throughout the country. A major player in delivering on the funding was the Rural Utilities Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The law provided a dramatic increase in funding for unserved and underserved parts of our country.
RUS loans have gone to a variety of “last mile” providers, both fiber and wireless. Some feel they compete directly against existing providers that are not funded by USDA. Given the sparse geographies of rural areas, and the economic development needs they face, are these loans and grants warranted? And, with less than one year until all projects must be substantially completed, where is the progress in rural areas?
Speakers for the event include keynote:
Dallas Tonsager
Under Secretary
Rural Development
United States Department of Agriculture
Dallas Tonsager was appointed by President Obama as Under Secretary for Rural Development and sworn into office in May of 2009. Tonsager has over 35 years of agricultural, business, cooperative and financial experience through his work as a farmer, businessman, and community, state and national leader. Prior to joining USDA, Tonsager served from 2004 to 2009 on the board of directors for the Farm Credit Administration, where he was responsible for regulatory oversight of the Farm Credit System. Tonsager served as executive director of the South Dakota Value Added Agriculture Development Center from 2002 to 2004. In 1993, then-President Bill Clinton selected Tonsager to serve as USDA South Dakota’s state director for Rural Development. In 1999, he was recognized as one of two outstanding state directors in the nation and received the national “Hammer Award” from then-Vice President Gore for his work as part of a team that reinvented USDA’s rural business guarantee loan program. Tonsager served as state director until 2001. Tonsager served two terms as president of the South Dakota Farmers Union. He also served on the board of National Farmers Union Insurance from 1989 to 1993, and was a member of the advisory board of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1990 to 1993. Tonsager grew up on a dairy farm near Oldham, S.D. and has been involved in the family’s diversified farm operations since 1976. He graduated from South Dakota State University with a Bachelor of Science in agriculture in 1976.
Panelists:
Chandler Goule
Vice President of Government Relations
National Farmers Union
Goule oversees the NFU Washington, D.C. government relations office and communications department, which advocates the interest of family farmers to Congress and the administration. Goule previously served as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry for Chairman Congressman Collin C. Peterson (D-MN). His prior experience extends to companies such as, Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and with Congressman Charlie Stenholm in Washington, DC. Growing up in rural Morgan Mill, Texas, Chandler Goule is very familiar with agriculture policy, way of life and rural issues. He graduated from Texas A&M University earning a BA in Animal Science and has a Masters in Political Management and Corporate and Public Affairs from George Washington University.
James Kohler
Deputy Director of Enterprise Technology Services
Alaska Department of Administration
James Kohler serves as the State’s Project Coordinator for the Alaska Land Mobile Radio System, which provides emergency interoperable communications for state, municipal, Department of Defense, and non-DoD Federal agencies in Alaska. Recently, Mr. Kohler was designated as the stateside lead for an ad hoc telecom working-group established by Alaska’s Governor’s office. Prior to joining State government, Mr. Kohler assisted with the build out, expansion and management of state wide wireless service in Alaska, and helped bring the first state-wide wireless service to Nome, Alaska in 2006. Mr. Kohler has over 30 years of professional change management and consulting experience in Alaska across both the private and public sectors.
Leif Oveson
Director of Government Affairs
National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA)
Leif Oveson joined the NTCA in March 2009. NTCA has served as the voice of small, rural telecommunications carriers since 1954 and has more than 570 member companies that provide communications services to some of the most remote, sparsely populated areas of the nation. Prior to joining NTCA, Leif worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as a Research Assistant in the Senate and a Legislative Assistant in the House of Representatives for a total of seven years on policy issues including telecommunications. Originally from South Dakota, he currently lives in Washington, D.C.
David Russell
Solutions Marketing Director
Calix
David is responsible for marketing Calix’ fiber access solutions, the most widely deployed Fiber-to-the-Home systems in the United States. Based in Petaluma, California Calix has fiber deployments in over 1500 communities. David has spent over twenty years in business development and marketing of broadband access systems. He joined Optical Solutions, the pioneer in FTTH and GPON, in 2003 and joined Calix through its 2006 acquisition of Optical Solutions. In 2010, David served as Chairman of the Board of the FTTH Council. He currently serves as head of the FTTH Council’s regulatory affairs committee. He holds eight patents in cable TV and wireless technologies. He did his undergraduate work at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA and graduate school at the University of Minnesota. He lives in Saint Paul. Minnesota and is based at the Calix facility near Minneapolis.
Additional speakers have been invited
Moderator:
Jerry Hagstrom
Founder and Executive Editor
The Hagstrom Report
Jerry Hagstrom is a prize-winning agricultural journalist, book author and commentator. The American Journalism Review has named Jerry Hagstrom one of its “unsung heroes” of American journalism for “sterling work in the shadows” covering agriculture. In 2000, the National Farmers Union named Mr. Hagstrom Agricultural Communicator of the Year, and he has won awards from many other farm groups. Mr. Hagstrom also won first prize in commentary from the North American Agricultural Journalists and has served as its president. In addition to his own daily Hagstrom Report, he writes a bimonthly column of commentary for National Journal Daily, both of which reach a national policymaking audience. He reaches farmers, ranchers and agribusiness throughout the country with his work for DTN/Progressive Farmer news service in Omaha, the weekly Agweek newspaper in Grand Forks, N.D., and the Capital Press of Salem, Ore. Mr. Hagstrom appears frequently on C-SPAN to discuss farm issues, and has appeared on National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation program Farming Today. He has also lectured before major trade groups and at universities. A native of North Dakota, Mr. Hagstrom grew up on the Hagstrom family farm and in Wilton and Bismarck, N.D. Both his maternal paternal grandparents homesteaded in Burleigh County, North Dakota. A graduate of the University of Denver, he has been a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and a research fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University.
For More Information Contact:
Sylvia Syracuse
Director of Marketing and Events
BroadbandBreakfast.com
Sylvia@broadbandcensus.com
646-262-4630
