Telecommunications Industry Therapy
Podcast discussing issues arising from the rapid advancement and deployment of telecommunications infrastructure. The Podcast is hosted by industry veterans Michelle Kang and Scott Stekr. In Each episode, they will be joined by subject matter experts discussing a wide array of topics which have an effect in the current state of the industry. Provided by the Telecommunications Industry Foundation, TIF. https://tifonline.org/
Telecommunications Industry Therapy
Behind the Scenes at NATE: Insights from Todd Schlekeway
Todd Schlekeway, President and CEO of NATE, joins us to discuss the organization’s major accomplishments in 2024 and what he takes the most pride in. We also take a behind-the-scenes look at NATE's structure and highlight some of the key individuals who contribute to its success. Additionally, Todd provides insights into what to expect in 2025, including the upcoming NATE Unite show in February
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Welcome back to Industry Therapy. Today on our show, we are joined again by Todd Schleckeway, President and CEO of NATE, the Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association.
Scott Stekr :This podcast is provided by the Telecommunications Industry Foundation. This podcast, as well as much more additional content, can be found at tifonlineorg. Please welcome your hosts, Michelle Kang and Scott Steker.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to the show Todd. Thank you, michelle and Scott. Look forward to visiting with you both.
Speaker 4:So, Todd, we're going to start off today by kind of recapping 2024, some of the things that Nate accomplished and, for you personally, some of the things that you're most proud of that Nate accomplished during the year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question, scott. I think any conversation about 2024 would probably have to begin with kind of the state of the industry. You know I've been with Nate going on almost 13 years now in this job and of course the wireless and communications infrastructure industry has natural ebb and flows, but boy it's been a challenging ecosystem the marketplace has, with some of the network spending that was halted on the macro tower wireless side specifically. So it hasn't been an easy year navigating some of those marketplace challenges that really impact the vendors and contractors who we represent down chain from all the major network and wireless and broadband projects. But with that said, I've been very pleased with Nate's membership has remained relatively steady. Membership has remained relatively steady and you know when you're running a trade association, that's one of the that's probably the biggest metric that you look at. You know and how, how are you relating to your members, and so I've been pleased that you know our members have navigated the marketplace as well as they can. We've really took that opportunity of kind of the marketplace slowdown to introduce some customer diversification initiatives. So, for example, the FAA had a UAIS tower communication project up for bidding where they're replacing thousands of towers around the country and so a lot of our members got an opportunity to bid on that this past year. And that's outside of the traditional, you know, private sector carrier work that a lot of our members do. So that was one thing that we were really grateful for, especially in light of the past year.
Speaker 3:The A1048 standard, the revision that was introduced in the marketplace. That was a major win, not only for the NAIT subject matter expert committees that had a stake in that, but also just to continue to move the ball on safety. And you know we say all the time that the A1048 standard, every revision, you know it's the playbook for contractors. You know pre-construction to demolition and everything in between when it comes to communication towers, and I know many of TIFF's participants and the folks you all work with had a major stake in that as well. So getting the new, newly revised standard into the marketplace in front of more and more contractors and technicians, I would say that was a hallmark of 2024.
Speaker 3:We worked hard to promote that and sell that standard. So that was big. And then I would say, on the legislative and regulatory front, nate continues to make strides. You know both in terms of visibility in Washington DC, who we're getting in front of In October of 2024, we hosted a tower climbing event in the DC Beltway. Commissioner Brendan Carr now chairman Brendan Carr as of today attended, but we also had representatives and staff members from the FCC and Capitol Hill staff there. So those are opportunities that are really impactful from an advocacy perspective because we get those staff members and agency reps on our turf at a tower site, and so we're going to look to do more of those type events moving forward, and and Nate is very well positioned if we look ahead here from a legislative and regulatory standpoint, in terms of who we know continued to make advancements on our legislative and regulatory policy objectives, and to that I'm grateful for.
Speaker 4:Nice. Yeah, I'm always amazed at just listening to how much stuff you guys work on and get done with you know in a given year, and it's amazing that you're kind of involved in so many things. Last time we spoke, we kind of talked at high level about you know what is Nate and what do you guys do, but can you give us some more insight in kind of how Nate's structured and organized and maybe you want to highlight some of the people behind the scenes?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question. Appreciate the opportunity to do that, Scott. So Nate is celebrating our 30th anniversary in 2025 as a trade association and you know we kind of started when the industry. But there's more work that needs to be done, for sure. And so I'll start by saying Nate has 16 employees now on staff, and so we have a really good staff, a lot of great continuity. Many of our employees have been with Nate for many, many years, including Paul and Nirenberg, Our chief operating officer, has been with NAIT almost for the entire inception, which is unheard of for an employee being at a trade association that long. So we're proud of our staff.
Speaker 3:We have salt of the earth board members. I mean many of our board of directors members we have 11 board members, you know are working in the field daily, so it's not uncommon for us to have a monthly virtual board meeting and half the board is in their pickup trucks at a tower site, and that's kind of what makes this unique. We really get tangible feedback from our board and they contribute heavily to the association. And then we have a standing committee and ad hoc committee structure underneath and that's what really drives a lot of our initiatives and our safety resources, and so we have a safety and education committee, we have an OSHA relations committee, we have a member services committee and a trade show committee. Those would be the four standing committees, and then the ad hoc committees really have a little more flexibility. They can kind of operate outside of our committee policies. So we have committees such as the Safety Equipment Manufacturers Committee, SEMC. They're doing outstanding testing work right now in the industry and they're getting ready to release a quick rigging connectors QRC white paper. So that's an example of a committee really doing great things. On the safety side. We have a Women of NAIT committee and they have done a great job, not only hosting their annual Women of NAIT Leadership Summit they have every fall, which will take place in Baltimore this fall of 2025, but they also have other initiatives like mentoring initiatives. And I say this every year when I go to Nate Unite. It's amazing for me when I'm up on the keynote stage in those ballrooms and I look out in the crowd and really I see a changing attendee demographic from when I first started 13 years ago. And you know, I think the committees like the Women in Aid are instrumental in bringing new individuals, new talent, into our association. So they're doing great work. And then we have a Workforce Development Committee that's worked hard at creating community college curriculum programs, workforce career-ready awareness resources programs, workforce career-ready awareness resources they're doing great work.
Speaker 3:And we keep adding ad hoc committees. So I may forget a few here, but just know that we have flexibility to adapt to the needs of where the industry is through our ad hoc committees. We have an emerging tech committee used to be our UAS drone committee and so they're doing some good work in this space as well. So that is something we're very proud of.
Speaker 3:And then we have councils. So councils don't operate like a committee or an ad hoc committee, they're smaller in nature. So we have a legislative and regulatory council. That's the group that travels with me to Washington DC two or three times a year to meet on Capitol Hill. And we have a financial investment council and that group kind of monitors Nate's investment portfolio and provides feedback to our financial investment firm, you know, to make sure the association's investments, which have been managed very conservatively for 30 years now, are in good order, because it's not our funds, it's the members' money at the end of the day. So that's a little snapshot of kind of the committees, ad hoc committees and councils that we work with daily under our large NAIT umbrella.
Michelle Kang :OK, that's really interesting, Todd, and, as Scott said, NATE accomplished a great deal in 2024. I'm sure you kind of just hit the tip of the iceberg there. What do you have coming up in 2025 and what are you personally most looking forward to?
Speaker 3:Great question, michelle. I think I'll start by saying I'm really excited about our 30th anniversary trade show here coming up February 17th through the 20th in Raleigh, north Carolina, nate Unite 2025. Last time we had our show in Raleigh was 2020. And it's really emerged as kind of a telecom hub. There's a lot of engineering talent that comes out of NC State, as both of you are aware, and so it's kind of an engineering tech technology wireless hub. There's a lot of smaller tower owner companies based out of Raleigh. So we do well on our shows in Raleigh and so we're really excited about being there.
Speaker 3:So that would be, first and foremost, nate Unite I'm excited about. We have some special things planned for our attendees given that it's the 30th anniversary show. In May, we're hosting our third NAEP member congressional fly-in event in DC. That'll be May 6th and 7th and each time we host a fly-in, we get more of our members to come out and we organize everything. We make it fun for attendees. You know from the standpoint of hey, we'll set up receptions, social events while you're there, and we also set up all the meetings with their congressional delegations. So I would encourage members and stakeholders in the industry to take a look at that and then you know we just have a lot of other initiatives going on.
Speaker 3:One I'll mention real quickly here is we've retained a marketing communications firm based out of Chicago and we're working on some branding realignment, marketing initiatives, rolling out a new website in 2025. You know, as we've grown as a trade association and membership, you have years and years of resources on the website and I'll be the first to admit and we've known this for quite some time, so the time is now to change this Our website's not the easiest to navigate. We have years of safety resources and best practice documents. So as you grow in membership and you add more resources that are restricted to members where they have to navigate the website, you need to streamline things, and so we're working on a project there that we're excited about, also working on initiatives to try to get more of the member companies to get their employees, especially the tower techs and field personnel, to sign up for a profile using on the NAIT app. There's a NAIT smartphone app, because that's because that the mediums that we have to reach the field personnel that are traveling daily they're in it easily, so excited about that. And then I'd be remiss if I didn't mention.
Speaker 3:Uh, due to the success and my enjoyment of of listening to podcasts both inside the industry and out, we are um likely going to be rolling out our NAIT podcast at some point in 2025. So if you two have any advice for us, we may have to chat offline, but podcasts have become an increasingly important part of a communication strategy, and you need not look any farther than the presidential election we just had in November. I mean, both candidates were recording podcasts. You know more than traditional forms of media, and so I really appreciate you guys and TIFF doing this podcast.
Speaker 3:So hopefully Nate can can roll that out at some point this year, and it can be another means to connect again, especially to the field personnel who are in and out of hotels, who are driving all the time. You have to reach those folks, and I always call the tower techs the industry's most precious resource, because they are. None of this happens without them. We can't use smartphones, we're not connected, we're not having a conversation right now without them, and so we want to be creative in how we reach the men and women who are working on the front lines.
Michelle Kang :Exactly, that's all really great, todd, especially, you know, excited to hear the podcast, and I know Scott and I have talked about before that. We didn't necessarily know what we were getting into in the beginning, but it's been a very rewarding experience and, to your point, it's a very it's probably the quickest way to get informal information out there and get the message out there that you want received to that audience, and so we have seen a really great response from the podcast and just the information that we're able to communicate quicker. So really looking forward to that. Let's talk a little bit about the Nate Unite show. As you said, it's coming up February 17th in Raleigh, north Carolina. What's new and different this year?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I really appreciate you again letting me talk about Nate Unite. First of all, it's the 30th anniversary, so we have some special things in store to commemorate that, like historical milestones, not only within Nate but within the broader luncheon we are going to honor the NAIT founding member companies who have been members of the association since inception in 1995. And, as you can imagine, that's pretty impressive given all the changes that happened and the mergers and acquisitions that happened in any industry over a period of three decades. So we're excited about that. And then you know, I think our trade show exhibit hall is always the hallmark of Nate and the thing I love about it is the energy that's on our floor. Vendors like it because they get real-time feedback from the employers of the contractor companies and also the field personnel pay on their products. So we're excited about that.
Speaker 3:We have a really good group of vendors and exhibitors. Again, we have. Additionally, we have the receptions. We're hosting the networking luncheons. So anyone with an all conference pass gets into all of this. One with an all-conference pass gets into all of this. And we still believe, michelle and Scott, that for what you get for a Nate Unite pass, that the value you get, it's probably the best value in the industry for what you spend and what you get out of it in terms of the receptions, the luncheons, the networking opportunities, and so we're very excited about that. The networking opportunities, and so we're very excited about that. We have three customer diversification workshops again to continue to get messaging in front of our contractors on how, what sectors that touch wireless, that maybe not be wireless, how you can position your company to do work in that space. So those would be some things we're excited about. But again, it's amazing how fast it comes. You know, once the calendar turns to January, it seems like Nate Unite's here and it's that time again.
Michelle Kang :Yeah, well, we're definitely looking forward to it, Todd, thank you for being on our show today and sharing some of the things that you're working on with Nate for 2025. And especially as we head into that Nate Unite show here in a few weeks From us at TIFF. We truly appreciate your support and the open collaboration that you continue to have with us and we look forward to continuing this relationship.
Speaker 3:Thank you, michelle and Scott. And right back at you, Nate really appreciates our partnership with TIFF and the subject matter expertise and talent you provide the industry with all the resources that you produce and that you co-brand with Nate, so really appreciate our partnership.
Speaker 4:Thanks, tom, look forward to seeing you in Raleigh.
Speaker 3:Thank you both.
Michelle Kang :Thank you for listening to industry therapy presented presented by the Telecommunications Industry Foundation. The information expressed herein are the opinions of the individuals. They are not meant to supersede regulations, standards or AHJ requirements that govern the reference to subject matter. The reference to subject matter. To view additional TIF podcasts and other educational content, or to submit a potential topic for a future podcast, please visit our website tifonlineorg.