Local business spotlight - Willamette Valley Fiber

Today, we are talking about Willamette Valley Fiber, a local business here in Dallas. Our guest today is Jason Saunders, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service Director at Willamette Valley Fiber. 

https://wvalleyfiber.com/
https://www.facebook.com/willamettevalleyfiber

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the Dallas, Oregon Podcast, your quick and informative source for what's happening in and around our city. I'm Charlie Mitchell, the Economic and Community Development Director for the City of Dallas, and each episode we bring in city staff, local leaders, and community members to discuss the projects, people, and possibilities right here in Dallas. Today we're going to be talking about Willamette Valley Fiber, a local business here in Dallas. And our guest today is Jason Saunders, sales marketing, and customer service director at Willamette Valley Fiber. Jason, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Thanks for having me, Charlie. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Now, Jason, before we get into the kind of more the details of Willamette Valley Fiber, uh tell us a little bit about yourself. Maybe you can where you grew up and how you found yourself doing what you do today.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Well, I'm a native Oregonian. Uh, I love Oregon because you're about two hours away from everything. The beach, the mountains, the desert. We have it all here. Um, I've been through all throughout the state, but kind of found myself in the Willamette Valley, uh, my main location. That's no pun on Well Fiber, but you know. Uh how I got myself in the industry was kind of a story where I was actually in Dallas. I was a manager at the Safeway here. Um, I don't want to date myself. This is the late, late 90s, though. Um, I have taken class at Shamecada, and Shemeckada had a career fair. And I'm I just kind of between classes, I'm walking through this career fair, and this person grabs my attention. And it's actually someone who frequented the Safeway a lot. So she kind of knew who I was. She's like, hey, I have an open position at ATMT broadband. Would you like to apply? I'm like, oh why not? And uh 26 years later, here I am, still in the industry. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

That's that's great. Um, now we always love hearing, you know, people's stories in their background, like you just shared. I appreciate that. You know, what's kind of behind the local business. Um, now let's get into what Willamette Valley Fiber is, for those who may not know.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Sure, and we can short it to WVF. That's a lot easier. WVF is easier for me to say. We uh picked the longest name possible. Um, we got here about six years ago. Um, you know, we're MyNet 2. So MyNet is Monmouth Independence Network. Um, we're the operator of Willamette Valley Fiber. About six years ago, there's a study that Dallas's internet wasn't up to pars where it should be. So um underserved, as they say. So we were asked to come in here, build out here, like I said, about six years ago, um, with our fiber to the home network, which uh what that means basically is you hear a lot, especially from our competitors now, about fiber, fiber, fiber. Well, uh, we're truly fiber to the home. So like when our competitor says fiber, that means there's fiber to like a neighborhood or you know, a city. We're actually bringing the fiber to the home. And some of the advantages that is very, very consistent speeds. We're synchronous speeds, so same up and down load. Your neighbors can do whatever they want and it won't affect your service and there's no peak times. But also we're dundant, which means um in case of an outage, we have multiple feeds coming in so it can switch to a backup feed. So again, our competitors will be down and we're still up, and that's part of the reason is we're redundant.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, that's um that's amazing. Uh, that's a great asset for a community like Dallas to have that. Uh tell everyone where WVF is located.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Right across the street from the city hall. You can't miss us. Uh Dallas natives will say that we're the old Radio Shack building. Radio Shack, right? We hear that all the time. Uh yeah, that it was a it's a city-owned building. Um, the city wasn't utilizing it at the time, so we got to lease it, but uh we renovated a lot inside, but people still come in and tell me stories about Radio Shack and you know, oh, we went there when we were little and what we got and this, you know. So yeah, we're at 988 Southeast Jefferson.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

At the corner of Jefferson and Washington, right? Correct, correct. Good. Now, from the city's perspective, we see that you and the company pretty involved in the community, I would say. Now, can you tell listeners uh all the many ways that that you're connected?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah, um we're part of the chamber, we're part of the um DDA, obviously Dallas Downtowns Association, the Dallas Arts Association work closely with. In fact, they have a rotating exhibit in our office every month. Um, we're part of the glow run, we're part of the summer concert series, pretty much uh Dallas Athletics, anything that's really involved in town, we try to sponsor, be a part of, be there. Uh, in fact, this week I did mock interviews for sophomores at the high school, which uh I really find enjoyable. It's kind of nice to you know work with kids.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

So yeah, that's a that's a great event. Is there anything else you want to um or any place you want to direct people to, such as a website or social media accounts, newsletter, et cetera? How do people connect with WVF?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Wvalleyfiber.com. That's our website. Uh, you have our links to our Facebook account there, our Instagram account. Of course, our office is 988 Southeast Jefferson Street. So those are the main ways to get a hold of us. And of course, you can call us at 503-371700.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Very good. Now, Jason, before we move on to some of our last questions today, is there anything that you want to share with our listeners today that maybe we haven't covered yet? Maybe um a call to action uh or frequently asked question or something that people might be confused about.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, I think the fiber question was the biggest thing. Um, you know, we are local, which is another huge advantage. Um, but also we just launched a 2.5 gig speed, which makes us the fastest provider in Polk County. Um Welland Valley Fiber is now also located in Rickreal. We're in South Dallas, and we just opened up in Fall City. So we're really taking over Polk County, if you will. Uh, but our office is still here in Dallas.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, good. Anything else?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

I think that's it. You got it covered.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

All right. Um, now um, before we um before we close out, um, I want to thank you, thank Jason for joining us today uh from Willama Valley Fiber. And before we go, we ask all our guests this one last question, and that is what is your favorite thing about Dallas?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

You know what's really close knit? It is. Uh, I love working downtown as we talked prior to this. Um, I can walk to all my meetings. It's a really quaint, nice downtown. People know you, people wave on the street. It is really close knit. I mean, it's not a big city per se, you know, 20,000 population, but it feels a lot smaller, hometown feel. I really like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, that's awesome. I totally agree with that. Well, thanks again to Jason for joining us today, and thank you to everyone for tuning in. And be sure to follow us on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening to the Dallas Oregon Podcast. I'm Charlie Mitchell, and we'll see you next time.