Tribal Broadband Bootcamps in Action - Episode 641 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Matthew Rantanen (00:07):
Myself, yourself. All of the instructors that we work with, all of the tribes that we work with are tired of talking about the problem. We are active and proactive about creating and implementing solutions.

Christopher Mitchell (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell. [00:00:30] I'm at the Institute for Local Self Reliance and I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota, having just recently left RantanenTown Ranch where my current guest Matthew Rantanen resides. Welcome.

Matthew Rantanen (00:43):
Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

Christopher Mitchell (00:45):
It's been a minute since you were officially on the show. I think you're always hear in spirit one way or another, but Matt, for people who aren't familiar is president of the board of Waskawiwin. We'll talk about what that is and co-founder [00:01:00] of the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps, as well as a variety of other things we're not going to go into. But Matt, people have heard me talk about the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps. We'll spend most of our time talking about them, but why don't you give us the lowdown on Waskawiwin first?

Matthew Rantanen (01:16):
Waskawiwin was formed out of necessity to support the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps. It is a 501c3 nonprofit and it is 100% aligned with the mission of the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps and Waskawiwin [00:01:30] means the act of being active or the act of being in motion. It is a Cree word from above the US border, and I think it reflects who we are as a group. So myself, yourself, all of the instructors that we work with, all of the tribes that we work with are tired of talking about the problem. We are active and proactive about [00:02:00] creating and implementing solutions. And so it was a very aptly named organization in that fashion.

Christopher Mitchell (02:09):
Yeah, I'm inspired by it because I really like the idea of taking action and not talking but trying to get stuff done. That's been the approach of the bootcamps. I mean, how many people have come to our events and then said, oh, I thought this was going to be like a conference. And it's nothing like that.

Matthew Rantanen (02:28):
Most everybody is like, [00:02:30] I've been to a lot of conferences, but boy, this is intense. We're on all the time, and I thought I was going to just check out and do email and things like that. I haven't even looked at my computer. It's like this is so engaging and so informative and so hands-on that I haven't even had a chance to focus elsewhere. So yeah, it's nice to see that perspective. I mean, how many conferences have we been to where you're nearly asleep sitting through sessions hoping for some good bits of [00:03:00] information?

Christopher Mitchell (03:01):
I've been excited about some of the ways we're going beyond the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps with Waskawiwin , and we can talk about that a little bit, but I think Waskawiwin's goal more broadly is to connect Indian country and by connect not just to the Internet but to each other so we can really help. I feel like we're sort of like a catalyst where we're trying to help them get more advanced, more connected so they can achieve their [00:03:30] own goals and then we can get out of the way.

Matthew Rantanen (03:34):
Yeah, I mean it's certainly the coolest byproduct of the bootcamps and it's something Waskawiwin is promoting and supporting, and that is the human network. This massive amount of people that have been through a bootcamp that all have the common thread of trying to solve their communications needs for their communities and the common thread and interest of technology [00:04:00] and the different things that come along with that. And I think it's a perfect time for Waskawiwin to take shape because we have had so many tribes involved with the bootcamps that are very willing to provide constructive criticism and help us with the evolution of where we are headed in the next few years, and Waskawiwin can form that at the same time and become very supportive of exchange programs and different [00:04:30] things that we're capable of now that we have this network of folks.

Christopher Mitchell (04:35):
So let's talk about the most recent event. We just concluded our 17th event in less than four years. We have our 18th coming up very soon with the Pueblo of Hamus in the Albuquerque area. But I wanted to just start by what I think most people considered one of the most interesting fun parts of the Tribal Broadband Bootcamp that you hosted [00:05:00] on RantanenTown Ranch. I think it was maybe the fifth or sixth one we've hosted there. We've added a bunch of cool stuff for people to actually experience. You've buried fiber all over your property. We have a wireless tower that you've concreted into the ground. We have all kinds of stuff, but we added something. You showed that you have no idea how to cut a fiber with a bulldozer blade.

Matthew Rantanen (05:26):
You would think that a tractor bucket would be sharp enough on the edge. [00:05:30] I mean, it'll cut your finger if you run your finger down it because of all the little burrs and stuff on it. But when you put 11,000 pounds behind it and you drop it straight down on a piece of skinny little fiber, it is surprising that I wasn't able to cut it in the first jab.

Christopher Mitchell (05:45):
So we had set up, I mean thanks to our partners and sponsors, we had set up an E seven on your property. We have a splitter, so it's a gigabit G PON network that we have out there. And the tent was being fed by a fiber to distribute [00:06:00] Wi-Fi in that area. And we specifically laid the fiber out on the ground. So you could come by and do your classic fiber seeking backhoe minus the backhoe plus the blade. Yeah, so we were actually, just to keep it a little bit simple, we did use an indoor cable that had a fair amount of protection around it, but you dropped the blade on it like three times in the first two times it was still passing data.

Matthew Rantanen (06:27):
It was impressive. And I love that people in the crowd [00:06:30] were running speed tests while I did it to see if the data stream dropped and they're like, it's still working. It's still working. I couldn't believe it picked it up and it was a little funky, but it wasn't broken.

Christopher Mitchell (06:42):
And then we had two level one techs from HAMUS that they restored it, and that was pretty cool. They were both a bit nervous. They said, we did an interview with them afterward that eventually we'll share, but they both felt like they gained confidence as [00:07:00] a result of it. And I just thought it was pretty cool to show people how that works

Matthew Rantanen (07:05):
And to have them patch it and then put it back out there and have it function again as normal. I dunno, I think it takes away a lot of the mystery of fiber that people are afraid of. I mean, how many times have we seen people come into this thinking that they're going to do wireless and leaving fiber to the home as their new plan? So [00:07:30] I just think it's great. Tribes have looked for the low cost solution a lot of times because of funding opportunities Now, when some of 'em have some funding opportunities, I think it's really wonderful that they're looking at hybridized systems where you have fiber as close to the endpoint as you can to sort of future proof the capacity and opportunity of the network. And then you build those wireless connections, those really hard to reach folks. It's neat to see it evolve.

Christopher Mitchell (07:56):
And I just go back to, and I look back, [00:08:00] we talked in July, 2021 and next year I think we should revisit that interview and think about it because we had no idea that this was coming, that we were going to do all these other events and whatnot, but you're going to react. But then also I want to bring in Lya and spa.

Matthew Rantanen (08:20):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean that'll be the five year anniversary. So how wild is that? I think we created something we don't know how to stop.

Christopher Mitchell (08:29):
Yeah, I [00:08:30] mean that's where for me, I give a lot of credit to some of those early folks like Speygee or two that come to mind because worked so frequently with them. But the people who came out to the first bootcamp and showed us that there was some gold buried there if we needed to keep digging and try to find it, that's probably not the right analogy

Matthew Rantanen (08:53):
Given. No, but there was definitely a discovery I think from all directions from us, from them [00:09:00] that well, for one, many people that attended had no clue there were other tribes doing this. So it was during the tribal priority window receipt of licenses. People were looking at their 2.5 gigahertz and they had been reached out to by either myself or Jeffrey Blackwell or Irene Flannery or a number of other people that were promoting the open window at the FCC and they got their license, but I don't think they really understood in some [00:09:30] cases exactly what it meant or they knew that they needed to go learn about it. And when they came to learn about it, they realized how many other people were just like them. I mean, they opened a door to resources and then it evolved the opportunity when we are all in a room, ideas start flying around, solutions start flying around, creativity starts stepping in. And then you and I realized what we had done is, and put this together, we'd created this catalyst that all [00:10:00] this stuff started happening. Now how do we harness it and make it effective in the next one? And also scientists and such, let's prove that it was false. Let's do it again. I don't think that was a real thing. And then the second one blew us away. It was even more impactful.

Christopher Mitchell (10:17):
Yeah, I think about that. We started with the tribal wireless bootcamp. Now we call 'em broadband bootcamps because it's alliterative. Both you and I think have concerns about the use of the word broadband as a replacement for Internet. [00:10:30] I think Internet is the key thing, Internet access. But I think about people, there's so many people that have influenced us on the way, but it was a few people like Jonathan Chambers to me quietly when he was like, dude, why are you just only doing wireless and the tribal nations really need to think about fiber networks too? And I was like, it's too hard. How can you do it on such a small scale? And then to have MERIT and particularly Bob Stoval [00:11:00] reaching out and then all of MERIT putting its weight behind to help us try to figure out how to share that. And then tribes that had been doing this, like Mohawk Networks and TOUA, Tohono O'odham, Cheyenne River Sioux sharing their long experience on this, it's really snowballed.

Matthew Rantanen (11:17):
Yeah, it has. And I'm coming to find networks that exist out there that nobody's talking about. So the Patonga tribe in Temecula has fiber to the home and they just built it because they had access to the resources [00:11:30] and the dollars and they just built their own network. And so it's nice to be able to showcase the different variety of success stories and promote those ones in a group setting because I think no one size fits all is never going to change. And I think you can pick pieces and parts of other people's network and make your own Frankenstein network that works for your community. I really don't think that an outside source comes in with a cookie cutter idea and says, here's how to solve your problem. I [00:12:00] think tribes have realized that, especially now at event number 17, how unique the tribal communities are and how unique the solutions need to be able to service the community correctly.

Christopher Mitchell (12:11):
One of the things we do that's a little bit surprising for people is also we bring people in. We talk about sexy stuff like fiber splicing and breaking fiber with backhoes and climbing towers safely and a variety of other things. I mean, we try to emphasize all these things that have been learned by [00:12:30] people that have done it the wrong way. And then in the course of building the network at your ranch, we've also done a bunch of things the wrong way. We've tried to build vaults out of order and learned why there's a specific order you do things in for outside plant.

Matthew Rantanen (12:43):
It's interesting because it very integral part of the tribal digital village network, and we built that the wrong way too. We went out and hung radios on towers and made 'em talk to each other and didn't really understand all the science [00:13:00] and everything behind it. We got a network working but didn't have the proper training as to what we were doing specifically and why it was working. And then went back and did training and then learned how to undo, redo our mistakes or fine tune our network to make it a better solution. And it's interesting now 24 years later, I haven't learned to change that process. I'm still going at it without the directions and then figuring it out to the fact. So [00:13:30] I guess it's who I am. I mean definitely who you are too.

Christopher Mitchell (13:35):
Yep. Unrestrained.

Matthew Rantanen (13:37):
Yeah, and the coolest thing about it, and we talked about it this last bootcamp, is like, look, we've all made mistakes. We've all spent money that didn't need to be spent. We've all bought products that don't work or that don't work for us. We've all bought into concepts and solutions that other people have promoted, and when it came right down to it, we figured it out on our own and we figured out the best solutions and we talked about piling [00:14:00] up all those mistakes for each other so we can stand on top of those to move forward rather than repeating our own mistakes. I mean, there's no reason why anybody needs to repeat the 50 mistakes that TD Vnet did. I mean, I can share all those mistakes and then you can stand upon the top of it and make your own mistakes.

Christopher Mitchell (14:18):
One of the things that I think we do though, and I was starting to get in this direction and diverted myself, but we do a lot of fun things that I think are people were like, oh, I know [00:14:30] that I need this. And they get there and then we make sure that they also eat their vegetables is the way I think of it, which is to say, learning about the other things that need to be done to make sure that people benefit from the network. Because candidly, I think there's a lot of people who are much more interested in building things, physical things, getting out in the dirt and working with their hands. Then there are people who are inspired to come and help someone learn how to use a device or to figure out how to procure devices [00:15:00] at a reasonable cost for people who don't have them. And so that's one of the things that we do is that we make sure that people who are focused on infrastructure understand the challenges then of using it. And in DaVita, Delmar has really been the key to that as well as other people who have joined us from who are digital navigators for different tribes. And that's something that I'm continuously excited when I hear people saying, I didn't know that I needed this [00:15:30] as much as I do.

Matthew Rantanen (15:31):
Yeah, I think that was really apparent with a couple of the bootcamps where a bunch of techs came in that were from the same community and they were all ready to just gang up on the tech stuff and they were going to go deploy things and they were excited about bringing fiber through the conduit. They were excited about hooking things together. They're excited about setting up a wireless network. And then we said, well, here's the digital equity piece. And then they were like, we'll be outside. We will catch you guys after this session. [00:16:00] And we're like, no, that's not how bootcamps work. You're involved with all of it. And so like you said, the vegetables, right? So we fed 'em a whole bunch of broccoli and funny enough, they all on their surveys responded with the digital equity piece was the most impactful, had no clue they needed it blown away.

(16:19):
And it happens every single bootcamp. I mean every time we get into digital equity, people don't realize the impact that has on a community and the success of your network relies upon it. [00:16:30] I mean, at tdb we thought, man, we're going to build this thing and everybody's going to use it. We're still below 50% penetration in a community that doesn't have access to Internet. So it's mind boggling that word of mouth and just the opportunity doesn't do it. There's a lot of barriers to entry cost of devices, just being afraid of the technology, being afraid of getting taken advantage of, and there's a lot of that on the Internet today. So there it's an education process and I think [00:17:00] a very valuable one at that.

Christopher Mitchell (17:02):
So now we're in a situation where we're trying to figure out what's next. We certainly have a number of events on the horizon. Many of them are kind of paused in planning as we're waiting to see what happens with a variety of grants split between USDA and NTIA where we're hoping that they'll be approved and go out. We have incoming support from foundations. I think Democracy Fund really came along at the perfect time to keep [00:17:30] us going and to energize us. I think we have prospects with other foundations as well, so we're able to continue as say, slowly stepping forward if we don't have access to the government funds that we've been promised. But there's a lot of enthusiasm on the way. I have to say that. One of the things that's really touched me, and it doesn't sound as impressive as a story, but did you hear the story about, and we'll just obscure names here, but the team that was, they [00:18:00] were working on a fiber spool and a major supervisor from the tribe came up to ask 'em what they were doing.

Matthew Rantanen (18:06):
I don't know if I did hear that story.

Christopher Mitchell (18:08):
So they were testing the cable that they had received and a contractor was going to be installing it at the

Matthew Rantanen (18:14):
Location. Yeah, they did hear that one. That's a unique situation. Very creative solution too. So here I'll jump into it. They're deploying with a contractor spools of fiber, and so they've got all their inventory and the contractor's going to just [00:18:30] grab a spool and install it. Well, the team goes through and tests each cable, each spool of cable to prove that that fiber is in good shape and it passes the requirements for passing data. And there's no brakes in the fiber, no kinks in the fiber. It just blows me away. It was a great solution because then when the contractor picks it up and goes and installs it potentially comes back and says, oh, this doesn't work. It's on you. That was faulty cable. You can just turn around and go. But no, [00:19:00] we just tested it and it was fine before you picked it up.

Christopher Mitchell (19:04):
And these are the kinds of things that ISPs do often after they've been bitten, they develop these processes. So like you had said, you and me doing things wrong, generally before we figure out how to do it, that's where having some of these partners on both from Indian country and then also people from MERIT Networks or Esther Spencer and Cody bringing a lot of knowledge from the software world and [00:19:30] having built wireless networks in a variety of places. We have these sessions and people go through them and then after the session they can chat with each other and they can even go deeper on one-on-one problems. And so it's just exciting to know that this isn't just like a three day junket, but that people are hungry for this. And then they are going back At this event, we had several people who had been to multiple other events and I'd reached out to them and I'd said, [00:20:00] Hey, what do you want us to do differently?

(20:01):
And one of 'em was like, we're about to buy a bunch of locating equipment and I'm intimidated at all the different options. And so we did a whole thing and MERIT sent in their locating equipment, and Dustin from MERIT was able to demonstrate that, you know what? It didn't even work well because we had not, once again, you and I had not properly grounded all of the equipment yet something's always going to be done next time. But that process was still really helped them to learn a lot more than if it had [00:20:30] even worked properly.

Matthew Rantanen (20:31):
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think if everything had been grounded properly and they found the cable, it would've been a really quick tutorial and people would've tried it and it would've been super easy. Well, because they didn't have the proper ground on the far end, we hadn't gotten down our list of things to do yet. They had a really tough struggle. So they were catching electricity lines that are going to a, well, they were catching other things that were around it, but they weren't able to find the conduit. Interesting [00:21:00] thing is then they go to the other end, they realize the ground isn't there, they put the ground in and then all of a sudden now they can find everything. So I dunno, good learning lesson if you ask me,

Christopher Mitchell (21:10):
The thing that we didn't anticipate, Matt, is that you and I would perfectly simulate half-assed contractors.

Matthew Rantanen (21:17):
We got it, we nailed it.

Christopher Mitchell (21:19):
We did most of what we were supposed to do, but we left some things out and you'll figure out what they are. One of us, someone from the event when we closed up the outdoor [00:21:30] ONT, the enclosure for the end of the fiber network on the tower, we crushed a fiber. And so we left it there when we found it. And I'll say that it could have been me. I don't think it was me. I don't want it to have been me, but it could have been me. And rather than fixing it, we told people, Hey, we got a call and the customer says that they're not getting a connection anymore. And so Dustin is able to show people how to do an OTDR [00:22:00] and they were able to get a sense of how you would troubleshoot that to then go out and find out the drop line had been mangled.

Matthew Rantanen (22:07):
And then I think we had SPA from Hoopa go out and fix it. And it's interesting too because they're a long ways along on this 65 million bill at Hoopa, but they haven't had the opportunity to actually splice fiber in the field yet. So he was like, I was a little nervous. This is my first actual field splice with fiber. I've done a lot of desk stuff, but never in the field. And [00:22:30] it was cool. I made it work.

Christopher Mitchell (22:32):
So when he spliced it at first, he nicked or didn't get a clean cut on the glass, we think because he spliced it and then we still weren't getting data passing. And so he said, oh, I think I might know that I need to do it again. And we did it again then it did pass data correctly. But yeah, Bigge is a supervisor now, right? He is. He's passing those orders on to other people for the most part.

Matthew Rantanen (22:57):
That's right. You move far enough up the stack, you've become [00:23:00] a glorified check signer

Christopher Mitchell (23:03):
All about that.

Matthew Rantanen (23:04):
I do. It's all I do anymore.

Christopher Mitchell (23:07):
And then the other thing that I wanted to note, I mean, we do think that there's a lot of other things we can be doing to help and mostly it's that connection service. I think, and it's been great, if anyone's listening to this, who knows of any tribal nations that have a 2.5 gigahertz license and they're not sure [00:23:30] how to use it or they're struggling to find the right equipment, we are available to provide some support to help them get it up. We actually did this with a couple of folks to make sure that they were able to do their license in time, and that's something that we want to help to make sure that they're able to use that 2.5 gigahertz.

Matthew Rantanen (23:52):
Yeah, I think we would also encourage them to attend a bootcamp so that there was a better understanding of what 2.5 gigahertz [00:24:00] value is to the community and maybe options on how to use it, but certainly potentially providing the right hardware to be able to fulfill your license agreement as most of those first session or the first half license agreements are probably due by now. I'm sure there's a few tribes that were unable to acquire equipment and the expertise to get it put into place in time. So their next window is shortened from four years to two [00:24:30] years. So it's certainly relevant for any of those folks or anybody that wants to sort of expand on the use of 2.5 gigahertz beyond what they've done to meet their minimum requirement.

Christopher Mitchell (24:40):
And then I wanted to wrap up by noting that we focus on a lot of things in person that are related to outside plan building, physical networks, wireless wire line, fiber optic, whatever, but that we've had a number of administrators and tribal leadership come through. We've had [00:25:00] other people who aren't associated with tribes come through. We don't encourage that a lot. We want to keep this really strongly focused on Indian country, but we have had a commissioner from the CPUC come through. We've had a number of different folks coming through and we are hopeful to keep seeing that because I think the other thing that we do, aside from giving people hands on, is doing a good job of explaining how everything comes together. And I think you're going to be a better leader [00:25:30] if you have a better sense of how all the different parts interact.

Matthew Rantanen (25:34):
I think the big piece of the takeaway from that is that you have state and regional officials in this space that now understand what tribes are going through, and they never had the understanding of what the complexities were of putting this together for a tribe. I mean, from a public utilities commission's perspective, they know the rulemaking, they know the policies, they don't know on the [00:26:00] ground. And so this is a lot of on the ground, which really informs their decision makings moving forward. I think a lot of tribal leaders benefit, even a lot of directors of programs benefit, they don't understand the timeline it takes to do some of these activities, and so it really addresses the reality for them, and they weren't ready to experience that. They were like, wait a minute, this takes two hours to do. Why? I had no clue. When we were sending 'em out, we're like, why aren't they back kind of a thing when their trucks roll? The other thing, I think [00:26:30] we really had a cool advantage when we were at Mohawk St. Regis at Aqua Sony team stuff. We had sort of an indoor that they delivered to the room where we were doing the training. They actually created a mobile unit so that people could better understand what happens inside when you're managing a network

Christopher Mitchell (26:51):
And the network operating center where they have the screens to respond to problems and things like that.

Matthew Rantanen (26:56):
And then we got to see fresh, my memory where we [00:27:00] went

Christopher Mitchell (27:02):
Tohono O'odham had a wall screen.

Matthew Rantanen (27:05):
That one was really cool.

Christopher Mitchell (27:06):
And then Noah Net did as well. We visited NOAH net while we were hanging out with the inland Pacific nations.

Matthew Rantanen (27:14):
And so two different applications on the same idea. One is a giant screen on a wall where all of the cubicles can see the screen and watch things in live real time alerts and different messages coming across that screen. And then at no net, they had individual [00:27:30] sort of substations of that screen where everybody had these wraparound monitors and they were responsible for that screen each individually probably focusing on different aspects of the network or different regions. And then they also had a big sort of a ticker of jobs and experiences on the network that they were checking and deleting off the list as they were moving through it. So really cool to see the different experiences that different people have set up and then what works best. I mean, I can [00:28:00] remember to rewind, I don't know, 20 years. I had built a cabinet in TDB that held eight HP CRT monitors, like 17 inch monitors in a row, so four and four. And we had different machines plugged into those that were able to, this one was dumping the log so we could watch the log roll in real time. This one was looking at some of the connections. This one was looking at a different type of radios connections, and we were doing that on CRT [00:28:30] monitors back in the day, and man, it was the most inefficient thing, but it was way better than just trying to wing it. But things have changed and I'm glad we're helping support those changes by showing the evolution of stuff.

Christopher Mitchell (28:42):
When we visited Tohono O'odham, one of the things that I loved also was one of the people that was from a place that they're going to be building a network stepped out into the yard and was looking around at the trucks and stuff, and they were like, oh, wow. I didn't really think about all the outdoor space that we would need to store things [00:29:00] and to be able to manipulate and move the trucks around and just realizing that they needed a bigger yard than they had planned on some people seeing the security that you want to have fences and all that, seeing this stuff in person can really make a difference.

Matthew Rantanen (29:16):
I mean, when we were at Red Spectrum in Coeur d'Alene, they had a pretty substantial yard, but Tohono O'odham has a pretty, I don't know, monumental effort in that yard and the different warehouses and stuff that has a different utility devices that they use to manage [00:29:30] things, not just the network, but other things as well. It was pretty massive effort.

Christopher Mitchell (29:34):
And the utility system for Tohono O'odham has a responsibility for many more utilities, so that was a part of it too.

Matthew Rantanen (29:42):
Yeah, I imagine the Hoopa Valley tribe is in that same boat and they have limited space. Think about their reservation compared Tohono O'odham is I think the fourth biggest reservation in the U.S.

Christopher Mitchell (29:53):
Yes,

Matthew Rantanen (29:54):
Hoopa Valley is quite small and they're in a valley, so space is limited. I mean, I wonder if they're going to get a [00:30:00] car vending machine to stack their utility trucks.

Christopher Mitchell (30:05):
And the Red Spectrum was really fun for just seeing a number of different things, including just remembering that there's local politics at stake, right? There was a bunch of fiber checked up on a pole in plain sight, and I think the city didn't want to work with the tribe. There's a personality conflict there that got in the way.

Matthew Rantanen (30:26):
Yeah. It's surprising how much you have to deal with some of that petty stuff [00:30:30] all along the path. I mean, even individual homeowners that just had a brand new home built, they don't want to see something on the outside of their house. So they're trying to convince you to hang your customer premise equipment inside the attic, looking out a vent to try to see the mountain to be able to serve wirelessly. And there's an education process in all of it, for sure.

Christopher Mitchell (30:53):
Yeah. Well, and that's where we can end up, because a person who does those installs knows that, but their [00:31:00] supervisor doesn't always. And that's the thing that we make sure. And Matt, I think you and I, we do so many things. Well, Matt, let me just pat you on the back. You get my back. But one thing that we consistently see, and it's where we really care deeply, is that people are willing to share, right? People who are quiet, people who come expecting that they're going to hide in a corner and they're not going to be putting themselves out there because that's how they roll through life for whatever reason, and they find that [00:31:30] they feel comfortable and they want to share those experiences, and we all benefit when that happens.

Matthew Rantanen (31:35):
We have seen at least two, maybe three really shining examples, and I won't call the people out by name, but the first one was somebody that was promoted to us by their supervisor that this person is probably not going to engage. By the end of that first bootcamp, they were excited to share what they had learned and the experience was mind expanding for them, and they felt comfortable. [00:32:00] The next one was interesting because it was a gentleman who worked outside plant, and we came around just to say our name and who we were and where we were, and he refused to do that. And so it was funny to me and exciting to me. By the end of that bootcamp, we came around to say who we were and what we got out of the bootcamp. And he was eager to speak up because he had seen so many other people share stories, and he had a boatload of stories. [00:32:30] He just didn't have an avenue to get rid of him. And all of a sudden he now had a voice and he came out, spoke, was excited to be there. And then the following bootcamp he showed up too. He spoke the whole time.

Christopher Mitchell (32:42):
Yeah, I remember there was one person who after they spoke, one of the coworkers said, I've worked with this guy for six months. I'd never heard him say that many words. Right,

Matthew Rantanen (32:51):
Exactly. Yeah. It is a good experience, and I think if you're in this space, you're in it for a reason. I mean, you may be here just for a job, but [00:33:00] it's a fun job. But most of these people, especially in tribal communities, are here to solve communications problems that they're having and create opportunities for where they live. And so it is a passion project on top of being a job. And so if you're passionate about something, you want to share successes and opportunities. And I think it gnaws at you if you are a shy person, you eventually just can't hold it in anymore because you're doing such good stuff, you got to let [00:33:30] it out. So it's wonderful to capture that.

Christopher Mitchell (33:32):
Well, there's several other stories we could tell, but we are going to have to draw to a close. I will say that we're kicking around the idea for a big five-year celebration next year. So anyone who's been a part of the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps should, if you have ideas, we've got a few, and it centers on, I think probably a big event bench in June, possibly at the ranch. So

Matthew Rantanen (33:56):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. I think a little bit longer event [00:34:00] where we can focus a little longer on each of the subjects and really drill down into some of the things we don't quite have enough time for. We could do some interesting breakaway stuff with small groups, and I think we need to be a little bit celebratory in what we've achieved in five years because it's been pretty monumental the amount of impact we've had on folks with the bootcamp. But not only that, but impact they've had on each other. And I think we just really need to sort of share that A lot of the tribes will [00:34:30] be mid construction in the last year of their funding opportunity. So there might be some tight timelines to meet, and maybe we'll have people coming for two days and leaving and other people coming for three days. But I think we ought to do the best we can to sort of regroup the folks that have made the biggest difference so that we can share that it's been a wonderful ride.

Christopher Mitchell (34:50):
I think maybe you should rent a Bobcat that has a sharper blade backhoe, perhaps.

Matthew Rantanen (34:57):
I'm thinking maybe like an auger so we can [00:35:00] wind the wire up or wind the fiber up and pull it out of the ground for like 200 feet.

Christopher Mitchell (35:05):
Yeah, we didn't even mention that People, you now, you're the proud owner of two half utility poles stuck in your ground around the area

Matthew Rantanen (35:13):
You're working in. Yeah, that's right. And we have a cool relationship with Connect Anza, and they came in with their auger truck, they set two half utility poles, and they did a wire it's wire between them and did an aerial lashing demo. And how cool is that? [00:35:30] I mean, we had that makeshift thing that I put together in 40 minutes so that we could get that done. But I mean, I think we really benefited from the longer span to actually see that device work as it's supposed to, and people got to pull it, see what the tension was like, see how it would hang up and different things. That was amazing. And my ravens love it. They're hanging out all over it.

Christopher Mitchell (35:52):
That's great. Well, thank you, Matt, once again. It's been wonderful working with you on this and appreciate [00:36:00] your time.

Matthew Rantanen (36:00):
Always a pleasure. Thanks Chris.

Ry Marcattilio (36:02):
We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available at communitynets.org/broadbandbits. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas For the show, follow Chris on Blue Sky. His handle is at Sport Shot Chris. Follow communitynets.org stories on Blue Sky, the handles at communitynets subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, local [00:36:30] Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcast. You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly [email protected]. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arnie Hesby for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Commons.