MTA builds infrastructure and networks for the long-term

he November 30, 2018, earthquake was not an insignificant event. But despite experiencing a pretty good shake, Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) CEO Michael Burke is proud to report that the association’s network didn’t have any service outages, though in some areas it ran on backup power for a short time.

It’s symbolic of how MTA has found solid ground in the midst of significant changes in its industry. Burke says, “Across the country, telecommunications co-ops are struggling in this landscape of extreme technological change. Not us. MTA continues to grow and develop during a time of immense change.”

MTA and its wholly-owned subsidiaries have been growing in many ways, including expanding its team of employees and its engagement with the community. “I probably lost count in terms of how many people we’ve added in the last several years,” Burke says.

To find quality employees, MTA’s HR team regularly participates in recruitment efforts, including attending job fairs, sponsoring internship programs, and working with the Alaska Job Corps Center located in Palmer on internships and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) through apprenticeship programs “to hopefully bring in new talent and train them up.”

While recruitment officers are looking for candidates with a strong, applicable skill set, Burke emphasizes that it’s equally important that potential employees are excited to learn and grow and are coachable.

This willingness and eagerness to learn is met with training and educational opportunities on day one and throughout an employee’s career at MTA. “We try to make sure we give people the right tools and education to be successful,” Burke says, including onsite or offsite training programs, as well as technical, marketing, or business-related education. “We try to customize it as much as possible for what that employee may need, not only just to do their job today but also for career development in the future.”

To that end, MTA has a strong continuing education program for its employees. “We allow employees to go out and do graduate level work or certification. We pay for that—encouraging people to add to their skill sets—which benefits both the employee as well as the company.” MTA offers tuition assistance up to 80 percent for formal education and pays 100 percent for training and certifications required for an employee’s position.

MTA supports and rewards its employees beyond just professional development. For example, MTA offers the Spot Award Program, through which supervisors and managers have an opportunity to provide a bonus to an employee who performs exceptionally well. “Maybe it’s a great engagement with a customer or they participated on a project that maybe they were assigned to, or maybe they just jumped in and helped out, but they really contributed,” Burke explains.

Recently the company launched MTA Connect, which allows the entire MTA team to engage positively with each other. “It’s an app that people can put on their computers or phone, and it’s a way to communicate almost like a social media network within the company,” Burke says. Employees can post and respond to each other about certifications, completed projects, positive initiatives, and more. “It’s a lot of real-time communication throughout the company about what employees are doing and recognizing them for all the work they’re performing.”

Burke says MTA’s employees have responded “really well” to MTA Connect, which launched in late 2018. “We’ve got just over 85 percent participation… the platform is engaging and gives everyone a chance to recognize and be recognized.”

MTA Connect is just one tool MTA uses to build unity among departments and employees. The organization coordinates cross training Lunch & Learn activities on a monthly basis, which are open to all departments. “This has really created a united culture, despite the fact that many of our departments are quite different,” Burke says. Topics can include information on new MTA products or initiatives or even technology that isn’t MTA-specific. “We had one [in February] where we talked about social media and just educated employees about what type of information gets collected on social media and how you can better control that.”

In the near future, Burke reports, MTA will be utilizing MTA Connect to launch department profiles. These profiles will include information on what the department does as well as the people employed in it. “We have a lot of people that are always out in the field; we have a lot of construction activities going on… so it makes it harder in some ways for them to interact on a daily basis. We’re trying to get more outreach to them to make sure they feel included,” he says.

And having employees in the field is only one of many ways that MTA interacts with its customers. “MTA is a co-op, which means we are owned by our customers; we’re owned by the people in the community. So that creates a stronger connection, I believe, with the people that we provide service to that are essentially our neighbors out here,” Burke explains.

MTA also hosts workshops and lectures in the community to empower its member-owners and patrons “to live a connected life.” Burke says, “We try to think about how we can better deploy technology that will help meet those customers’ changing needs, and we try to be a partner with those customers as well. It’s not just delivering broadband or some type of technology solution but trying to find ways to help customers better understand that technology and make it easier for them to use.”

For example, many of MTA’s customers who still have traditional cable TV services in their homes may struggle to embrace new streaming entertainment options. MTA offers workshops that educate those customers about what streaming technologies are available, how to set them up, and how to manage them, easing the uncertainty or stress that some may feel approaching new technology. That one-on-one outreach is a near-term solution, and MTA is also doing market research to understand, long term, “how we can make sure whatever product, services, and infrastructure we build will better serve them.”

MTA and its affiliates focus on the future, and one aspect of that focus is their ongoing commitment to the environment. “There are few commitments that MTA takes more seriously than our commitment to the environment and making the world a cleaner and safer place for our generation, as well as future ones down the road,” Burke says.

MTA’s Palmer-based headquarters was recently the recipient of a Green Star award from the Alaska Forum on the Environment, which highlighted the utility’s efforts in waste reduction, energy conservation, and pollution prevention within the workplace. MTA is one of ten companies to receive the award for 2019.

MTA is also a leader in the telecommunications industry in terms of technology adoption and deployment. “We’re making the Mat-Su and Eagle River areas very unique for the future, in that we’re putting out the kind of infrastructure that rivals anything being built anywhere else in the country.” As of 2018, MTA has extended more than 130 miles of fiber, including 58 miles of new fiber to “every new subdivision that goes in our area,” reaching approximately 1,544 individual lots. The company is planning more than 30 miles of fiber initiatives for 2019, as well.

“We’re sort of like landscape architects,” Burke states. “A landscape architect will go out, and they’ll plant trees and bushes, and they have this vision in thirty years how all these plants will grow and create a landscape that maybe you didn’t see at first. I think the technology we’re deploying is very similar. I probably couldn’t even begin to imagine, thirty years from now, what new services and new businesses we will enable.

“MTA is really excited for the future of Alaska. We’re really at the beginning of a technology revolution… and we’re creating the infrastructure that will allow all kinds of new and creative minds to come up with new ways to help Alaska thrive and be successful into the future. And we’re very proud and happy to be a part of that.”