As we head further into 2023, new trends come surfing in the telecom industry. In such an ever-changing landscape, how does a company meet the changing needs of its clients? In this episode, Chad Rasmussen, President and CEO of Y-COM, discusses his unique approach to paving the way for the future of telecom. He shares how Y-COM has evolved to stay ahead of the curve, connecting the dots between the trends and providing cutting-edge solutions to their clients. He discusses how Y-COM navigates the challenging labor market to recruit and retain top talent. Do you want to hear more about the latest trends and future outlook of the telecom industry? Tune in to this episode to hear Y-COM’s role in shaping the future of connectivity with Chad Rasmussen.
You can connect with Chad Rasmussen on LinkedIn!
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Navigating the Changing Landscape of Telecom with Chad Rasmussen of Y-COM
I have got a great show for you. I have with me, Chad Rasmussen. He is the President and CEO of Y-COM, and he’s also a friend of mine. Chad, thanks so much for coming to the show.
Thank you. I appreciate you having me.
I have known you for a lot of years and I love your journey. I ask guests all the time to talk about their journey. There are people in the audience that are reading and thinking, “How can I get from where I am to where I want to be?” I really love your journey because you have gotten to the C-Suite and you are killing it. Can you talk a little bit about what got you there?
I appreciate that. It’s funny. The journey started about many years ago and quite candidly was somewhat unplanned. My father was in the industry and has been in the industry for many years. I want to say he gave me my initial start in the business going probably back to the first tower that I climbed somewhere in Iowa at a very young age.
Without going through my entire resume, I think you and I connected at Crown. Prior to that, I was at NextG Networks. That stands for about an eleven-year period of my career. I placed a ton of value on what I have learned with those two organizations. There was a lot of corporate structure that I was able to pull together with my general contracting experience, wireless and fiber experience.
The culmination of that in the small cell space helped bring my career full circle and landed me where I am now. Y-COM is an interesting story because frankly I almost missed the opportunity. I was initially contacted by an associate that there was a President and CEO role available. Candidly, I was already sitting in one at the time and didn’t have a lot of interest.
However, that associate was a bit persistent. After reaching out a couple of different times, and then finding out that the company was actually Y-COM. While I was at Crown Castle, I was one of their customers, I was incredibly impressed with the team they had and the services they provided. The rest is history there. It was a little unexpected, but I guess that’s sometimes how the best opportunities come together.
In addition to my valuable time at Crown Castle and NextG, I have to acknowledge the actual risk associated with CableRunner, which was my first C-level opportunity. Not just the risk they took on me as a first-time CEO, but the risk I took leaving Crown Castle. It was a very difficult decision to leave an amazing company that frankly I thought I would retire with and never leave.
We had built an amazing team together. Many of those folks I’m still quite close with now. Not to mention, I was about to be a first-time father. Generally speaking, not the best time to leave an amazing career, but I truly wouldn’t change it for the world. It ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made. Thank you again to those who gave me that opportunity.
You just got to grab the brass ring. Who is Y-COM? The services you provide, the markets that you work in, and the customers that you serve.
Certainly enough, Y-COM or the original version, Youngs Communications dates back decades ago. Founded in 1972 as a cable TV company, and then grew over the years into what is now a full-service turnkey telecom provider. We completed an acquisition. We are a few months into the acquisition of AEG, which was a fantastic move for our company.
Y-COM dates back about 50 years. It was founded in 1972 as a cable TV company and grew over the years into what is now a full-service turnkey telecom provider.
We brought in some excellent resources and talents and expanded into engineering all-in. AEG has a long history in fiber to the home services, so the overall Y-COM umbrella now encompasses a power entity. We have AUC where we perform a lot of work for Florida Power & Light, FPL. That was an additional acquisition that was done prior to me coming on board.
We also have added some other tuck-ins to the business in the past several years that have broadened our base. We are now 600-plus employees. Our highest concentration of resources is in Florida, but we have got projects in nine different states at the moment, including the US Virgin Islands. Primarily, a lot of our work right now is in fibers at home.
That’s obviously where there’s a lot of concentration in our space at the moment, but we have done some very large projects. We are in the process of wrapping up a very large 2,500 middle mile build. Over the years, we have worked with all of the large carriers in every aspect. Engineering, fiber installation, test, turn-up, you name it. We cover everything now.
You have had some M&A activity. You have had quite a bit. Can you talk a little bit about that, as well as some of your recent acquisitions?
It’s been a little crazy. Last April, we closed on the acquisition of AEG, Atlantic Engineering Group. A day later, we closed on FOS, and then shortly thereafter, we closed on Borecom. All of these firms for what has helped us become a true turnkey provider. We are excited about those all-great companies. We are in the middle of integrating those and bringing them into the family. Merging the families, if you will. We are very excited about those.
You have a wide perspective of telecom. You were just talking about all your experience in fiber and wireless. What trends are you seeing that we need to pay attention to?
What we are seeing is a very concentrated effort and opportunity around fiber to the home. There’s a lot of funding available out there. It feels like there is a tidal wave building in a sense where we expect to see a lot of that funding start to hit sometime in the middle of ’23 here when we have an unprecedented backlog.
Our workload and opportunities seem almost endless in the fiber-to-the-home space. The middle mile seems to have slowed down a little bit. I define wireless for us as small cells and opportunities centered around that, it’s been a little slow. We have a couple of projects going on. However, what I’m hearing there is that we should expect to see a significant uptick in those opportunities in 2023 as well.
It’s somewhat unprecedented, as I mentioned. I have been doing this for several now. I don’t think I have ever experienced a time when there was so much opportunity out there. The biggest hurdle or the biggest challenge is around execution risk at this point. There are a lot of folks funneling a lot of verses into the space, especially fiber to the home.
I agree. Also, a huge challenge, we just talked about it over and over, is the workforce and having the people that we need in order to complete these projects. There have been a lot of layoffs. Have you seen any changes in the labor pool? Any relief that you felt? Any more people that you have in that pool, more people answering job ads because of these layoffs?
I would say that it’s improved slightly, but not to the point where it was pre-pandemic. I would hate to bring that into the conversation, but somewhere in 2020 or late-2019. When I first got to Y-COM, literally we would have folks walking through the door daily looking for opportunities. You didn’t have to put a whole lot into the recruiting side of things quite candidly.
We have a lot of labor, skilled labor, operators, and technical positions that are very challenging to fill at times. I would say it’s improved a little. The only reason it’s improved a little bit is because folks are getting back out there and getting to work. It’s also incredibly competitive at the moment with so many people focused on literally the exact same thing that we do.
There’s quite a bit of competition for those skilled labor and skilled resources operators, CDL drivers, all of those types of positions are very challenging to fill. We haven’t seen a real benefit yet from any of the recent layoffs. I don’t know if folks are just stepping back and taking a little time. We are anxious to talk to some of those folks if they are out there. We would love to hear from you.
I know that we are all dealing with this right now in our industry and it’s the hottest topic at every single event. I’m going to ask you to share some secrets if you will. Is there something that’s working for you and/or for Y-COM to attract and retain that skilled labor? I know that’s the toughest piece. You just mentioned that. Is there anything that you are doing that’s working?
Those are generally the best place to get those resources. However, what we have been doing is trying to bring some of the training of those resources in-house. We have a splicing program that we use that we will put folks through to teach them the splicing and testing side of things. I’m also pretty excited. I have been traveling quite a bit, but when I came into our office, we have a new aerial pole line set up that has some power pole attachments and transformers.
We are also adding a telecom training element to this neat pole setup we now have in our yard here in Melbourne, Florida. I was pretty excited about that. It goes right in line with the splicing university we have. We are literally going to start offering weekend training for aerial fiber installation training and training with our FPL crews that we have.
I was pretty fired up about it. It’s neat. I’m going to get some stuff up on LinkedIn, some photos. That seems to be the most effective way. There are trade schools and other resources. We have literally tried just about everything in terms of reaching out. Career fairs, job fairs, technical schools, and all that good stuff. Word of mouth also seems to be the next best thing as well.
We have improved our benefits. As a company, we didn’t offer $1,000 per se across the legacy Young’s platform. We constantly try to focus on improving all of our benefits and offer a level of work-life balance where possible, instead of challenging it, but we do our best. That doesn’t apply to me, by the way.
You don’t get work-life balance, everybody else does.
That’s right. Now, we got a few that definitely teams put in a lot of effort and carry a lot of weight. We are very grateful for that. It’s certainly an interesting time when it comes to that labor challenge. Open to ideas, if you got them there.
I do, I’m working on a few. To be released. I will give you a call. I really respect you a lot as a leader and I know that culture is something that’s dear to your heart. It’s very important to you. Since you have been at Y-COM, tell us a little bit about the way culture has possibly changed. I know you have had some M&A as well, but talk about the culture and what makes Y-COM different.
If you look at the legacy ownership of basically all of the acquisitions that we have done, as well as the legacy of Young’s business, they are all family-owned and operated businesses. I think there’s naturally a strong emphasis on family and a pull toward that kind of culture and environment. Sometimes I think the change anxiety is worse than the change itself.
That’s probably one of the more challenging elements for me. Personally, it has also been to follow in the footsteps of some of the great leaders of these, especially as an outsider. We try to work through the integration side of it very carefully. Not to that balance and that culture, but it’s incredibly important to me, as you mentioned.
We don’t want to look and feel overly corporate. We want our folks to stay loyal to what got us here, and we want to be loyal to that as well. It is definitely a delicate balance, but the culture and feelings of those employees matter. Our futures matter. At the end of the day, one of the things we value more than anything is the fact that we are providing opportunities for our employees to take care of their families.
That’s part of what we do. Knowing that we care about that, I think it’s a big part of the culture that we try to establish. We don’t want to get too far away from that strong family type of emphasis. However, we still are becoming a much larger company when you take all of the parts and put them together as a whole culture. It’s very important to us. It’s probably one of the hardest things to keep together when you bring a lot of different firms together.
Yes, I do agree with that. Always I have met that has been either on your team in your younger years as a leader, all the way up to people that work for Y-COM now. They rave about you and about you as a leader. I have only heard phenomenal feedback. I’m going to ask you for another secret since you are giving them out so easily. What would you say are some valuable lessons that you have learned throughout your years that have helped you become the leader that you are?
First off, thank you for the kind words coming from someone whom I also greatly respect. I appreciate everything. You are quite impressive yourself, so thank you for that. One of the things I picked up along the way is simple, EQ versus IQ. Emotional intelligence over having to be the smartest person in the room and have all the answers all the time.
My father taught me early on that the higher folks who are a lot smarter than you are, you will always do very well. That’s probably the most critical thing that I picked up along the way is not trying to be the smartest person in the room and having all the answers. It’s important and I can’t remember where I picked this up, but it does resonate. Something I have always thought was very important is that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. That’s a huge difference. That’s probably the one thing that changed the path of my career.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. That’s a huge difference.
You couldn’t have said it better, and I really see you that way. I think that translates to everything you are doing. I know you have got a lot on your plate. The company has grown to over 600 employees now.
We have a little over 600.
What you have created is an environment where everyone cares about each other. You just hit the nail on the head. Thank you for that. Thank you for coming to the show. I could spend the next two hours talking, but I think it’s time to wrap it up. Can we please learn about where can we find out more information about Y-COM? I know you have got jobs posted somewhere, right?
That’s right. Definitely, please check us out. We are at YCOMInc.com, as well as AEG.cc where you can learn more of the opportunities we have in both firms. We are still integrating, so we still have two separate websites, but you will find lots of opportunities on both. You can also shoot an email, [email protected] will also get to us. We would love to hear from you.
In addition to career opportunities on our website, if you are a subcontractor who performs aerial or underground fiber construction, as well as splicing testing. Just about anything including engineering related to our field, please also feel free to reach out and give us a call. There are plenty of opportunities. We need subs all over the country at this point, quite candidly. We would love to hear from you.
Thank you, Chad. Thanks for stopping by the show. I feel like I’m right next to you. This is wonderful. I know I will see you soon. Take care.
Thanks, Carrie.
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About Chad Rasmussen
For more than 25 years, Chad Rasmussen has been a leader in the telecommunications industry with experience managing operational efficiency, market development, financial management, and customer relationships. Chad is the President and CEO of Y-COM, a leading provider of power, utilities, and telecommunications services throughout the United States. Since joining the company in April of 2020, Chad facilitated the acquisition of Y-Com by Grain Management, along with Y-Com’s subsequent acquisitions of AEG, FOS and Borecom.
After doubling in size in 2022, Chad is on a mission to continue this aggressive growth both organically and through additional M&A activity. Prior to joining Y-COM, Chad was the President and CEO of CableRunner North America, where he drove
the strategic direction and vision of the company including business development, government relations, procurement, and operations. Before CableRunner, Chad spent 11 years at Crown Castle as the Director of Implementation/Fiber Engineering. There he developed a team 5, to a team of 150 while managing very aggressive fiber and small cell deployments. During Chad’s time with NextG Networks, he oversaw the western half of the Unites States for Fiber Engineering and Construction.
Chad graduated from East Carolina University with a Bachelor of Science in Interpersonal and Organizational Communication. He resides in Indialantic, Florida with his wife Erin, and daughter, Ryann.
