I attended the Broadband Communities Conference in Houston, TX last month. It was great to see colleagues live and in person and to learn about amazing developments in our industry!
While at the BBC Conference, I took part in the panel discussion session, “Building a Fiber Workforce”. We discussed the challenges of bringing new people into the industry and retaining them in broadband. I strongly believe in promoting an exciting and evolving ‘career’ in fiber rather than just a job to newcomers. Think about where we all started, many of us are not in the same role today as when we began in fiber optics. We need to spark the next generation’s curiosity and keep them engaged for the long run. I believe we are up to this task.
A live and in-person connection was finally made when we welcomed our CEO, Henrick Lyon to our office in Kent, WA. After 12 months Henrik joined us all the way from Sweden as he toured US Hextronic Group companies.
Training is an important part of our business and Henrik was keen to understand what he had learned from visiting Light Brigade’s sister companies, PQMS and Mpirical in the United Kingdom. The UK is facing the same challenge of building a workforce that can deliver FTTh in the coming years as we are in the US.
It was interesting to see how other countries approach fiber optic installations. We are looking forward to swapping best practices and taking our skills training to the next level. We eagerly anticipate launching updated courses in 2022, starting with our re-engineered Fiber Optics 1-2-3 course in November.
- Martin Lee, Light Brigade CEO www.lightbrigade.com