BEAD in Limbo: How Federal Delay Is Shaking Up Louisiana's Broadband Future - Episode 649 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Josh Etheridge (00:07):
It was a bipartisan bill to start with. And then even if you drill down in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, if you drill down even further and you find BEAD in it, I feel like that is even more bipartisan. I feel like that is so bipartisan that it shouldn't be an argument.

Christopher Mitchell (00:21):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell. I'm at the Institute for Local [00:00:30] in St. Paul, Minnesota. We got a beautiful, beautiful spring day, finally after a little bit of, we had a little bit of the tail of the three bears. It was too cold, it was too hot. Now we're right in the middle, but I'm excited to be talking today with Josh Etheridge, who is the Chief Strategic Officer at EPC. A Turnkey Utility Construction company down in Louisiana. Welcome to the show.

Josh Etheridge (00:55):
Thank you, sir. Good to be here. Chris.

Christopher Mitchell (00:57):
I had noticed a letter that you [00:01:00] wrote, I believe about a month ago, and then I think your brother Caleb wrote a letter about a week ago basically being like, Hey, we work in the Internet building business and we followed the rules in Louisiana and what exactly is going on. We were supposed to be connecting people right now this summer, already having broken ground and moving forward and you're not. So we're going to cover that today and talk about it. I wanted to first start by just asking you to tell us a little bit about [00:01:30] North Louisiana. Most people, if they've been to Louisiana, they've been in New Orleans. So what's it like in north Louisiana?

Josh Etheridge (01:37):
It's a lot like a cross between East Mississippi, east, I mean west Mississippi, east Texas, south Arkansas. It's kind of that meld. Now, I will say that people don't, they always think that we're all New Orleans, and the truth is, if you're not south of I-10, which is kind of the southern Cajun hemisphere down there, you really have a different culture [00:02:00] up here. And I wouldn't say that it's a loss at all. It's a great blend of barbecue and hunting and fishing, and we still have all the same swamp area, but we also have the red clay areas too. So a lot of four wheeler riding, lot of it's just a great culture. We're a big music, heavy culture really. All of Louisiana. I get asked, we travel a lot, me and my wife do, and I get asked all the time. They say, if you were going to visit anywhere in the United States, where would you go for the best culture? And say's always kind of it. [00:02:30] It's kind of a tossup, just in my own opinion. I think New Orleans slash anywhere in Louisiana or Miami and Florida, I just think that they always have kind like Miami has its own thing and so does New Orleans does too. I mean,

Christopher Mitchell (02:44):
You lost me.

Josh Etheridge (02:46):
I mean it does. They do. They have their own thing. And I think Louisiana has its own thing. So I think,

Christopher Mitchell (02:51):
No, I believe it about Louisiana. I refuse to believe it about anywhere in Florida. That's my own bias.

Josh Etheridge (02:57):
Maybe that's my bias, right in that little dome [00:03:00] around Fort Lauderdale and such. But

Christopher Mitchell (03:02):
I like to tease because I like the cold weather. So

Josh Etheridge (03:05):
There we go. There we go. Well see. And I was in Indiana this week and I thought tomorrow, I think it was in the low fifties, and I was like, goodness gracious, I got to get back. I got to get back down here. I'm freezing. And people are putting fans on themselves.

Christopher Mitchell (03:19):
The thing we didn't cover though is that North Louisiana, a lot of those areas, and I've talked with folks with Delta Interfaith that have worked over in the Delta area,

Josh Etheridge (03:29):
Good people at [00:03:30] Delta Interfaith. We met with 'em three years ago now to start talking about Lake Providence. I don't know if you guys are aware, it's one of the poorest, most impoverished areas in the nation, if not the poorest or most impoverished area in the nation. And the ironic thing is it's right in the bend of the Mississippi River, and the ironic thing is there's so much river traffic down through there, but really it's kind of a forgotten area. It's so far in the delta in both directions from anything that workforce [00:04:00] development, education, all those things are really hard to get there. I think that's a lot of what's going on in North Louisiana. Up until this point, we were so rural, we had I-20, but anybody that's more than 30 or 60 miles north or south of I-20, it's just really a struggle to get those type of things that we need just to do everyday life nowadays. I mean, we talking about remote learning and rural health and just the different opportunities economically that come with having good broadband available. [00:04:30] They just don't have it. And the ironic thing is that I-20 is really blowing up from Tyler, Texas over to Jackson, Mississippi. We have the Meta plant coming. It's the largest Meta data center in the world by far. And so that's stimulating a lot of growth in that area. But if you go 30 miles north or 30 miles south, it's desolate and those are the people that are really hurting for stuff.

Christopher Mitchell (04:56):
And so for people who have followed the situation with BEAD the [00:05:00] nation's largest investment, single investment into broadband, historically, Louisiana was very fast moving ahead, came in below budget to connect nearly everyone with fiber, a really impressive plan. And the federal government really just had to sign the check to get it going, and they decided not to back in January. And so people have a sense, I mean, y'all are paused. This is your business. You beefed up. Tell us a little bit [00:05:30] about what you did in preparing for in anticipation that the funds would be rolling by now.

Josh Etheridge (05:37):
Just to set the stage, Louisiana was made up of about 15 or maybe 17, if you count some of the really small winners of BEAD and of those seven are exclusive to us. So we've done very good at preparing our customers to get this and helping them get to the dollar. We've been working on workforce growing our workforce [00:06:00] for a year now. We knew BEAD was coming. We've seen what RDOF did. We knew what was going to happen in our rural areas. We helped build Gumbo One, which was a mixture of CPF and ARPA funds here in Louisiana. I think it was 90 million. It was a pretty good build. It got the ball rolling, and we kind of understood it at that point. So we actually worked with a VR company to build a workforce education program, and we designed it, helped pay for it.

(06:28):
Matter of fact, when L-C-T-C-S, [00:06:30] which is the community college group here in Louisiana, went to Congress and asked, they asked him what is a great example of a public private partnership? They said EPC in our state, and they said they're showing people how to do trenchless technology right here in Louisiana in preparation for BEAD and RDOF. And so that was 150, $200,000 investment on our part to give drills and our time and just investment into people. And we've graduated people through that program. So we've been doing that for almost two years now. [00:07:00] And so as we build up our workforce in preparation for this, because we knew how fast beneath and Thomas there at the state level along with Governor John Bell Edwards and now Governor Landry, they were very in tune with what we're trying to get done. And so it was moving very quickly.

(07:14):
So we knew we had to build up the workforce. With that being said, we got, like you said, January 22nd, where are we? We're shut down for a company like mine that started out with two people on the side of the road that now had, has over 150 people and then over 200 [00:07:30] people working for us as subcontractors. That's a big stop because we had two options. We knew that our customers here in Louisiana was going to need us to move quickly because the name of the game is, it's a land grab, right? We're going to get what we can get as fast as we can get it. And so we want to take advantage of that and really front load. So what we do is we hire in management, we hire in qc, a lot of things that just keeps the cats all herding in the right direction.

(07:57):
A lot of that management software, we're paying [00:08:00] for all that thinking that January 22nd was going to come and we're going to rock and roll. And with a stop now you have to say, okay, I've got to either pivot and go out of state and try to find some of these privately funded at-risk fund builds, or you have to see what's going to happen. We took both. We started doing the, we're going to go out of town and find new work that's at risk, and then we also are going to continue to push on the broadband front for that's publicly federally funded. Well, what you [00:08:30] end up with is what happens if the BEAD does come through?

Christopher Mitchell (08:34):
Yes, that's what I was thinking.

Josh Etheridge (08:35):
If the BEAD does come through now I'm obligated to this humongous just to give you a round number, 275 million worth of build that's here in Louisiana that we're obligated to, or do we start obligating ourselves to the externals. And so really what you're talking about is playing with the workforce. And so that really was our biggest challenge is what do we do with [00:09:00] our people? Do we start investing out of state into other big builds or do we keep 'em here? And that uncertainty is really what's killing the business and for everybody. I mean, I'm getting phone calls from a lot of companies like ours that the contractors are scared in a way. They've made major investments into drills. I mean, if you just look at what we've done in battle compliant materials and other equipment that's on my yard, I've got between me and my customers, we've got over [00:09:30] three and a half million dollars worth of money sitting on the yard, whether investments in materials or equipment that I've got a note on or they have a note on, and what are we going to do with babo compliant equipment if we don't have deed?

(09:44):
It's not really required anywhere else. So it is an issue that I'm having to pay $94,000 a month on.

Christopher Mitchell (09:52):
So you acquired equipment at greater cost to make sure you were complying with the BEAD. And also, I mean, similarly, we've talked with Nokia, [00:10:00] they set up a whole manufacturing line. I know that's not your side of the business, but it's sitting there and they did a lot of work to have that ready to roll things off of it. And now who knows how much vendors are going to be looking to or how much people are going to be looking to buy that gear. So it's kind of a whipsaw that you must be dealing with. And then you can imagine that if you commit to sending a bunch of your crews out to other states and then suddenly it's not going to happen. I mean, it could happen tomorrow. [00:10:30] We're here in June or July, but with this administration, there's been a lot of surprises. And so at any point you could be told, all right, we're ready to roll and we need to build as fast as we can in Louisiana. And you're like, well, I got crew in North Carolina all over the place or wherever. You can't just tell your clients there, Hey, we'll come back in six months.

Josh Etheridge (10:52):
Yeah, like I said, it is definitely a land grab and what we're seeing, and if I can, do you mind if I talk to kind of the dynamics [00:11:00] of how BEAD works as far as the financing, why was Louisiana so low and what we're seeing in trends? So Louisiana was $5,300 a passing as far as the subsidized amount. I think it was 79 after match, 7,900 per passing. That was great. I mean, 140,000 locations, 44% under budget. That's 96% fiber, 2% fixed wireless, 2% LEOs, I think they did as good as a state could do.

Christopher Mitchell (11:27):
We didn't think that was going to happen. [00:11:30] Most of us who are watching from afar, we're looking at all the different states and we're thinking, wow, there's arguments over, we have to do fixed wireless and we have to do this or that because we cannot afford fiber. And Louisiana comes back and says, Hey, we got fiber to nearly everyone. So it was truly a remarkable achievement.

Josh Etheridge (11:47):
Well, there's irony here. Why are you able to get that low? Well, for one reason, you have the legacy cable networks in your copper networks that are still out there that might consider be underserved [00:12:00] or still be considered served, right? Well, you're going to pass a lot of those high density locations. Well, that lends to the math of my customers and how we do things. We're going to pass six or seven different neighborhoods as we go through. Well, of course we're looking at those neighborhoods. We know we're going to get a decent penetration in those areas. We're counting that on that penetration as a second person in as we go through. Now, if I'm only going to get, say 2000, 3000 passings using [00:12:30] this spa, this sub-project area, I'm only going to get 2000 passings, but it's going to cost me $10 million or it's going to cost the state $10 million. Well, I'm going to put my match up and then I'm going to say I'm at 12,000,500 maybe. And then I'm going to say, okay, what else can I grab on this route to really make the debt horizon shorter? And to get to an RO, I faster

(12:54):
Look at all these neighborhoods have two 300 houses in 'em, but they're considered served maybe by one [00:13:00] of those legacy networks. Well, we count on those to make the math work so that I can drive my bid down so that I win. Now I'm going to spend an additional $5 million, which let's just say that my customers, let's say that my ISPs don't have it. They've got to go approach an investment bank and the investment bank says, yeah, I'm going to do it. And because it actually as a package reduces, it increases our ROI and reduces our debt horizon. Now, we said, okay, with all of this in mind, I'm going to get 20,000 passings where [00:13:30] I was only going to get 2000 by overbuilding areas of legacy networks. That's considered serve, but we're doing it because our middle mile section is being covered by BEAD. Well, what's happening in the meanwhile during this pause, here's what we're seeing. We're seeing contracts, two year contracts being served up at a ridiculous amount. So they're going door to door saying, Hey, I'll give you $15 a month for the next six months if you'll sign a two year contract. Now, what does that do when B gets released for my customers? It changed the math.

(14:00):
[00:14:00] And they know it too. And that's the funny thing. They're saying, well, what does it matter if you have to pause to get the system right? The funny thing is they're saying, we want to make the benefit of the bargain better. The reason we've done this already is because it's contingent on all these areas that now are being locked down and messing up the math. And if you think that's not happening in other states, you're not paying attention because the large scale providers of the world are going in and they're hitting anything that's got a decent return on it. [00:14:30] And that means that when you do the bid and you send out these bid packets and you say, Hey, sign your sub-project agreements, your sub-grant agreements, they're not going to be worth what they were before because now the math has changed. And so they don't really realize what this pause is doing. And not only that, when you start talking about redoing the math, right, we're going to take this back to a, we're going to redo it. Well, just with simple inflation, the math has already changed.

Christopher Mitchell (14:58):
So just to make sure people are following [00:15:00] one of the, there's a couple of different possibilities of what could happen. The one that we hope for is that the Department of Commerce would come back and say, alright, we pause things, but we're going to move ahead and largely go with states that already made awards. You're good. But the nightmare scenario would be if they would say, Louisiana, you have to now redo all your bids with a new cost threshold in which you cannot use fiber anymore. And that's what [00:15:30] you're saying would be like, take a bunch of time, change the math everywhere and be really damaging.

Josh Etheridge (15:35):
Yes, the math is being changed every second,

Christopher Mitchell (15:39):
Right? So yeah. Yeah, I misspoke about that.

Josh Etheridge (15:41):
But also if we do, like you said, nightmare scenario, we have to go back and redo it. How would you feel if your playbook was given out? Because at this point, I can go into Arkansas or Mississippi or anywhere that has, well, maybe not Mississippi, but Arkansas. I could go into Arkansas or Missouri, see what their applications look [00:16:00] like as far as their points that's being given out. I can almost reverse engineer to the dollar where everybody's going to deploy and your plan is out there, man,

(16:10):
If you don't win, your plan is out there. If you do win, your plan is out there. And so that means that if I'm somebody standing back watching and evaluating now, if they say, let's go back and let's redo this, all I have to do is beat you and I know what you're going to bid. They'd be lucky if they don't get sued every state because they gave, basically, it's [00:16:30] like asking me to divulge what my business plan is, me giving it to them down to a dollar amount, telling them how I'm going to finance it, tell 'em what kind of equipment I'm going to use, tell 'em what houses I'm going to hit, and then them being like, thanks for that. Let me show it to the world and just basically run you completely out of business if the larger providers decide they want to take over.

Christopher Mitchell (16:50):
Right now, one of the things that this gets at is I came up in life quite differently from you, but trying to figure out [00:17:00] how government works and things like that, I feel like I've known a number of people like you that built a business out of your own hands and working and that sort of a thing. And generally a lot about business. You figure out a lot about finance and things like that. But often, and I joke with my friend Travis, who did the same thing here in Minneapolis all the time, that he's just like, but he looks at government. He's like, what is going on here? And when I talk to other people who, so I spent a lot of time figuring out how government works and when I talk to people, they're sort of mystified why people [00:17:30] like you often don't trust government.

(17:32):
And I'm like, someone like me starts to try and set up a government program and I'm like, we want to attract people like EPC to do work and build this stuff, but you get jerked around enough times like this and you're going to bed, you're having trouble falling asleep. You don't know how you're going to make a paycheck to all your employees. And if you're crazy to try to keep 'em on, if you have to furlough people or what, the next time a government program comes around, you're going to say, you know what? It looks good, but I've had experience [00:18:00] with this and I don't want it. I don't want to deal with it. I mean, I got to think that that is going through the back of your head as you're dealing with this.

Josh Etheridge (18:07):
I mean, it definitely is. I'm a novice to this. Matter of fact, we've been dealing with government more in the last two years than possibly ever in my life, and I've learned so much. I even ordered a book on federal government and how to navigate it, and unfortunately it put me to sleep on every plane I've ever been on, but I am trying to [00:18:30] learn, and it does sow distrust. I think I mentioned that in my letter, that you're really setting and sowing distrust for people in the future. I don't know that if you set this thing up again, that your rural providers or smaller providers are even going to participate. And honestly, that's the people that you get the best customer service from that you're going to get the best outcomes from. Because we've seen the opportunities from the larger providers up until this point, and I'm not saying that they don't do a good job, it's just that [00:19:00] they're very monetarily centric.

(19:02):
I mean, they're looking for returns on investment all the time, and a lot of my providers that I deal with are looking for service to their people. They're entrepreneurs themselves and they see a need and they want to fix it. And so that's kind of the difference ultimately as far as where they're going to be with government after that, I couldn't tell you. I'd hate to speak for them, but I can tell you that the old dogs that's been in the game a long time told me this before [00:19:30] we ever got into this BEAD situation. They were like, I just don't trust this. We will see if we can run after some of this money on the back end, but we're not going to help any providers get to the money upfront and lock 'em into any kind of exclusivity or anything. I just can't count on it.

Christopher Mitchell (19:46):
Now in Louisiana, it's interesting that Louisiana is the number one state both for getting this ready, being ready to break ground. I think 96% of fiber coverage below is so much of it below budget [00:20:00] and all of it fitting within the budget. Louisiana also between the speaker of the house, and I forget there's another person, but you're possibly the most, the police,

Josh Etheridge (20:11):
The majority leader of the house.

Christopher Mitchell (20:12):
Thank you. Yeah, so exactly. You have more power than any other state, right? I mean, it used to be West Virginia under the Biden administration, right? Because Joe Manchin, and now you have tremendous power. You own Congress like Louisiana does. But the thing that kills me is that Congress is refusing [00:20:30] to stand up, right? I mean, we're supposed to have a government that is not just one person. I mean, I've been railing about this for multiple decades, that people think that they're electing a king who's all powerful and it's ridiculous. Congress is supposed to end up, and it must just be frustrating for you that there's this weapon you have that's not even being used.

Josh Etheridge (20:49):
It is very frustrating. I understand that, and I've spoken to every one of our federal delegates, and I understand that they're dealing with a much larger issue than BEAD. [00:21:00] I will say that I feel like this is the easiest decision that somebody could make, is it was a bipartisan bill to start with. And then even if you drill down in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, if you drill down even further and you find BEAD in it, I feel like that is even more bipartisan. I feel like that is so bipartisan that it shouldn't be an argument. And yes, Louisiana does have some power. We have Speaker Johnson here just down the road from me. I'm in his district actually. Congresswoman Letlow is on [00:21:30] appropriations committee. Troy Carter is on the Telecommunications Subcommittee.

(21:36):
I mean, Steve Scalise is the majority leader. So you've got a lot of people that, and then our governor himself is on the Governor's Council for the president, and it's very widely known that he has a good relationship with the president. And so I do feel like they probably are in Secretary Lutnick's ear. I know for a fact that everybody knows who I am, and so I know they're tired of hearing from [00:22:00] me. It really falls to Secretary Lutnick and what he wants to do. Could I think that there could be some arm twisting going on? Yeah, I think that they could if they wanted to, but I don't think that's how we want government to work. And I respect them for not doing that. However, I've got to look out for my people in my state, and so I'm going to continue to push on as hard as I can to say, Hey, this is a bipartisan deal. Broadband is something that's economically needed, health needed, education needed. I mean, in every facet of everyday life, [00:22:30] you need good broadband. I put up a video of a Congresswoman Letlow the other day, and it was her asking the Secretary of Health, I guess that's his title, it's the Robert Kennedy.

(22:43):
He was saying, well, she said, what are you going to do for my rural district to improve healthcare and everything? His whole answer was about AI driven healthcare and telehealth and remote health. And I talk to myself. I know for a fact I [00:23:00] built out half of Congresswoman Letlow what it has been built in Congresswoman LetLow's area. I'm assigned as the contractor for that entire district as well, and I know it hasn't rolled out. So ironically, the thing that you need secretary is what I'm trying to give you right now. And I have to believe, Chris, that there's bigger things at play. I think that the Big Beautiful Bill might've had some things to do with it. I think that they could have been leveraging BEAD [00:23:30] to the Democrats of, Hey, help us get this out and we'll release BEAD tomorrow kind of thing. And there's probably a lot of that give and take going on right now. Hey, if you'll vote for this, I'll do this. I mean, that's the way politics works. And so they don't want to show their hand too early. But I do, yes, think that they could move out on BEAD tomorrow, but I just think that it might be more advantageous for 'em politically to hold onto it right now. And I don't understand those things, but maybe that's what they're doing.

Christopher Mitchell (24:00):
[00:24:00] Yeah. Well, I would love to see that announcement. I'm curious about something that your brother, Caleb said in his letter, which is that his barber knows what the satellite Internet access is like. And I don't know if you go to the same barbershop, but when you were just saying about your connections in the community, I'm curious, what do you think the reaction will be if the decision is made that we need to turn a lot of the fiber connections into lower Earth orbit satellite connections?

Josh Etheridge (24:30):
[00:24:30] Oh man. I think that would be detrimental politically for everybody. I think the majority Republican majority will be detrimentally hit. They will no longer have the majority. I think it is that big of a subject that if you were to look at everybody and be like, you can have satellite, they're going to feel betrayed and they're going to feel left

(24:53):
Because especially Louisiana, we have the Speaker of the House, we have Congresswoman Letlow, we have the majority leaders police, [00:25:00] and we voted heavily for Trump. And to be betrayed in such a way that says, Hey, we found this other technology that is, I guess good enough. And the funny thing is we have so much canopy here. We have a whole lot of large trees, pine trees. You have to have a certain amount of skyline view to make LEO's work from jumping from one satellite to the next. I mean, as they move across, you got to have a certain perimeter of [00:25:30] a site. And we just don't have that in all our rural houses. Most of 'em have trees literally right next to 'em. And if you go in there and say, well, you got to cut down your trees though, I don't know that they're going to be okay with that when they could have had something much better for much less.

Christopher Mitchell (25:45):
That's the part that I don't understand how anyone that would make that decision would not see people pulling out pitchforks and torches. I mean to tell people rather than paying, and I don't know exactly what the providers in your area are likely to charge, but [00:26:00] we often see for rural fiber providers in the order of 70, 80 bucks a month for a very fast connection to tell people instead, you're going to be paying 120 bucks a month and you're going to pay and you're going to get less and you're going to have to cut down your trees and you're going to have to pay more in prime time and this and that. I mean, that's the thing is that I agree with you. I got to think that I don't know that with the political situation we have, I don't think it likes people leads them to abandon the Republican party, but I definitely [00:26:30] think they stop going in the numbers to vote. Right? That's what I got to think is that you start seeing people being really disillusioned and just feeling embittered and then not participating in the public process is what I would expect

Josh Etheridge (26:42):
For sure. I mean, I have a Make America Great Again hat sitting here. I was at the inauguration. I mean, I'm still a very large proponent of this administration, but in some part of me, I am a little bitter, like you said. I mean, I'm having to work really hard. This is supposed to be the party of the workforce [00:27:00] and for blue collar America, and I just don't feel like that's being represented very well in the way they're handling the BEAD. I don't know that it will flip seats, but I feel like it will definitely give some disdain.

Christopher Mitchell (27:13):
I really appreciate you diving into what the process was to allow for making it so affordable to connect the fiber connection, because I think a lot of people still don't get that, but I'll say that your pride in what Louisiana has done, [00:27:30] it's coming through down here. We'll take anything, brother.

(27:37):
So I just wanted to note that this is having a real impact on real businesses, and for some people it's like, oh, I'm curious what's going to happen next? And it's a big deal. I mean, in Northern States, they're going to miss the whole construction season. Now you all have the benefit that if the money starts flowing, you'll be able to move on. But this is really disruptive to real people. And so for every company, every ISP [00:28:00] has multiple vendors who has tens of employees who are trying to figure out what is going on here.

Josh Etheridge (28:05):
Yes, we do have a longer construction season, but we also have hurricane season. So everybody on the coast is going to be thinking, okay, how is this going to get affected by hurricane season? And that's something that Beneath has been talking with a lot of the federal delegates and our governor about us that we need to try to figure something out soon because hurricane season is upon us. And if we get to that and hurricanes start rolling in one after another, [00:28:30] this is going to really slow down stuff on our end as well.

(28:34):
I want to speak to the actual impact right quick to real life people that work with us. Earlier, I said, we have made some layoffs. I think we laid off 11 people recently in-house. We went through kind of a right sizing, if you will, for what we're having to do right now. But the biggest story is around the 80% of our subcontractors that we're not utilizing right now. [00:29:00] We're still utilizing 20% in different areas of the country, but I mean, if you think we're normally running 200 to 300 people that are subcontracted to us, and before the show started, man, you started talking about you love how the aspect of, Hey, we started from two people. Now we're this larger national brand that we can be in Washington state or we can be in Georgia, but we're utilizing subcontractors that started with us and now they've started companies. They're not just a drill anymore. They may work for several different vendors too.

(29:30):
[00:29:30] And we love that. We're big proponents of capitalism, very big proponents of entrepreneurialism. We're involved in a lot of young professional programs and such like that. And we love seeing that we've even, not necessarily the loan, but rented our equipment out to other people that wanted to start a company and now they're working big jobs. Heck, I have to compete against 'em sometimes with bids, but that's okay, right? I mean, that's the great thing about economy is being able to in our country is being able to do that. Well, the bad [00:30:00] thing about this pause is that you've got fathers and sons that I know personally that have went out and used their 401k talk to me and said, Josh, I just want to be like y'all. I just love what y'all did. I love how you get back to the community. I want to be like y'all.

(30:13):
And I say, man, if you want to do this, I will keep you busy. And the thing is, they went out and bought drills and they used 401ks and the father and son is out there, and they were really making it happen. I mean, they had great quality, they had great speed. They [00:30:30] talked with the community very well. So our management loved them. And the thing is, as I have to draw that back, they're calling me going, Hey man, what do you got for me next? They don't have a sales department. They don't have marketing department,

Christopher Mitchell (30:41):
Right

Josh Etheridge (30:42):
They can't go look for jobs. They got to be working the jobs their own just to make ends meet. And whereas they were really growing and they had forward momentum, they come to a halt with pause. And so that kind halts on those type of people can make 'em insolvent within [00:31:00] three months. I mean, luckily, our company's large enough to pivot and we have reserves and other things. And like you mentioned before the show we have natural gas and we have the concrete side and a lot of different sides to lean on, but they have what we gave 'em, what we suli to them every week. We give them jobs every week and we go and search for them for jobs. And the thing is, if what we had available for them stops, they go out of business. And what does that do to that family? And they were promised that by the American, [00:31:30] the Americans they voted for and for the people that they trusted. And like you said, that trust is definitely going to be because they go to church with a bunch of people and they're asking people to pray for 'em, and

(31:44):
They're making decisions based on their livelihoods now. And that news gets out very quick. And so like you said about the disdain with government, I think that that's going to be a bigger hit than people are giving it credit for. It's not just Josh Etheridge sitting in [00:32:00] his office doing a podcast and doing LinkedIn posts and Facebook posts and doing interviews. It is those guys that were working for us, the 80%, right? Like 250 people that were working for us three months ago that are no longer working with us. We don't have the jobs for 'em. They're going to their churches, to their kids' birthday parties, to their schools saying, man, how's business? I seen y'all have a directional drill now. Yeah, we did. That's been a pretty bad deal for us. What happened? Well, BEAD didn't come through.

Christopher Mitchell (32:28):
And not only that, but [00:32:30] the fact that everyone's waiting on it, it would be bad if it was just canceled, but there would be an adjustment and there would be a sense of opportunity and you could make plans. And that's the thing that I just feel like a lot of people, and I say this to people in government all the time, you have to understand for a private business, uncertainty is the killer. It's worse than terrible news that you're losing a customer or things like that. You can make decisions. Uncertainty is brutal.

Josh Etheridge (32:57):
And that's what entrepreneurs are good at, right? We're good at making [00:33:00] decisions. If you'll tell me what's ahead, I'll pivot. I'll do whatever needs to be done and I'll make this thing work. And I think it was Brad Warden, the CEO of Skywriter in his letter that said, the uncertainty is the worst. And so I'm going to echo that is definitely the worst.

Christopher Mitchell (33:19):
Well, and didn't want people to get the wrong impression. The utility work is the main forts of your business, so you can get a little bit from the other ones is what you said. But this is also, [00:33:30] you can weather a storm, but it's going to be pretty hard on you.

Josh Etheridge (33:34):
It's hard enough to where somebody asked me, how's it going? And I said, man, it's pretty bad. And I said, well, I see y'all are still driving around. Y'all are everywhere. And I said, man, it's still the worst because I had to lay off 11 people. We've never laid off since we've been in business, we've been in, we've grown a hundred percent or more 200% every year since we've been in business, both in revenue people. We are a huge catalyst economically to our community. [00:34:00] I mean, we sponsor all the events. We're either a gold or a board member of every chamber down I-20 and going south down 1-65 here in Louisiana. We're part of Chambers in other states. We give to the FCA largely. We're part of Cancer Foundation Lead St. Jude's. We do a very large deal every year for St. Jude. I mean, we give a lot of money that we don't have to, and the only way we're able to [00:34:30] do that is by growth and honestly, transparency. And so being able to see the runway that's ahead of 'em, which is my job, that's my job as Chief Strategic Officer, is to be able to see ahead and make a strategy around it. And I feel like I'm letting my people down and I'm letting the community down by not being able to put forth like we normally do.

Christopher Mitchell (34:50):
Well, I hope that we get good news. You're able to put your crews back to business and get back into growth mode. I appreciate you sharing the story with us, and I hope it helps people [00:35:00] break through in DC and get the money flowing again.

Josh Etheridge (35:03):
Me too, man. Me too.

Ry Marcattilio (35:05):
We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available at communitynets.org/broadbandbits. Email us @podcastatcommunitynets.org with your ideas for the show, follow Chris on BlueSky. His handle is @SportShotChris. Follow communitynets.org stories on BlueSky, the handles @communitynets. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, [00:35:30] including Building Local Power, Local 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 newsletter @ILSR.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arne Hesby for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Commons.