At Lincoln South Rotary Club on March 4, we heard from Brad Moline of Allo Communication.
Brad started by commenting about Rotary and the good work that we are doing locally and around the world. He particularly wanted to point out our work with Polio - his father contracted polio so he understands the challenges. Brad thanked us for our work and added to our Happy $$$ collection.
Brad took us through the timeline for the Allo company. He and his family moved back to Nebraska from St. Louis so that his wife could take over the family business.
Allo started exactly 19 years ago - March 4, 2003. It was before the iPhone - but he and the other developers through fiber was the future. It made sense to start in Western Nebraska - smaller communities. The big companies don't spend a lot of time battling in the small communities. The small Nebraska communities are important to Allo - they are less important to the big companies. Without anyone fighting them, they were able to get started.
They first installed fiber in Scottsbluff and Gering and soon learned that there was a need. They focused on customer service first, then technology - which is what the citizens wanted. They are now in communities from 1,500 to 290,000, mostly in Nebraska. They are also in Colorado and Arizona.
They added a couple of communities per year - slowly expanding. In 2013 they were questioned why fiber was going to be important when the current services providong T1 was just as good. They found it difficult to convince people that fiber was relevant. That did not stop them - they thought they saw the future and kept moving forward.
In the next few years they proved their relevance and expanded into Lincoln - the largest city they serve. They are the provider for the City of Lincoln and the State of Nebraska employees.
The value of their service was put to the test during the pandemic. But, it proved that they could handle the challenge. For example, Nelnet, only had about a 2 hour window of downtime as their employees moved from in-office to remote working.
The company core values:
- Honest
- Exceptional
- Local
- Hassle-free
One of Brad's hot buttons is that their service is hassle-free. He challenged - when you ask a company to do something - do they do it? When working with each other how do they treat each other?
He understands the importance of working together as a community. They provide services to low-income households. In some cases they have provided free service. He said that our youth should not need to find free wifi such as outside of a coffee shop - they should be able to do their studies from home.
BIO
Brad Moline, President and CEO, founded ALLO Communications in 2003 in Imperial, Nebraska. ALLO is a telecommunications company offering fiber telephone, long-distance, broadband, internet, and television to residents, businesses, and governmental entities. ALLO currently provides communications services to 27 cities across Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona totaling approximately 772,000 in population. In 2015, ALLO became a subsidiary of Nelnet (NYSE: NNI) further diversifying Nelnet’s revenue outside of education. In 2020, SDC Capital Partners, LLC, a private investment firm focused on IT and communications infrastructure, invested in ALLO. ALLO, and its investor group, share a commitment to providing an exceptional customer experience and world-class technology.
Previously, Moline, held several senior positions with organizations across the U.S. before returning home to Nebraska with his wife to raise their family. Among those positions, Moline was the Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer, and a driving force behind the exponential growth of Birch Telecom, Inc. in Kansas City. From 1994 to 1997 Moline took a large national transportation company public and was retained as a valued board member serving on the audit committee. Moline also serves on the board of his family’s grocery operations in Nebraska and Colorado, which his wife Jill has owned and operated since their return to Nebraska. He holds a degree in business administration, with distinction, from the University of Nebraska and is formerly a certified public accountant with Ernest & Young.