This week at its Fiber Connect 2021 event (July 25-28), the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) awarded two outstanding individuals and one organization for their accomplishments and continued commitment to advancing the fiber industry. The FBA's honorees were as follows:
2021 Photon Award: Mark Boxer, Technical Manager, Solutions and Applications Engineering Manager, OFS
2021 Chairman’s Award: Ben Moncrief, SVP Strategic Relations, C Spire
2021 Star Award: Lit Communities
“The Fiber Broadband Association is proud to award these recipients for their efforts to advance fiber connectivity forward and create a better broadband future for communities and businesses across North America,” commented Gary Bolton, CEO at Fiber Broadband Association.
Bolton added, “Fiber is the critical infrastructure that will support the technological innovation, economic development and diversity we need today, and we are humbled by the dedication these men and women have shown to advance the world forward through fiber broadband.”
Details on today's award winners, per an FBA statement, include the following:
2021 Photon Award Winner: Mark Boxer, Technical Manager, Solutions and Applications Engineering Manager, OFS
"The Photon Award honors an FBA member who, through volunteer contribution, has demonstrated a high level of dedication to the organization and has contributed greatly to the industry. Boxer has been a strong FBA volunteer contributor for the past 20 years and has served in leadership positions in a number of FBA committees. He currently serves on the FBA Board and is the board liaison for the Technology Committee, the Education subcommittee and is highly active with the Deployment Specialists committee. Mark also was awarded the Photon Award in 2019 for his outstanding contributions to FBA’s technology committee."
"This year he is recognized for his continued personal initiative, passion for the fiber industry, dedication and drive. He led the FBA’s efforts on workforce development to create a desperately needed fiber broadband certification and intensive training program that will be launched this year across community colleges, high schools and with veterans nationwide. Boxer’s leadership is noticeably effective as he is highly collaborative and is a tremendous contributor to FBA’s success."
2021 Chairman’s Award Winner: Ben Moncrief, SVP Strategic Relations, C Spire
"The Chairman’s Award singles out an individual or company that has shown tremendous effort to promote, educate or accelerate Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH). Moncrief is the chairman of FBA’s Public Policy Committee. He has vast personal experience in public policy and has been instrumental in leading FBA’s strategy and direction on advocacy and policy matters on federal, state and local levels. The fiber industry is at the beginning of the largest investment cycle in its history and under Moncrief’s leadership the FBA is educating and influencing policy to support the needs of the fiber broadband community."
2021 Star Award Winner: Lit Communities
"The Star Award recognizes a person, community or company that has gone above and beyond what is expected in the advancement of FTTH. Lit Communities is a forward-thinking builder and operator of next-generation network infrastructure and a consultancy that guides communities through the complicated process of deploying their own open application for fiber optic utilities. The organization makes fiber networks feasible to build in communities of all sizes.
Lit’s focus is on public-private partnerships and working with communities to achieve their goals of offering life-changing architecture. In addition to its 10 community assessment projects across the country, Lit has become an ISP and will launch its first fiber broadband deployment in Medina, OH, this summer."
All recipients were honored at an awards reception this week at the FBA’s Fiber Connect event, billed as "North America’s premier fiber broadband conference where the entire fiber ecosystem joins forces for a common goal of accelerating fiber broadband deployments from coast to coast." The Fiber Connect event is being held from July 25-28, 2021, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn.
The Fiber Broadband Association is part of the Fibre Council Global Alliance, which is a platform of six global FTTH Councils in the Americas, LATAM, Europe, MENA and APAC.
FBA cites itself as "the largest and only trade association that represents the complete fiber ecosystem of service providers, manufacturers, industry experts and deployment specialists dedicated to the advancement of fiber broadband deployment and the pursuit of a world where communications are limitless, advancing quality of life and digital equity anywhere and everywhere."
Founded in 2001, the association's stated mission is to help "providers, communities and policy makers make informed decisions about how, where and why to build better fiber broadband networks."
Learn more at www.fiberbroadband.org.