Six appointments on both sides of the network bill

Mandate

Prepare the balance sheet for a 2025 debt maturity, give the board and lenders customer figures they could rely on, and fund fibre without losing control of net leverage.

Outcomes

• Restated year-end 2021 broadband customers from 357,200 to 342,900 and passings from 1,080,000 to 1,019,000 serviceable locations.
• Refinanced a $1.24 billion term loan due October 2025 with a $1.25 billion private-credit unitranche in May 2024, without a dividend recapitalisation.
• Gated a $520M fibre programme by town; 236,000 locations upgraded by December 2025 at an average construction cost of $1,115.
• Turned video contribution from a $4M loss in 2022 to an $11M profit in 2025.
• Accepted grant awards for 31,000 rural locations and handed back three project areas covering 9,400 locations before construction.

Decisions in context

I joined Ridgeburn in March 2021, three years after Granmoor's buyout, with a term loan falling due in October 2025 and reporting that had been designed for a market in which broadband customers only grew. My mandate from the chief executive was to prepare for the refinancing and to give the board a view of the business it could rely on. Fixed-wireless competition, which reached most of our towns in 2022, made the second part urgent. I restated our customer and location metrics, made the case for releasing the fibre programme in gated tranches, rebuilt the video account and refinanced the maturity with private credit seventeen months early. I lead 96 people, with seven direct reports, and attend every board and audit committee meeting without being a manager of the company. In 2025 revenue was $684 million, adjusted EBITDA $279 million and net leverage 5.5 times, down from a peak of 5.9.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent directorship with the consent of Ridgeburn's board.

Mandate

Move the company from bank construction loans to long-term financing, give the owner contract-level returns and prepare the company for sale.

Outcomes

• Replaced $430M of bank construction loans with $610M of twelve-year senior secured notes placed privately with insurance investors in 2019, at a fixed 4.6 per cent.
• Built return tracking for 1,400 tower, enterprise and school contracts; we stopped bidding school circuits below a 9 per cent unlevered return.
• Ran the 2020 sale process, disclosing a carrier's notice to decommission 180 tower sites in the first data room; the company sold for $1.41 billion.
• Grew EBITDA from $51M in 2017 to $79M in 2020.

Decisions in context

When Stavely's founding CFO retired at the end of 2017, Harrowell asked me to succeed him. The company had grown on bank construction loans that had to be refinanced as each phase of building finished, which made every new tower contract a financing question. In 2019 I replaced those loans with twelve-year notes placed privately with insurance investors, matching the long life of the fibre with long-dated money. I also built return tracking for each of our 1,400 contracts, which showed that some school circuits we had bid for keenly would never earn their capital. In 2020 Harrowell decided to sell. I ran the process with our advisers and insisted that a mobile carrier's notice to decommission 180 tower sites go into the first data room, which reduced the indicated bids by about $90 million. The company sold in January 2021 for $1.41 billion, and I left when the buyer merged our finance team into its own.

Reason for the move

The buyer combined finance functions after the sale; I chose to run finance for a consumer network rather than join the acquirer's treasury.

Mandate

Build the treasury, billing and project-return reporting that a new infrastructure owner expected.

Outcomes

• Negotiated a $340M delayed-draw construction facility in 2015, with draws tied to signed tower contracts.
• Cut the time from circuit acceptance to first invoice from 41 days to 12.
• Introduced unlevered returns by route segment, reviewed with the owner every quarter.
• Set up compliance reporting for school circuits funded partly through the federal schools-and-libraries discount programme.

Decisions in context

I joined Stavely in June 2014, the month Harrowell's fund bought it from its founders. The company built fibre to mobile towers, hospitals and schools across Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, and it had grown faster than its back office. Circuits were often live for six weeks before we invoiced them. My first task was to give the new owner what an infrastructure fund expects: a treasury function, a construction facility sized to signed contracts, and returns measured by route rather than for the company as a whole. The $340 million facility we negotiated in 2015 released money only against contracts a carrier or school district had signed, which kept construction disciplined. I also learnt the compliance side of public money, because many of our school circuits were paid partly through the federal schools-and-libraries discount programme, where the documentation decides whether the payment arrives. When the CFO retired, I was asked to succeed him.

Reason for the move

Promoted to chief financial officer when the founding CFO retired.

Mandate

Rebuild budgeting for a station group losing advertising revenue, then run the controller's office through its shift to retransmission revenue.

Outcomes

• Prepared the 2008 impairment test that wrote down $212M of broadcast licences and goodwill in the fourth quarter.
• Built the per-subscriber retransmission model used in renewals with about forty cable and satellite distributors.
• Retransmission fees grew from $19M in 2008 to $86M in 2013.
• Shortened the quarterly close from twelve working days to seven.

Decisions in context

I joined Merrimont in September 2008 to lead financial planning, and within three months advertising revenue was falling faster than any budget had assumed. My first large task was the year-end impairment test for our broadcast licences and goodwill, which led to a $212 million write-down in the fourth quarter. Over the next five years the company rebuilt its revenue on retransmission consent. I built the per-subscriber model behind renewals with about forty distributors, including the share of fees our network partners expected, and saw retransmission revenue rise from $19 million to $86 million. As corporate controller from 2011, I ran an accounting team of 41, shortened the close and reported to the audit committee every quarter. By 2014 I could see that the new revenue depended on cable households that were starting to cancel, and I wanted to finance the networks rather than the programmes they carried.

Reason for the move

Wanted to finance a growing network business rather than a broadcaster whose new revenue depended on cable customers who were beginning to leave.

Mandate

Professionalise accounting and the annual cost studies on which nearly half of revenue depended.

Outcomes

• Prepared the annual cost studies that set federal and state support for six years.
• Financed DSL in all twelve exchanges and fibre to the home in two, partly through a federal rural telecommunications loan.
• Reduced dependence on support and access charges from 51 to 44 per cent of revenue.

Decisions in context

I came back to western Kansas in March 2002 as controller of Quillan Valley, a family telephone company with twelve exchanges, two small cable systems and 74 employees. Nearly half its revenue came from universal service support and access charges, both set by formulas that regulators could change, and the annual cost study was the most consequential document the company produced. I rebuilt the cost records behind it and prepared it for six years. I also helped the family finance DSL across every exchange and fibre to the home in two of them, partly through a federal rural telecommunications loan, and I learnt how a network is built when its customers are too few to pay for it alone. By 2008 support and access charges were 44 per cent of revenue. I left because I wanted to learn a business that earned its money from customers who could choose someone else.

Reason for the move

Wanted to learn a business that earned its revenue in a market rather than through a formula.

Mandate

Plan and run audit fieldwork for cooperative and telecommunications clients.

Outcomes

• Found in 1999 that a cable client's billing file overstated connected customers by about 500 of 4,100, and helped it rebuild the count.
• Led fieldwork on about twelve audits a year by 2001.
• Wrote the firm's audit programme for patronage capital at cooperative clients.

Decisions in context

I joined Pruett Halvorsen in September 1997, after finishing my Master of Accountancy, and was licensed as a CPA in Kansas in 1999. The firm audited cooperatives and closely held companies across Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, and I was assigned early to its telecommunications clients: seven telephone cooperatives and three small cable systems. The defining engagement came in 1999, when we matched a cable client's billing file against its technicians' connection records and found about 500 of 4,100 billed customers who were not connected and paying. Nobody had intended to mislead; the count had drifted. I helped the client rebuild it, and the habit of reconciling a customer list to something physical has stayed with me. By 2001 I was running fieldwork on about twelve audits a year and had written the firm's audit programme for cooperative patronage capital. I left to be accountable inside one of the businesses I had been testing from outside.

Reason for the move

Wanted to be accountable inside one of the businesses I had been auditing.