Schurz’s Tight-Knit Culture Stands Firm for Generations
By Noah Ziegler
It’s one thing to say a company has a family like culture. For Schurz Communications, family isn’t just a corporate buzzword—it has six generations of proof, and they’ve helped build a company with a wide-spanning footprint and a hunger for growth.
The family influence throughout the history of Schurz is evident at the top of the chain. John Reardon, who stepped into the role of President and CEO in February 2023, is only the second non-family member in the company’s 152-year history to become the CEO. At the time, he took over from Todd Schurz, who’d held the chief position for more than 15 years.
Family or not, it’s an interesting task to try and align six broadband companies across nine states, spanning as far west as Arizona and as east as Vermont. But the company’s culture doesn’t abide by state lines. When Reardon officially took over, he framed it as “I took over for what I call a winning coach. [Schurz] is already a winning program.”
“My first job was doing what I call the ‘Listen and Learn Tour,’ where I spent the first three or four months just visiting these locations,” Rear don says. “First of all, I was very impressed with how long a lot of people have been here— 10, 20, 30 years—and how I kept hearing the word love. ‘I love the company,’ ‘I love my job.’ And I would dig a little deeper into that … and a lot of it was the fact that we continue to invest in people’s education and training. We work a lot with getting certifications through NCTI and SCTE. We invest a lot in our people continuing to learn. We send a number of people back to get their MBA degrees.”
Those investments benefit employees across Schurz’s six properties based in various states: Antietam Broadband in Maryland, Burlington Telecom in Vermont, Hiawatha Broad band in Minnesota, Long Lines Broadband in Iowa, NKTelco in Ohio and Orbitel Communications in Arizona. The training programs and additional education opportunities have helped with attracting talent and retention. VP, People and Culture Scott Schurz Jr. says the company has 97% of its positions filled.
Once Reardon got acclimated and gained a better understanding of the inner workings of Schurz, he set forth on his pursuit of growth. He helped close a new credit facility with Co Bank last April, which raised several hundred million dollars that have gone toward building additional fiber passings and overbuilding where Schurz already has HFC plants.
“That was really my vision: get the funding, invest in fiber, upgrade the networks where they were not the leading technology, and then innovate,” Reardon says.
Helping to lead that investment in fiber is EVP, Broadband Diego Anderson, who replaced Brian Lynch in January after Lynch stepped into retirement following a 14-year stay with the company. Anderson has been in the telecommunications industry for more than 30 years, but relishes the opportunity to lead Schurz’s fiber evolution within the communities it serves.
“We were a legacy company with cable, and we’re building more of a fiber brand because the communities are asking for it and that’s where the marketplace is going,” Anderson says. “We’re leading with a reliable broadband pipe. Preferably fiber, but reliable broadband pipe. With that, when we get [a] connection into the home, business, wherever it is, we’re overlaying that with additional product solutions. Whether it’s our video solution, whether it’s WiFi, whether it’s cloud, voice or some other managed service, we’re overlaying ap plications on top of that to help the customer solve problems and provide an exceptional customer experience.”
Anderson and the rest of the Schurz team take an opportunistic approach with inorganic and organic expansion. They work with the local GMs of properties to identify how to bolster their respective marketplace with additional investments and new product solutions.
Additionally, Schurz has worked with the telecommunications, media and technology strategy consulting firm Altman Solong to identify areas for expansion. It also uses the FCC’s map of unserved and underserved locations to make sure the company is correctly represented for areas it serves as a defensive maneuver as well as pinpointing areas that could use additional service.
“You’re seeing a lot more competition obviously with the private equity money coming into the marketplace building fiber. Public companies are starting to expand and over build themselves. You have the grant money that’s coming into the marketplace,” Anderson says. “There’s a lot more capital that’s being deployed to build fiber and be first to market with fiber.”
The increased competition places more importance on the marketing Schurz and its brands roll out to communities. VP, Marketing Sheryl Rosen says the company is well aware it’s not a larger MSO with corporate offices scattered in different states, but being legacy rooted where its brands reside serves as a differentiator in itself.
Although each of Schurz’s brands has unique challenges, the alignment of fiber product offerings is a crucial component that gives each of them an opportunity to stand out in their respective areas. Schurz has been meticulously introducing its Flight Fiber brand across the company’s footprint, with the most recent launch coming with Orbitel Communications. Rosen says the Flight Fiber brand is growth-focused with the customer experience and community in mind.
“We’re moving at a much faster pace than we’ve probably ever moved before,” Rosen says. “I use this analogy all the time: we’re on the field, we’re playing offense and defense and special teams, all at a pace that we prob ably haven’t seen before as well as looking to elevate everything we’re doing, knowing that we might be competing against someone that has a budget that is much more aggressive than ours.”
Another differentiator is the MVNO Schurz is gearing up to launch to customers. Reardon views what will be known as Flight Mobile as a churn mitigator with the opportunities mobile offerings bring for bundling and price enhancements. Flight Mobile will first be deployed by Antietam Broadband before being taken to its other properties.
Not many companies can boast 152 years of service, but with the family backbone Schurz has had in place for well over a century, the blueprint is there for a company to remain strong across a nine-state footprint.
“We want our employees to grow, and we want to foster a culture of learning development and ensure that success is sustainable and we have it for another 152 years,” Schurz Jr. says.