The Rural Telecommunications Group (RTG) elected board members to three-year terms and the advocacy group’s Board of Directors in turn elected 2011 board officers to serve one-year terms. This took place on November 18 during RTG’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, which took place with the Rural Independent Competitive Alliance (RICA)/RTG Fall Forum, according to a press release.
Based in Washington D.C., RTG is a trade association advocating for the interests of rural wireless carriers. Members of RTG have to have below 100K wireless subscribers.Their members include stand alone wireless carriers, as well as the wireless subsidiaries of rural wireline carriers.
John Nettles, Bill Wade and Patti Dominach were re-elected to RTG’s board. Nettles is the president of Pine Belt Wireless, Wade general manager of Mid-Rivers Cellular, and Dominach director of marketing for Pario Solutions. The new board officers are David Dengal, president, Copper Valley Wireless; Carl A. Turner, vice president at KTC PACE; Rick Vergin, secretary for Mosaic Mobile; and George Woodward, treasurer for GetLisa Information Services.
Incoming president Dave Dengel of Copper Valley Wireless complimented and thanked outgoing president Mike Higgins in his address, as well as highlighting the main issues RTG intends to address going forward. “Mike Higgins has done an excellent job leading RTG over the past three years. I’m very excited about my new role and look forward to working with RTG’s growing membership as we tackle vital issues including mandated data roaming, the auctioning of the D-Block, the use of TV white spaces for backhaul and handset availability,” Dengel said. “The National Broadband Plan and reforming universal service are, of course, areas where RTG continues to educate its members and advocate on their behalf.”
