Minnesota broadband director talks weather and topography challenges, funding strategies

Despite Minnesota being known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” it’s not short of geographical constraints when it comes to building broadband. Bree Maki, director of Minnesota’s Office of Broadband Development, said the state has some key deployment challenges, including weather and workforce constraints. Weather is particularly a hurdle for building fiber in the ground, as Minnesota has a limited construction season, similar to states like Alaska. Along with construction limitations, Minnesota must cope with getting its hands on “all the fiber and the supplies that go into getting access to everybody as well as the workforce it takes to in order to do the actual deployment,” Maki added. To boost the broadband workforce, she said her office strives to raise awareness of some of the more technical roles required. But one way Minnesota has “avoided mass workforce issues” is with a deliberate grant management process. “We try to break them up a couple of times a year to allow for the workforce constraints not to be as big of an issue,” she said. “Instead of doing, let’s say, one massive grant round where everybody is competing to get the contractors needed. Having these incremental grant rounds helps make the workforce a little bit more manageable throughout the season.” Minnesota’s main state funding resource is the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program, established in 2014. Thus far, the program has doled out $230 million to connect over 90,000 Minnesotans, said Maki.