Spotlight on NTIA: Laura Breeden, Director of External Affairs for BroadbandUSA

Laura Breeden has certainly made her mark on the digital world. While she describes herself as a “minor player,” Breeden, director of external affairs for the Office of Telecommunication and Information Applications’ Broadband USA program, has spent much of her career tracking the evolution of technology and the Internet. After a three-year stint heading the Federation of American Research Networks, a nonprofit trade association for Internet service providers, Breeden began working for NTIA in 1994 as the director of the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program. The federal grant program was focused on developing Internet-based services for the public sector. Breeden helped develop the $60 million program from the ground up, which involved writing the program rules, designing the application and review processes, and selecting the final candidates.

She left NTIA in 1996 to start a consulting practice focused on technology planning and project development, and in 2000 joined the Education Development Center to lead a national technical assistance program for community technology centers. In 2009, Breeden came back to NTIA to work for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) as the program director of grants focused on public computer centers and broadband adoption. In this role, she helped oversee more than 100 successful projects, totaling $450 million in grants, focused on expanding digital literacy and broadband adoption. With BTOP winding down, Breeden is now working on NTIA’s latest broadband initiative, BroadbandUSA, which is utilizing the expertise NTIA gained through managing its BTOP projects to provide technical advice to communities seeking to expand broadband in communities.