Cablefax The Magazine - July 2013 - 21

2013 Top Ops Awards
INDEPENDENT STRATEGIC THINKER OF THE YEAR
Amy Tykeson
BendBroadband
BendBroadband pres/CEO
and chmn Amy Tykeson has
more reasons than most
to be proud. In addition to
receiving this year's Independent
Strategic Thinker
honor, Tykeson in June was
inducted into The Cable Center's Hall of Fame and named a
Cable Pioneer. Previously, she's been a Vanguard Award recipient,
served as president of WICT and was recently named
CableFAX's Independent Executive of the Year.
Despite these and numerous other accolades, Tykeson
quickly delects the spotlight to BendBroadband's team.
The company, like Tykeson, quietly seems to be several
steps ahead of everyone else, particularly when it comes to
technology. Its list of irsts include the 1997 launch of highspeed
Internet, the 2008 conversion to all-digital and the
2011 roll out of LTE 4G wireless broadband over licensed
spectrum to rural areas. In 2011, the company opened the
irst colocation data center in the U.S. to receive the Uptime
Institute's Tier III certiication for design and construction.
The carbon-neutral facility also is LEED Gold certiied.
" Amy's record of strategic accomplishments at BendBroadband
is unmatched, " says ACA chief Matt Polka. " It doesn't
get any more innovative than Amy and BendBroadband. "
You seem to leapfrog the competition on technology.
I'm not sure we are leapfrogging the competition, but rather
making the best long-term investment decisions we can and
working hard to implement against those investments to
drive results. The talented team of BendBroadband associates
has been able to transform those decisions into business
models that beneit customers.
What technologies excite you the most?
There are two directions that we are going that get me
charged up. The irst is our work to tie many solutions together
to drive more beneit for our customers-particularly
in the commercial services realm. With iber, hosted services,
phone products, advertising capability, backup services, and
colocation facilities, we are able to put together comprehensive
technology solutions that help our customers be more
eficient and solve problems. Second, our work with managed
services using our Vault Data Center as the platform is
gaining traction. We are offering physical, dedicated colocation
with high-density capability and virtual colocation, making
our world-class facility affordable for smaller businesses.
CableFAX: The Magazine
July 2013
What will BendBroadband offer tomorrow?
It's really about applications and experiences across platforms,
not devices going forward. BendBroadband will be
offering more intuitive integration of applications that lead
to great customer experiences, such as the transformation
of traditional video with apps, search and discovery for content
on any device. For business customers we are working
up the value chain to capture more of the IT spend with
services like physical or virtual colocation and managed
services. For both customer groups it's about bringing more
beneits to customers, such as cost savings, simplicity, time
and peace of mind.
What can cable do better to survive in the very competitive
environment in which it lives?
There are three things I hope we can improve on to inluence
our success as an industry. First, we all know that scale
matters. But it will take more than that to stay strong as an
industry-to deliver the best services, delight our customers
and share innovation to leverage our incredible platform.
The NCTC and CableLabs bring standards and scale; but,
we are all small operators in the big picture, and we have to
stick together. Second, we need to continue to grow gender
diversity and make cable a career choice for today's college
students. We all know the beneits of different perspectives
for better decisions. Third, the cable industry is about more
than programming. Our high-performance broadband means
economic vitality and sustainability in communities small and
large. It's time we harnessed the message that our technology
is the catalyst for huge innovation. We are the community
connection, the innovation hub and we have been for the
past 20 years.
- Seth Arenstein
* Tykeson began her career in 1980 with HBO, rising to VP of
Area Marketing in NYC.
* Active in both ACA and NCTA, Tykeson chairs the Rural Systems
and Small Operators' Committee as a member of the NCTA
board and serves on the board for CableLabs and CSPAN.
* The Governor of Oregon appointed Tykeson to serve
on the Oregon Health Sciences University
board. Her previous board positions
include Vice Chairman of the Catlin Gabel
School Board of Trustees; the University
of Oregon Alumni Association
board; and The Nature Conservancy
board for Oregon.
cablefaxmag.com
21
http://www.cablefaxmag.com
Cablefax The Magazine - July 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cablefax The Magazine - July 2013
